Breaking up is hard to do... (me and my CC company)

We all have credit cards. I happen to be in the process of activating one of mine and closing another one of mine. No particular reasons. Other than the one I was reactivating I have had for a very long time but only use as my emergency card. I'm not too sure what happened to it in the interim, but I ended up opening another account when I moved. Weird. I'm only in the habit of having and using one card. and then having a back up one for emergencies. so i ended up having two for emergencies. weird.

anyhow, as i was trying to activate my old card, i ended up being on hold for the longest time!!! i couldn't to the automatic activate as i was not calling from a landline that was linked to my account. Thus the inevitable music and hold. i tried twice! was on hold for over 10 minutes each time. I know, it's only 10 minutes...but it seemed like forever to be on hold! so anyways, i wasn't too happy with that level of service given that i was trying to ACTIVATE my account so i could start USING it. but alas...i was calling at midnight saturday night...so maybe they were not as well staffed as I had hoped or expected. Lo and behold, the next day my 3rd attempt was golden and i successfully activated my credit card and got an increase in limit! awesome. and yes...only for emergencies.

having done that, i proceeded to cancel and close my other account. reasons why: b/c i just opened the account last year, don't really use them and simply wanted to stay with the card I had had for longer. the customer service number gave me no option to auto cancel my account. and here's the reason why...the "what can we do to keep you" tactic. i had to talk to my account rep and there was the tenacious effort to convince me not to close my account. and i remind you, there was not compelling reason for me to do so. simply put...i had too many credit cards and wanted to close one of them. then came the barrage of questions. some appropriate, others, i thought, very inappropriate, and all in all a bit annoying. here's my paraphrase of the questions:

Why do you want to close your account?
Is there anything we can do to make this card work better for you?
Do you have other credit cards?
Do you other credit cards give you rewards or incentives to use them?
How are we different from your other cards?
Why are you choosing to stay with them and not us?
Do you have a balance on your other cards?
Are interests rates important to you?

After the third time I had to say "i just want to close my account" I was getting a little peeved. why can't i just want to do something for no reason that is any of your business?!! i know, they are just doing their jobs...but seriously...i just want to close my account. if i had a problem with the card and with the services, then i'd say something. but really...i just have one card too many and i'm sorry...but yours gets closed. *sigh* i think i said "I just want to close my account" ten times and i was almost to the point where i wanted to say "i love my other card, i have used the 2nd emergency card before so i know them...I have never used you and don't know you so let me just close my account!!!!" After the 10th time, the rep quickly stated: "ok, your account is cancelled." almost in a manner so i wouldn' t hear it. and when i asked for confirmation of the closing, he seemed very reluctant. not such a great tactic to set things up for eventually trying to lure me back, i should say. if it's that hard to close up, i don't have a very good impression of them overall. just cut me loose. i'm not a money maker for them anyways.

lesson learned: the credit card company offers you a whole bunch (of what could be nothing) if you call them and tell them you want to close your account. too bad in this situation, i just wanted to close. nothing they said could have kept me. hehe..unless they paid me to keep it open. haha.

i must say though...i LOVE my credit card that i use all the time. they are so ON. even when it's me that using my card, they will stop transactions when they suspect something is not normal. awesome. not an annoyance at all. i'm very grateful for them doing so and they are really nice about things. emergency card has been good too. way to make me feel good to increase my limit upon my activation of my new card. yes...i know they are trying to sucker me into to using more and owing them. but alas! touche! i'm not going to!