Last week 160,000 Egg credit card customers were effectively told their business was no longer required. Barclays did something similar to me ten years ago.

Ten years ago I was married, with a son and a mortgage. I was earning £35,000 pa and my wife was earning £20,000 pa. We had purchased our three bedroomed house from the council in 1988 and our free money was spent on the house and a holiday every year. To all intents and purposes we were very comfortably off.

However, things started to go wrong when I started to believe that money would always keep rolling in as it had done. Having a classic ‘mid-life’ crisis certainly did not help keep things on an even keel either.

I had everything with Barclays. My mortgage, house insurance, pension. It did not stop them closing my account after twenty years after I was perceived to be a ‘non-profitable’ customer. I thought being overdrawn and missing a few mortgage payments was part of the deal with a bank. I use their money and they charge me for it. Egg customers are probably wondering why they have been chosen as ‘non-profitable’ customers. I can only assume that the banks now only want clients with savings that they can use to speculate with on the stock-market. Be warned – the days of easy credit are over.

Also, being forty-two and in a job I hated made me very restless. I started to look for ‘kicks’ outside my marriage. This started a domino effect of personal disasters that I have only recently recovered from.

I lost my job in spectacular style by swearing at my top customer in front of my company’s worldwide Chief Executive at a meeting in France. I will go into the circumstances of why I swore at him another time. The plane journey on the way back to Heathrow was sombre to say the least. I knew my career in top level sales was over at that point.

So was my marriage. I had met someone else (who I am still with) the house was sold and my wife and son moved to a smaller property with the proceeds of the sale.

With my portion of the proceeds I started several unsuccessful business ventures. An online book shop, an online mobile shop, a freelance telemarketer and a fresh fish business. All lost money. And I owed a lot of money to a few major banks.

In December 2005 I realised the only way out was to go bankrupt. Not an easy decision to make as the consequences are long-lasting.

Two years later I am rebuilding my life without the aid of loans or credit cards. I spend or save what I earn and I now sleep at night. To all you Egg customers who are no more you may just see the closing of your account as a blessing, not a curse.