American Express canceled card with no notice

I have had my gold card for 9 years. I have always paid my balances, even through a bad period, 6 years ago, when I let other cards balances be delinquent due to medical bills.

The one thing I always appreciated with AMEX was their awesome customer service. The about 3 years ago, I noticed they had begun outsourcing customer service and billing questions to a call center in India. There were more instances of what I would term poor communication: speaking with a rep in India, being assured that a payment would post... and then finding out it had not.

I never had a pre-set credit limit, and always paid off my card every month. However, about a year ago I had a family emergency and was unable to pay off the entire $2500.00 balance in one month. I called customer service, and they helped me set up a three-month pay off plan. I followed through, and did not miss a payment.

It wasn't until the last four months, that I ever again carried over a balance, but they never complained.

Then last week I paid off the entire balance to zero. I was thrilled that I was finally caught up.

Yesterday, a small charge with Amazon.com was denied. Curious, I called AMEX. The rep told me that my card had been canceled. I asked why in the world would they cancel my card when I had just paid them in full last week. I even talked to them on the phone last Friday to make sure my online payment went through.

The rep told me he didn't know, but that if I wanted my card "re-instated" I would have to pay $45.00.

I told him that was perfectly ridiculous and asked to speak to a supervisor. The rep cut me off.

I called back again, and then, after telling the same story to another rep, she said she would transfer me to a supervisor.

I waited for 30 minutes (timed it on my cell) until a person reading from a script (obviously not in the US), with a very heavy accent, told me that because I had something unfavorable in my credit report from the past,which was noted by a credit reporting agency, my card had been canceled.

She then offered to reinstate the card for a charge of $25.00.

When I asked to speak to her supervisor, I was told that he would not be able to do anything else for me. I told her to go ahead and transfer me anyway. She then cut me off.

At first I was mad. Then I felt hurt. I have used this card ethically for 9 years, and always paid my bills. My credit score is not perfect, it is 658.

But I have been striving to make it better every year.

My sense is that AMEX will be doing this to hundreds of us Americans over the coming months, and as they lay-off thousands of employees, those trying to communicate with them will be waiting for hours on the phone, and never be able to resolve problems.

I, like many Americans, needed my credit card for making reservations for business travel, shopping at Costco, and purchasing business supplies.

We are going to see greater repercussions; other businesses rely on us using our credit cards online, and during holidays. It will be interesting to see what happens to this "house of interconnected cards" as the months roll on.

We taxpayers may have bailed out the banks, but the banks are holding us up with threats of cancellations, higher fees, and trumped up charges.

Beware of American Express. With my husband's advice, I took the scissors to the gold card last night, and I look forward to a class action suit against them!

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There is some consolation in this sad and confusing story and that is, that I realize i am no longer ALONE in facing this horrific consequence of cancellation for no reason at all. I have NEVER BEEN LATE with a payment to AE.

It seems like people on this blog are from all walks of life and with so many different circumstances that it can honestly be surmised, that AE is arbitrarily and randomly drawing names of the hat and canceling customer for no reason. I can tell from reading these blogs, that the obvious customer of AE who gets suddenly canceled with no forewarning - is first questioning themselves and what they may've done wrong. DON'T DO THAT!!! We should all find an attorney to fight this because (1) we are forfeiting our EARNED frequent miles due to this unethical practice AND (2) most of us just recently paid the steep, annual renewal fee which apparently, is non-refundable.

These random and questionable practices have caused many national banks to have to settle large, class action lawsuits. Why should AE be held any less accountable for robbing their customers?

I have been an AE cardholder for about 5-8 yrs now (Gold Card). Each month, I pay the balance off in full and on-time. Furthermore, I've even had to seek out large, cash advances and have paid those back on time, also. Never have I had a problem with AE and I have always found the service reps on the phone to be professional and curteous.

Up until THIS MORNING I was still an active, in good standings customer with AE. As a matter of fact, I had to call them to put in for a new mailing address change in that I prefer to receive my monthly bills at work from now on. No problem. I got a professional and curteous rep who asked if I needed additional service once he took this new information from me and then thanked me for my loyal service to AE! This was at 4:30PM today. Then - an hour later, I used my AE card at a store for a minor charge - no problem; the card went through successfully. Imagine, then - my horror and confusion when I arrive home to find an email which appears to have been sent to me from AE at around the same time that I was using my card at the store. This email stated, "We don't want you to have any surprises when you next use your card! We've decided to cancel your service for our own internal decisions." HUH????? Who starts off a cancelation letter stating that they don't want me to have any "surprises" when I go to use my card???

I immediately became suspicious that this was just cleverly disguised spam but - no - when I got AE on the phone late this evening (it sounded like someone in New Dehli) I was told to call customer service tomorrow because - in fact - my card WAS canceled today!

