Originally Posted by
carnarvon
That had been my first thought, but with hindsight (that is to say my own experience), I find most of the testimonies credible.
Especially the ease with which Amex will suspend then cancel the cards, irrespective of :
- how long the customer has been a card holder
- how impeccable his or her payment record has been
- even worse, how much trouble it can generate for the cardholder if the card is suspended without notice and no way to reactivate it quickly. This last point may be in my view the most troublesome aspect of Amex' behaviour.
So much arrogance and disdain for their customers who had put trust in them is not a good sign for Amex' future.
P.S. There seems to be indeed an increase in complaint numbers for 2021...
Fortunately I never got the dreaded "financial review" but a friend of mine did in the US. They demanded tax forms and bank statements.
She provided them... and they canceled her accounts anyway.
Never a late payment, plenty of income... just something must have been flagged in her account. In the US they pull all kinds of information that they cannot in France from many, many sources. Incredibly intrusive. But that's the US, the land of the wild and free.
I'd be curious to know what information they can get in France given the privacy laws. Clearly they can estimate your income by where you live...and they do transactional analysis. But aside from that I'd be curious to know what else they do...