If there’s one phrase I hate coming from *anyone*, it’s the title to this post.  No one ever changes how they do things to serve you better – they do it to serve themselves better.

That’s it.  Period. I mention this only because a certain credit card company sent me an update to their terms this week with that exact phrase in it. Now mind you, I’ve had several credit cards over the last 10 years.  I’ve dropped several.  Each one that was dropped sent a letter like this ended up making the deal far worse: raised rates, adding annual fees, shorter period between issuing of bills and late fees, and so forth.

In this case, I received it from a company that somehow is the *only* company with which I deal that manages to occasionally not send bills in the mail, delay processing payments, make it hard to redeem bonuses/miles, etc.  In fact, due to their practices this is the only credit card that I’ve had to pay late fees on in the last fifteen years.

Now, I can see some doubters saying that it’s my own damn fault.  I mean, legally it’s up to me to make sure I’m aware of each billing date & to pay on time.  But doing business with a company is a partnership, if you will: they are obligated to let me know about what I am owed, and I am obligated to pay.  Blaming me for missing their lack of sending a statement is like sending a tourist to visit places in a high-crime area, and then blaming them for not seeing the guy with the gun on the side of the road.

Why yes, they did receive government funds to keep themselves afloat.  Coincidence?