Happy Festivus American Express

It being Festivus it seems quite appropriate to air a grievance during an otherwise perfect holiday season.

My grievance is with American Express. I am deeply disappointed with them.

I had an AMEX charge card before I had a credit card. It was the first card I owned and used. Honestly was surprised that they give me one, but my first boss out of college told me to apply, and sure enough it was granted. I was a member. Have been a member since 84.

Over the years my AMEX use has grown. It is the primary card we use for household expenses. Used AMEX to buy laptops for new employees at MindSpring. Continued to use it during periods when I was traveling extensively on business, often racking up bills in excess of $10,000 per month. I think I was over $20,000 a few times. Even tried to buy my car with it though the dealer refused (I really like the Rewards Plus program and have taken many free trips to the Caribbean and mountains). I have 334,000 points in my Membership Rewards account. I easily have charged more than $1 million on my AMEX cards over the year, maybe more than $2 million. With the exception of current balances, which are not extraordinary, I have paid my bills.

I now have five AMEX accounts with nine cards outstanding. Many of these cards are used just to help with internal family accounting. Three of the accounts are used for businesses in which I am an officer. The Enfuse Group, Skribit, and another startup. Like my personal accounts these accounts are current.

So I have yet another startup, I need another AMEX account. I called up AMEX. Asked for another OPEN account. They would not even take the application. Said it would be rejected. I had too many accounts or something to that effect.

Excuse me. Here I am a long-term loyal customer with a FICO score above 800 and a life-time customer value that has to be off the charts and they are telling me they don't want any more of my business.

OPEN my derrière. AMEX you stink. I'll use that Citi card to finish up my Christmas shopping.

Comments

Yeah, I decided months back not to get an Amex for OtherNumber. We'll just use plain old Visa for now.

I've had an Amex card for years but they don't seem to want new business...

Andrew Watson | Dec 23, 09 at 12:05 PM

I agree that AMEX was always awesome. When I started Ishtot back in 1997, they were the only ones that would give me a business credit card. Even Suntrust, the bank we use, would not give us one.

But, they recently notified us, even after more than a decade of using it and paying our bills, that they are cutting our credit line in half! We are about to start a new project that could grow into a big deal, and we would need that extra credit line at the beginning.

But no pleading would change their mind. Apparently our "risk" of having the extra credit avaialble was too much for them to handle.

My situation, along with yours, makes me believe that AMEX could be in trouble if they are doing this to their best customers. How else can you interpret these types of moves?

Paul Carney | Dec 23, 09 at 12:49 PM

Paul: My American Express credit line was cut by 36% in November.

Lance | Dec 23, 09 at 05:44 PM

Did you call them up to complain? What did they tell you was the reason for cutting your limits or not giving you a new card (I assume you explained your current and past positions with AMEX cards)? Fools, all of them. Just plain poor customer service.

Randall Prince | Dec 24, 09 at 12:36 PM

The reason cited was "there have been recent changes (as with the economic times) with applications and when they were very lax, they are no longer." But it is obvious they just rejected it out of hand.
The phone rep did not really seem to care. A nice woman named Rachel from @AskAmex is escalating. It will be interesting to see if they want me as a customer or not. I am easily generating $3k in revenue at the moment.

Lance | Dec 24, 09 at 03:15 PM

It's a Festivus miracle!

It's always interesting to me when companies abuse their best clients because of a company policy. That's just bad business.

In the mean time, you could always do a dance around the Festivus pole to get your spirits up.