Unscrupulous people

The tactics people resort to nowadays to close a sale..I was approached by a 'representative' from EON Bank (for those of you not from Malaysia it's one of the local banks here) and he wanted me to sign up for their credit card, telling me that there is a 50% on every movie ticket that I buy. Now the movie buff in me of course is going 'what?! Yipee! Now I can watch movies for half the price all the time!' Then the rational part of me sets in and wonders what's the catch, so I ask the guy and he said there's no catch, 50% for tickets and 10% for dining at the Cafe there.

Fine so I sign up and then later on when I was expecting my card, I was informed by a friend that he got duped because there was a $60 limit on the discounts, meaning about 10 tickets after I would no longer have the discount! By that time it was too late and the bank had already approved and issued the card and it was en route for my collection. So I tried to cancel it but they said I would still have to pay the $50 compulsory fee by the government! I told them that's not fair as I was tricked into signing up but they just would not hear it.

So I had no choice but to activate the card and now have to use it 3 times a month in order to have the $50 deducted. What pisses me off the most is that these unscrupulous salespeople think they can get away with this kind of nonsense. I made an official complaint and after a week the guy called me and didn't even apologize or sound humble and just continued to argue with me! Needless to say I gave him a big piece of my mind and wished him ill because people like that deserve it for treating people like fools. It's just terrible that people are so unethical nowadays. And worse is I suspect the bank may even be aware of this and not doing anything about it!

In or out?

I'm not sure what to make of America's penchant for airing their dirty laundry in public. Is it as therapeutic as they think or more damaging to the self esteem in the long run? I saw a woman who was an alcoholic talking about her experience 2 years ago when she was a drunk and misbehaving and it was all taped for the Oprah show and shown on national tv. Today she is not an alcoholic anymore, but she's lost her whole family after the show and I'm sure faced a lot of stigma. Was it all worth it? She got better, probably due to social pressure...but at what cost? I suppose the road to recovery very often comes at a price...