Full Payment Gets Fined

It has never been a habit of mine to accessorise. As I may put it, physical limitations (body hair) tend to drive me away from the thought of accessorizing, most especially my wrists. Body hair usually gets into the straps of watches and on the crevices of the bracelets that I wear. And when hair gets into them, the chance of the hair being pulled to it's roots isn't far from happening. I rather not accessorize at all than scream like a girl everytime that happens to me.

On the contrary, last December, I found myself looking at the gorgeous watches on display over at the Fossil store in Glorietta. The next thing I knew, I have already instructed the sales associate to charge the payment for the watch that I have chosen into my Citibank Clear Card. Since I wasn't expecting an influx of money for the next couple of weeks, I decided to avail of the card's 0% Paylite program.

This January, as I was preparing my monthly budget, I found out that I could already pay off the entire watch from my card. I tried getting in touch with Citibank through their hotline to inquire how I could do this. I have been informed that this will be considered as a pre-termination thingie-ma-jiggie (or whatever the term is).

I said, OK. Let's proceed with that. To my surprise, the CSR informed me that I would be charged an additional Php 300.00 pesos before this pre-termination blah blah can take place.

I was like, HUH?!

Honestly, I don't get it.

If I only pay the minimum amount due for my regular purchases, I get fined through the interest rate of 3.5%. That's understandable since I was not able to pay the total amount due which obviously translates to me purchasing more than what I can pay for.

Now If I pay off the entire amount in my installment plan waaaaaay ahead of time, I still get fined. I am being fined for paying off my debt completely and on time?

I am lost. Or yeah, maybe something's really wrong with this policy.
I dunno. Enlighten me.