Nickel and dime me.......

Banks can appear to do you favours sometimes, but they really are a greedy bunch of bastards, eh?

I do almost all of my banking with one bank. The only exception is my car loan, because their car loan rates suck and my car dealer gave me a decent rate through another bank; and an additional credit card, because we have one that offers a lot of Air Miles per dollar spent for a minimal annual fee.

So, when I saw that the bank offered to discount my monthly bank fee if I had multiple financial products with them, I got a little excited (I'm easily excitable). I guess I didn't read the fine print closely enough, because since I'm only paying $12 a month for my account package (only...), I not only need to have an account with them and a mortgage (which easily nets them several hundred thousand dollars - up front!), but I also needed an investment (check) and a credit card (check).

But I'm still not getting the rebate, so I called to find out why. It turns out I need a 'special' credit card (translation - the kind that earns them a fee). So what they're basically saying is that if I agree to switch to a credit card that earns them $120 a year in fees, they'll waive my monthly fee of $12.

Bastards!