Banking On The Funny

Something funny happened today.

I received a letter from a bank. RHB Bank to be exact, the bank who claims to make banking much simpler to Malaysian; what a noble bank. Seeing RHB’s name on the letter made me happy, because I thought they miss me or something. You see, I was their credit card holder for a few years. I terminated the card a few months back quite simply because their rewards and discounts suck.

So seeing their letter I thought they wanted to wish me Selamat Hari Raya or since my birthday is coming soon (21st Oct, don’t forget!) I thought they wanted to offer me some nice pre-birthday gift. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did because I was a good little customer of theirs. I never missed a due date and once I even pay them extra money for my credit card (true story, I got my credit card bill once stating they owe me money!).

Anyway, there I was happily tearing the letter open and guess what, they are chasing after me because I haven’t settled my credit card payment! And this is the priceless part, I owe them an earth shattering grand total of RM0.04! Four cents! 4. Cents. That’s four of the ugly tiny little coins that do not have any value anymore!

Now I honestly thought I’ve settled the full amount of what I owed them when I terminated the card. Looking back though, it is possible that I just rounded up the amount owed and paid a little less. RM0.04 less. And it is possible I rounded it up because I thought a bank won’t care about the four cents. Looks like I’m wrong. Obviously that four cents are very important to them, what with banks paying their top people 100 year bonuses and all, every cent counts!

At that time surely I’d have thought they will just write off the four cents, but no, they really want their four cents. They want it so bad that they are willing to spend more than four cents in ink cartridges and paper and postage and manpower to send me a letter to remind me about the four cents I owe them. Brilliant!

I like their letter too. They try hard to be polite in telling me they are a bunch of tight-asses.

Dear Sir,

We wish to advice that your account is past due.
You may have overlooked the payment due to your busy schedule. The only thing I overlooked was the fact that you banks are tight-asses.
We appreciate if you could remit the minimum amount due to regularize the account. I’m sure your top people would appreciate my would-be four cents contribution to their 100 year bonus.
Please contact our Collection Unit if you require further clarification. Don’t count on it.
Please disregard this notice if you have made the payment. Other than writing this to ridicule your bank, I’ll disregard your notice regardless; further payment or not.

Now this is the best part. At the bottom of the letter, there is a paragraph about Bank Negara’s Counseling and Credit Management Agency. Hah, I so need counseling on how to manage my RM0.04 debt! Thanks a lot!

You know what, since they are being so polite about it I think I’m going to pay. To RHB, I hope your cash deposit machines are able to accept coins, or be prepared to scour for four little tiny ugly coins inside your cash deposit machine at Taipan.