American Express Membership Rewards - Is AmEx hard-up for cash? I keep getting harassing phone calls

Last month, I got a call, voicemail, e-mail and letter from AmEx, all telling me they were suspending my charging activity until I paid my bill.

Yesterday, I got another call to the same effect. After the woman went in to whole spiel, I told her that I wasn't going to discuss my account with her because I had no way of verifying who I was talking to. I called back and spoke to someone who was like, "Are you going to pay your bill on time?"

I said, "You mean like I have done every month since 1997?"

I don't know what AmEx's deal is. I pay my bill on time every month, my spending is almost the exact same every month and none of my fundamentals (credit, income, employment) have changed. Now I'm on AmEx's "watch list" and I'm going to get a call every month apparently to find out if I'm going to pay my bill.

What is the deal? I think this hassle is outrageous. If they call again next month, I'm canceling the card.

Has anyone else ever had a similar experience?

d

IMO, I would do a quick check of my credit report. It's possible that somebody else's bad past has been incorrectly posted to your file.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Doppy:
Last month, I got a call, voicemail, e-mail and letter from AmEx, all telling me they were suspending my charging activity until I paid my bill.

Yesterday, I got another call to the same effect. After the woman went in to whole spiel, I told her that I wasn't going to discuss my account with her because I had no way of verifying who I was talking to. I called back and spoke to someone who was like, "Are you going to pay your bill on time?"

I said, "You mean like I have done every month since 1997?"

I don't know what AmEx's deal is. I pay my bill on time every month, my spending is almost the exact same every month and none of my fundamentals (credit, income, employment) have changed. Now I'm on AmEx's "watch list" and I'm going to get a call every month apparently to find out if I'm going to pay my bill.

What is the deal? I think this hassle is outrageous. If they call again next month, I'm canceling the card.

Has anyone else ever had a similar experience?

d</font>

Had them put a stop on my account once as I went above my " predetermined " limit. They wouldn't tell me how much my limit was and the only reason I had gone over was because AMEX had managed to charge someone else's Singapore flights to my card while I was in Canada !!!

Nigel

Dopey is absolutely correct pull all three-credit reports immediately. Someone could have made a mistake and posted something bad on your report or worse someone has stole your identity and racked up charges they are not paying. Also Amex collects very odd and old information. Once they called me and asked for some updated banking information and until I updated froze future spending even though I had never been late for over 20 year. Amex had on record for me a savings account I quit using since I was a child. If I was Amex I would have been worried about my credit risk also since the bank account they had only contained the equivalent of a paper route savings after a child visits a candy store!

FYI: this link will get you to a web site that takes you to the three major USA credit companies. YOU NEED TO PULL A REPORT FROM ALL THREE. I think one company may send you all three for extra $$$$.
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/green/cc/crdt2e.asp

If you are going to order credit reports, I would suggest that you order them where a FICO score is included. This score has become many creditors' shorthand about your credit. Their computers can digest a three digit score much more quickly than an entire credit report.

www.myfico.com (http://www.myfico.com) has information about the scoring and offers credit reports with your score. I'm sure that there are many other good sources as well.

doppy,
I agree with these other posters and can personally attest to the value of www.myfico.com (http://www.myfico.com)

Sure looks like something dramatic has impacted your credit profile.

I would also recommend you subscribe to the six (6)report package (I think $59ish per year) because it may take several iterations for you to clear up what sounds like a mistake. The FICO score is indeed a boiled-down summary of your actual CREDIT REPORTS (all three TRW, Eqquifax, etc)), per se, as well as numerous other factors, and is now the tool I use to manage my own personal credit. Getting pages and pages of a specific credit report is cumbersome, futile if you can't pull all three "majors"' reports to scrutine, and takes a lot of time to thoroughly understand and respond to, while the FICO score will quickly alert you to any major issues (IMO). Plus, I am generally impressed with this FICO concept and know it is a key tool lenders use these days.

This package lets you pull ONE report per QTR, and then two "float" reports anytime you choose. Be aware any changes made to try to improve your FICO score can take 2-3 months to implement and show up, so don't think you can improve your score in mere weeks. I would never pull two FICO reports within 6weeks of each other, because the score simply can't change that fast. But - if one is anticipating a major financial application coming up in future months or qtrs (house purchase, mortgage refinance, auto loan applications come to mind), where you absolutely would *prefer* to know your chances before the lender pulls your credit report (or FICO score), then I believe it is smart to set out to purposefuly improve one's FICO score to better one's chances, get lower interest rates, etc. I consider getting a chance to preview one's FICO score to be the same as seeing the test questions before "the big test". Amazing what 3-6months of micro-management of your credit profile can do to improve.

Notably, credit INQUIRIES (ie where you've authorized lenders to pull your credit report) will cycle off after 6months, so don't go out applying for every nickel and dime credit card promo, cell phone account, $200 in furniture, etc, if they generate these credit inquiries, or you severely adversely impact with your FICO score for the next 6mon. Also, when I anticipate a need for a formal credit report (again, my recent mortgage refinance comes to mind), I will make it a point to pay off all non-essential credit cards, and literally leave them at zero balance for months ahead...and sure enough, after 2-3 months, they will start showing up in the FICO at zero balance.

