CHESSNOID

Back in February, I published a blog post in regards to my personal American Express credit card experience called “Recession is forcing American Express to reduce credit lines for no reason”. That is one of my more popular blog posts and I have over 100 comments on it now. I think this month alone I have had 33 people comment on their personal situation.

What makes this unique is that every commenter basically posts about their credit card experience with American Express. If you read the comments from beginning to end, you will notice a trend of which customers American Express targeted with each month passing.

In the beginning, most customers were offended by the credit card limit reductions. I think it was a knee jerk reaction due to pride. American Express tried to blame the consumer for numerous generic reasons such as “change in financial situation, too many open credit cards with high available balances, too many inquiries, and other false reasons”. This made me and other consumers upset because the generic reason they gave were not real, but we wanted to know the truth. We felt we were being treated like customers who defaulted on the contract, even though we never paid late and the cards were still current.

Now it is more transparent that American Express just was hammered by the recession. They were ready to go under in my opinion. They asked and were granted commercial bank status recently because no one would lend them any more money so they could continue to run their business. Now they have access to lower rate funds directly from the government. I suspect the bank conversion will eventually turn into a bailout of some kind.

I would guess that I get 1 comment for every 100-200 visitors looking specifically for these American Express blog posts and comments. I imagine that there are countless thousands who don’t bother to find out why American Express targeted them. American Express alienated their loyal “paying” customer because they weren’t being honest.

How difficult would it have been for American Express to send letters out explaining that credit limits had to be reduced because the recession was affecting their company too and that they apologized for any inconvenience this may have caused? They could have also shared the thought that maybe when the economy recovered they could also increase credit limits accordingly. People would have understood the truth and probably not cancel their cards altogether.

Instead, they have many customers swearing American Express off and promising never to use any of their products or services, as well as customers searching to see it there are any class action law suits pending against American Express because of unfair credit reductions that have lowered their FICO scores. I based these observations on the google inquiries I see driven towards my site and the people who were generous enough to share their personal experience in the comment sections.

Click here to see all my American Express posts and even many more comments.