The Blog of Xangis

So up until today I had a Washington Mutual credit card. I’ve had it since around
2000, when it was issued by Providian to an irresponsible kid with well below
average credit. Well, this kid behaved and maintained good standing on his $500
credit card well enough that 8 years later it was a $10,500 credit card. Even so,
the interest rate was crappy and it had an annual fee.

Since then I’ve managed to improve my credit enough that my main cards are all at
fixed rates under 10%. So, what would I need a 17% card for? Well, nothing.
So when the annual fee renewal came around this year, I called WaMu to request that
it be removed because I’d just cancel the card otherwise. Their representative
tells me that they can’t remove it since it’s ‘part of the terms of the card’. I
was thinking, “Well buddy, it looks like we need to renegotiate the terms.” Instead
they offered me a few percent lower rate, which was still half a percent higher than
my worst card. Instead of convincing them to cancel the fee I had them cancel the card, which
forced them to cancel the fee.

What would you rather have? Zero dollars and a customer you can generate income
from, or zero dollars and one less customer?

Obviously it makes sense to cut as many customers loose as possible, even though you
could keep those customers and earn a nice profit by readjusting the terms on which
you deal with those customers.

Some business just can’t compete, I guess.

Stock symbol: WM
Commonsense action: Strong sell.