Please, let's all collectively try and do something about this. My daughter used to work as a paralegal for a law firm here in Los Angeles that LOVED to sink their teeth into cases like this one. They were always settling (quietly, and out of court) class action cases brought up against verizon, US Bank, AT&T, et... My daughter would tell me some of the details pertinent to these lawsuits which you wouldn't believe. Some memberships were actually being canceled due to ethnicity!

We need to all stick together on this one and bring about an effective change in this system once and for all. It's a shame that this is happen to such a rock solid and reputable company as AE. I imagine VISA and MC won't be following too far behind in this policy unless we become pro-active very soon.

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I don't know when you posted this, but the same thing just happened to me today and I am stunned! I just about paid off my credit card & I got an e-mail from American Express telling me that my credit card has been canceled. I was so confused and wanted to gather more information before I call them. If you have any more information that I could use against them please let me know. Thank you in advance.

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Welcome to THE CLUB!

My AMEX was from my late husband. Opened in 1975 with an unlimited balance. After his death, they issued it to me in his name, with the same. As time has past, in the last five years, I have watched it go,from unlimited to 12k limits, to 5K limits, to 1100 limits to being closed. NEVER has a payment been late, NEVER has a payment been late, but because my income has been decreased, they have decided to close the account. (DO THEY HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT I HAVE IN SAVINGS?-NO!)

I received no letter, no notice, just didn't use it that much, went to use it one day and it was declined. I was in shock. Came home and called. And got it was closed. They did not even offer to re-open it for me because of my household income!

I got the credit report line- which is crap since I know what mine is because I just bought a NEW CAR and had no problem.

Later the same day, I found out the same thing happend to my neighbor the month before- so it is obvious that THEY ARE LOOKING AT ZIP CODES TOO!

They have reported the closure to all three of the credit reporting agencies- I now have this on my credit report. I have done nothing.

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I just got off the phone with American Express. I wanted to add my husband to my card and they said it was canceled 8 months ago and I could apply for a new card. I had a Platinum card since 1995! I hadn't used it in the last year because I'm working in Europe for a few years and no place takes American Express except for some hotel chains. They lost a loyal 15 years customer for absolutely no reason. I hope they do go down.

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I had a similar situation but more sinister. I charge about $120,000/year on my platinum card for business expenses. Our A/P department isn't very efficient in getting us reimbursed so my payments tend to be late. I have always paid down the balances including late charges. I made an electronic payment a week ago from the Amex website to bring the account current. This week, my card was suddenly declined. When I called Amex, they said my payment was returned for "insufficient funds". I called my bank and they said that just wasn't the case. There were more than enough funds available. When I called Amex back, they refused to hear me out, refused to admit that they may have made a mistake and refused to reinstate my card. When I threatened to cancel it, they couldn't wait to accomodate my request. I honestly believe that Amex has coordinated this entire episode in order to get me to cancel the card. Something is rotten in Denmark and I am going to get to the bottom of it.

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Hi!

I just got the same issue, a letter from Amex saying that they cancel it. I can not believe it! I have 703 FICO and I always pay all on time. What we can do to complain??? Are there any government agency that we can place a formal complain against them? If that's the way that they are going to help the economy, it is better to let them disappear. They receive money from the government but they cancel the cards to people that pay on time, are they cancel to the ones that have not paid?

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I recently received a letter from american express saying my delta skymiles platinum card was cancelled. I was very concerned about this considering I haven't had a balance for months and when I did it was always paid off right away. Curious about this I checked my credit report directly after receiving the letter. I noticed I had a 709 credit score which is good enough to finance a house, however not good enough to have a credit card with a $1000.00 limit. (very ridiculous) They told me I have too much revolving debt even though I only have 1 credit card with a balance ($900). I feel it is unjust that it was cancelled and the only reason why is because in 2 months I'm owed 2 roundtrip comp. tickets and thats their way of getting out of it. I also have another american express with the same limit and that one was not cancelled!! Also I paid an annual fee and they won't refund me. I look forward to a class action suit against these frauds.

I called american express back on 2/20 and now they told me they cancelled my card because I haven't had any activity since Oct. 2008. This is fraud

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Oh my gosh...

i just had a same problem

I had my Blue Sky card since 2006

Never had late payment, actually i made early payment everytime in full.

My credit score got lower due to my irresponsible cousin (who i co-signed for his car-purchase) not paying on time.

So I saw that it has lowered my Blue Sky limit from $3000 to $600. That hurt, but still i was able to use it and I was looking forward to using my Rewards point for a vacation. (I had $100 for spending $7500, and I was almost reaching $200)

Then yesterday, I paid all my balance to purchase more on this wonderful Blue Sky card...and today at Costco they rejected me. I called the service center and I found out that they have canceled my card!!! And all my reward point was gone with my card.

I asked for supervisor, luckily I was able to speak with her right away, but she told me there is nothing she can do, so she connected me with Reward service representative. She couldn't help me either, so i asked for her supervisor, and she gave me this address in Florida to send letter about my situation and said they may approve of me using the reward point...still this really sucks..they never gave me notification...and I can't believe they can cut off a faithful customer like that...AE is a S H I T!!