Behavior like a thief [2]

I wish to share this personal experience. I was given an infinite credit card as a special privilege with fee waived for 5 years. I was not told about the annual fee and I did not keep track of the expiry of this waiver period. I authorized the amount due to be deducted from my bank account by GIRO (as I wish to avoid the exorbitant late payment charge).

As I received "tons" of letters in my mailbox, it was difficult for me to keep track of all the statements and letters. One day, I checked my past statements and found, to my shock, that an annual fee of $1,500 for the renewal of the annual fee. The bank did not call me to check if I wish to renew the card and pay this exorbitant fee.

I called their call center. Before I could tell them my issue, the call center staff offered to refund my annual fee, as he noticed that I have a lot of spending on the card. Is this the behavior of a thief - to levy a large annual fee and hope that the customer does not notice it? If they knew that I had sufficient spending for the waiver of the fee, why charged the fee in the first place?

I just went to the website of the bank to see if the annual fee for this card is stated. I was NOT able to find the annual fee, after searching through a few webpages. I got a lot of other information about the benefits offers, but NO INFORMATION about the annual fee. I had to get to the call center to get this information from the staff. I deplore this type of behavior - make it difficult for the customer to know the fee and levy it on the customer when he is not aware about it.

I have just written to the bank to give specific instructions that they are NOT to renew my credit card without my specific approval of the annual fee. We are dealing with people who behaves like thieves!.

Tan Kin Lian