Best of luck.

[This message has been edited by ILUVCITIBANK (edited 06-19-2003).]

Thanks for the advice. I actually have looked at all three credit reports since the first time I was contacted. Everything was the same as it has been for at least a year or so now.

d

This is disturbing, then...

The smart people at Amex must be using that shoe box under your bed when you where age 6 as you "ability to pay" account. I am a very private person and hate to give out information but something is setting off a trigger. Call the credit dept and ask. To the board readers please do not make me go into the it is a "charge card" discussion so Amex does not have a credit dept routine.

I'm not sure if your situation is the same as mine, but something similar happened to me several years ago. I had my computer set up to pay my Amex bill on the 30th day. Well, it turned out Amex didn't like that. They took a couple days to process the payment and considered the account delinquent on the 31st day. Their policy was to not say anything until it happened a certain number of times, then summarily turn off your card.

I finally figured out they prefer if the bill is paid well before the 30 days. I haven't had a problem since.

QL

I have used MYFICO.COM and would not ever use them again. From the time I entered my information to obtain the "Combined three bureau report" to the time the report showed up on line was 5 Working days. I kept calling their customer service # and they kept promising the report would be available on line "tomorrow". It took 5 tomorrows for it to show up. In addition if you need to dispute something with a individual credit bureau you need the report # that the the information shows up in to file the dispute. Since MYFICO.COM combines all three credit bureaus into one report they do not show you the individualo report #'s from each credit bureau and thus you cannot dispute one bureau's information on line because you do not have that individual bureau's report #. I would go to each credit bureau's web site individually and get each report individually from that bureau.

We have been AMerican Express card holders for 30 years (10 years with the Green card and 20 years with the gold card). We run approximately $80,000 a year through on the card mostly my business related travel expenses which I get reimbursed for. Last month I received my bill on the 7th and the payment is due on the 26th. On the 9th I called AMEX customer service to see if a credit for a cancelled business trip flight had been posted to the account. After telling me the credit had not posted yet I thanked the CSR and was about to hang up when she said "when do you expect to make payment on your bill?' I was quite taken aback by this so I said "Why? It's not past due and the payment is not due until the end of the month?" She said "Yes I know but we were just wondering when you were intending to make payment?' I simply said the bill would be paid when it was due and hung up. I was very annoyed by this question since our payments are always made on time.

In addition my husband has a Optima card in his own name which was opened two years ago with a credit line of $15,000. Last fall he tapped the line for the first time to the tune of $10,000 to do some home improvement. He has been sending them $1000 a month which is well above the minimum amount required. All payments have been made on time. In May he received a letter from AMEX adving him that his credit limit has been lowered to $7500. The reason for this change according to the letter was that this new credit limit was more in line with "his personal financial resources" according to the infinite wisdom of American Express. He was absolutely furious at the indsulting tone of this letter. What does American Express know about our "Personal financial resources" that allows them to make such a determination? They know nothing whatsoever about the 250,000 in equity we have in our home, or the 150,000 in vested stock option we own or the 242,000 in taxable annual income we had in 2002. If it was up to him we would have cancelled both cards immediatly. He just sent a check for the final $3600 due on his Optima. I told him he could cancel that if he wanted to but that I wanted to keep the regular joint Gold card. However, if AMEX keeps behaving in this way that could follow the Optima card down the drain and they will have lost a 30 year customer.

Maybe its me, but I just got annoyed of the idea that I should pay credit agencies to look at the information about me that they sell to credit grantors, to see if the credit reporting agency got it right.

If the report is not correct, you have no means to ensure that errors are corrected.

Finally, to file a lawsuit under FCRA is the only way to force corrections to be made. And how long will the fix last?

With luck, there is a bill in congress right now which will hopefully pass that would require the credit bureaus to give this information freely to consumers (twice a year I believe). The intended purpose is to combat identity fraud.

I think there are about 4 states that require this now, but this would be expanded on a federal level.

Right now the only way for everyone to get a free report is to be denied when applying for a credit card. I think by law you can write to the processing credit card bureau and have them send you a free copy of your report.

Jeff

SNA_Flyer is right - there are a few states that have passed laws allowing one to get their credit reports for free. I live in Massachusetts and we can get all of our credit reports for free (i am not sure of the frequency though, whether it is once a year, or some other variable timing).

I had something similar happen on my wedding day. I had had the card for 6 years at that point and almost always paid on time, probably late less than 4 times. Then I was 5 days late and they shut off the card on my wedding day over about $300. I called and said yes I am aware I am late but why would you cancel a card that has been paid reliably for six years because it is five days late. So they turned it back on. It just seemed incredibly odd to me that they would shut it off without warning given the track record. I have had the card for 13 years now, I typically charge $2000-$3000/month but I still feel like they could decide at any moment that it needs to be stopped. Weird behavior sometimes.