Oh just get rid of these annual fees, for goodness sake!

Seriously, I really don't understand the point of doing this. For the banks to charge us annual subscription fees for our credit cards.

Firstly, you bank people bug us from your roadshows in shopping centers and from your out-of-place booths in PC shows. Or call us up during our meetings and lunch dates. Or sms us at 8am on a weekend morning or 11pm on a weekday night. Offering us your credit cards for free without subscription fees and free gifts that can only be collected during our office hours.

When we finally succumb and added yet another credit card in our wallets, we have to be extremely vigilant to ensure that we pay at least the minimum amount in every month's bill. Else we will have to pay a late payment charge of $50 plus interest if we forgot to pay the $10 bill.

And because we greedy people took up the credit card to get you people off our backs, when the free subscription finally expires when we are not keeping track, you happily sneak in the hefty subscription fee in our monthly bill.

I understand that there is no free lunch in this world. At least not in this country. Since your credit card has provided us with the convenience in shopping more and eating more, we should be bowing gratefully and sending our offering to you promptly. But the fact is, your credit card can be free! So why not?

If we bother to scrutinise the long list of items in our bill, we can find the annual fee (and GST on the annual fee!) hidden somewhere. Then if we bother, we can spend one morning calling up the hotline, listen to music and complex instructions on what the numbers 0 to 9 stands for, then hang on for the next operator who is free because our calls matter to you. And when your operator finally answers the call, she will check up our account and (1) if we have been actively using the credit card, she will waive the annual fee because we have been loyal, (2) if we have not used the credit card even once, she will waive the annual fee so that we can try using the card for the year. So what is the point here? Why can't you just get rid of that stupid annual fee so that we can all go for tea-break instead of talking to your phone operators and jam up the hotline?

Oh yes, I know that we can use our points to redeem another year of subscription. But I have just used the few thousands points that I have accumulated by spending a few thousands dollars on a pair of movie tickets.