Citibank's rope

Lenin once said "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

I rarely agree with Lenin, but he was right about the rope market.

Consider this:

Credit cards are to be withdrawn from 161,000 Egg customers who it believes pose an unacceptably "high risk".

OK, fair enough for Egg to cancel the credit cards of its risky customers - subject to the contractual arrangements of course.

But what Egg (owned by Citibank) is saying isn't the whole story. Read some of the comments. This is typical:

I received the letter yesterday. What angered me most was the suggestion that the decision may have been the result of some detrimental entry to my credit report, causing me to fear that I may have been the victim of identity theft. This put me to the needless expense of obtaining a copy of my credit report, which of course is fine. The letter from Egg consisted of a tissue of lies which were merely a smoke-screen for the real reason behind the decision which I suspect is that I don't use the card enough. Why couldn't they just be honest and say that - but then I suppose the two words "honest" and "banking" don't sit well together these days do they! Chris O'Shea, Woking, Surrey

Another one:

After receiving my letter yesterday, I checked my credit rating. It's one of the highest possible. I told egg and they agreed that I was a "perfect customer" but they will not reverse their decision. There is no information on how to appeal in their letter. Kirsty, London

I have no problem at all with a credit card company that said honestly that those who pay off their balances in full each month are unprofitable and should pay some sort of fee but that's not what Citibank's doing. This is precisely the sort of behaviour that gives capitalism a bad name. Not that socialism is any better of course.

If Citibank turns out to be one of the coming casualties it'll serve them right. With or without the rope.

(SCRAMBLED EGG UPDATE: It's looking like one of the great customer relations disasters of all time.)