If you don't have sufficient funds to cover a $100 payment, you also don't have sufficient funds to cover a larger payment. transmitting payments for funds that are not already in you bank account is a genuinely poor practice.
While I don't disagree with this at all, I'm simply saying that in the online/mobile payments world people make payments from the wrong checking account all the time and blocking a card for a voluntary payment does no good. It'd be one thing if the payment was for the whole credit limit amount or the account is past due, that's fine. AMEX is the only lender that does this, rather than simply subtracting the total amount of the returned payment from the available credit.
Originally Posted by
Centurion
USCTrojan83-You may fit a profile of a crook doing a "bust out" by making many payments and/or over paying. In the old days there were people who actually looked for this behavior but I bet Amex has a computer program now and you may be triggering the program. Easiest to stop a payment hold would be to raise your credit limit and/or make less payments
"Bust outs" tend to be with newer accounts, which is why AMEX tends to have these types of holds on newer accounts for larger unusual payments that are outside your normal pattern. In my case, I've been a cardholder for 10+ years and despite $50-60k/monthly charges, they won't raise my credit limit to a sufficient amount. It's annoying and requires a lot of payments. Basically as soon as charges post, I pay them down.