Problem with AMEX hold on credit limit when buying bonds
 

I know it's a little late to post this, but buying bonds online with AMEX has caused my credit card to be declined three times today.
I bought I Bonds late Tuesday night. The charges showed up on my account Wednesday morning. Today my card was declined for 3 purchases of less than $20, saying I was over my limit. The first two times I called AMEX, the CSR assured me it was an error and my record was noted. The third time I was told it would take 24-48 hours to resolve. Finally I asked for a supervisor, who explained than a hold had been placed for the Bond amount and did not automatically drop off when the charge posted. She then tried to tell me I was very close to my limit. ($6800 under :mad http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif After I told her I was losing SkyMiles, many of them double, she dropped the hold and offereed to give me 1000 miles for my inconvenience. This has never happened to me before, but next time I'll call them first to be sure it doesn't happen again.

Hi Georgia: A similar thing happened to me just from buying a 5k bond on the HHonors Amex with a 13.5K limit. It was the only thing on that card and they called right away the next morning. They required me to send in my last years' taxes and recently bank statements. In the meantime, my Amex cards were frozen.

It took about a week and they called and said everything was fine and sorry for the inconvenience.

The woman admitted this was triggered by the bond purchase. Never happened before and hope not again as I still have 30K to go this year.

Wow, I got off easy. Why did they want your tax return?

To verify income. She said something like, we're not a bank and we do not have the capability to have information disclosed to us like banks do.

According to other websites, Amex has been doing more of this type of thing lately. Some have had their credit lines reduced so I was happy not to have that happen.

Folks, savings bonds topics frequently appear on the MilesBuzz forum and are really general in nature as opposed to being DL related. This particular thread is extremely interesting and to better serve the larger audience that MilesBuzz attracts, I am moving it there.

Rssrsvp - Moderator

I was planning to do several bond purchases in November. I would be very annoyed if they called + wanted tax returns tho http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif Has that happened to many people?

To verify income. That's so silly. That just says what you made last year, not that you're still making that. Also, the same w/ a banking statement, although that's closer to accurate. You could have $20K in your bank acct on a certain day, but have 19K of checks against it not yet in, but as long as the $20K shows the day they check, you're ok. OTOH, you could have $1K in it & expect 20K of checks to be deposited the next day, but they'll only authorize the 1K. I call in advance now to let them know.

------------------
Sharon

When this happened to me (they added hold price plus purchase price to get an ammount over my limit), the customer service rep was able to fix it immediately. (But it took me awhile and a great bit of patience to explain it to him. I think I was talking to someone in India. Might have been a language problem.)

------------------
Free Frequent Flyer Miles

-

[This message has been edited by scruffy (edited Dec 15, 2003).]

And the REALLY, REALLY sad part of this tale is that they won't HAVE TO after the end of December 03!!!! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

Dave

This same topic has been discussed numerous times on other threads.

I found the last time this happened to me (it's happened to me at least twice IIRC), contacting the Savings Bonds customer service people by e-mail apparently did a world of good. (I had already called Amex and argued with them at length, to no avail. Amex pointed fingers at the US Treasury.) In other words, once the actual purchase went through, the "hold" against my credit limit could be released, as long as the US Treasury Savings Bonds people approved same.


Kathy

I also had a similar problem with AMEX saying I was over my credit limit. After I sent them brokerage account statements, which they verifyed, showing substantial liquid net worth, my limit was raised way into 6 figures.

Really? Way into six figures because of your substantial net worth, you say? Very impressive...

Citibank will take asset verification to increase a credit limit, but this is the first time I've heard of Amex raising a credit limit based on assets and not income. You are talking about a credit limit on a credit card, not a spending limit on a charge card, correct?

Sniff...sniff...

Sending proof of assets to AMEX didn't work for me. I sent them a mid-six figure brokerage statement and they still denied a limit increase because my income isn't high enough.

Georgia Peach:
When I read your first post, I thought the operative word was "SkyMiles" because I had the same trouble buying bonds with Delta SkyMiles over the summer when they had the double-miles promotion. But it sounds like an AmEx thing in general.

They put a hold on my card even though I was under limit and had set up an electronic payment. I called AmEx 4x and got four different answers from them. Really frustrating.


[This message has been edited by DaDOKin DC (edited 10-31-2003).]