CHESSNOID

A few days ago, I received a comment asking me to email them. It was in regards to my blog posts about American Express and how I felt they profiled customers who carried balances and reduced their credit limits without merit. Anyways, the email was from a New York Times reporter. I was actually apprehensive about this being some sort of scam. How? I don’t know but I am paraNoid at times about financial stuff.

He wanted to interview me about my experience and thought that would be cool. We played phone tag over the phone a few times and for some reason he didn’t want to just ask the questions by email. I figured that was no big deal since I have already spoke about the situation extensively on my blog. When he interviewed me on the phone, I was actually a little bit nervous just because I have never been interviewed and when I think of the New York Times I do think of it as a high level of journalism. My wife overheard me on the phone interview and asked me why I was nervous. I think it was because I didn’t want to make any mistakes in the information I was giving him.

Another concern I had was he said he had to use my real name. Like I said I am little paraNoid. In this blog I do it under my alias CHESSNOID and my real name doesn’t appear anywhere. I like that because I can express my opinions freely and don’t have to worry about stalkers or haters. LOL.

Anyways, I will give you updates to see if he actually uses my interview for his article. This is the email he sent me and I took his information out:

Hi,
I am a reporter with the New York Times. When stumbled across your website, I noticed that you had a situation involving a credit line and was hoping you might be willing to share your experience. Here is what I am looking for.

With more consumers falling behind on their credit card payments and new regulatory proposals making it tougher for card issuers to manage their risk, credit card lenders are increasingly pulling in lines of credit. I am trying to track down credit cardholders who have recently noticed that their credit lines were cut. If you could help, that would be great.

These were the blog posts I have on Amex:

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Recession is forcing American Express to reduce credit lines for no reason

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Recession forcing American Express to target profiles to decrease credit limits

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American Express don’t leave home with it

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Un-American Express targeting profiles to decrease credit lines

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American Express playing “chasing the balance” game

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I hope this somehow helps others even if it is just knowledge.  I don’t know if what American Express is doing is illegal, but is definitely an unfair business practice against its customers.