A reader sends in this morsel from Citi, offering to take (and keep quiet about) a 47% loss on a Citi credit card account if only the user will pay before year's end. A few things occur to us on reading this letter:

If widespread, this would appear to be awfully desperate on Citi's part. Perhaps, combined with the massive spike in APR we've seen elsewhere, things are beginning to slip? Of course, this is mere speculation based on a single anecdotal case but it does make us very curious. This is collossolly stupid of Citi. Once word gets out what exactly do they expect the rest of their credit card customers will consider doing? The specificity of the balance settlement (53%) sounds suspiciously like someone's model gone viral at Citi. Why this figure exactly?

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