Complain about a product or service

American Express

Platinum Card

Sharie of Glendale, CA May 21, 2009

The bank cancelled my credit card prior to sending and notifying me of the cancellation. I found out about this when I had finished shopping and used my card only to find that it was cancelled. Furthermore, received the letter from AMEX a week later from the incident and the letter states that cancellation of the card may negatively impact my credit score. I disagree with their credit decision to begin with based on my impeccable credit history and also feel victimized that their decision will impact my credit score.

Saunjula of Lorain, OH May 20, 2009

I applied for an American Express Card in March and received a platinum card without a pre-set spending limit. In May I was informed that I had to verify my income with 3 recent paycheck stubs of which I faxed to Wand Douglass. She informed me around May 11th that everything was verified and I could use the card. However, I tried to use the card while out of town but the card was declined. I immediately called American Express to find out what happened. They told me the card had been cancelled without any type of warning. The customer service rep said that my debt ratio was high which was the same when I applied for the card and I had a recent missed payment from another account.

This is crazy because I was not in default on my American Express Card and had planned on making the next payment in full on the 30th. My question is whether or not they have the right to cancel the card if I am not in default. I used to work for a credit bureau and credit snapshots change all of the time every day. Why didn't they talk to me about the card before cancelling it behing my back? There should be some type of protection for the consumer.

Michael of Alexandria, VA May 11, 2009

On 10 MAY 09, I was at a restaurant using my credit card to pay my bill. I gave them my AMEX Card and it came back denied. I had used the card earlier in the day at my car dealership with no problems. I called the Customer Service Rep and I was told that my card was cancelled. I was given no notice via email, phone, or mail. They had did a recent scan of my credit report and said my card was cancelled because the debt to income ratio was high. I have always paid my bill on time, never late, no derogatory statements on credit reports. Evidently, this is something they have been doing with alot of individuals lately. I am in the military and me and my wifes combined incomes are good.

Colleen of La Quinta, CA May 7, 2009

After 27 years as an American Express Gold Card member, they have cancelled my card - without notice. I have NEVER had a late payment with them in 27 years and have always paid my bill in full. They claim they did not like my debt ratio and therefore, cancelled me! How can they cancel me when I have never had a late payment? They did not even have the courtesy (as a member of 27 years) to contact me and let me know it was cancelled. They just let me get embarrassed. Is this legal? Should I seek legal advice?

David of Brandon, FL May 1, 2009

I have been an AMEX Platinum Card holder since 2004. I have never made a late payment or paid the minimum that was due. Recently I was shopping with my son and the clerk said that my card was rejected. It was a 40.00 purchase. I said "that's impossible, this card doesn't have a pre-set limit. I own a business and accept AMEX (up until now at least), so I asked if I could see the screen to see what kind of code was generated. She obliged and when I looked, it simply said declined. I stepped out of the way, as there were several other people in line and called the number on the back of my card. They told me in a dismissive tone that I was over my limit. I said "I dont have a limit and my balance isn't even half what it has been in the past. (my balance was around 7000 and it has been easily in the high teens before) She said that my credit limit had been lowered to 5800.00.

I was livid and insisted on speaking to someone else. After two more "some elses", I was told that my card was canceled because of a recent increase increase in my debt. I asked her if she knew what a debt to income ratio was and she said that she did. I then asked her if she knew how much money I made annually and she said no. I then asked her how they could possibly decide my ability to pay my bills based on looking at my debt. She didnt have an answer. I asked her that if I made 6 million dollars a year if my debt would be out of line. She said no, so I asked her if she knew whether or not I make six million dollars a year and she said no again. So then how can you make that determination? She had no answer other that it was a recent policy change and my new credit limit was 5800. I told her to cancel my platinum card, my wife's platinum card, my son's platinum card and my other AMEX cards. I also told her that I wanted a full refund on the fees that I was charged for the "privilege" of having their card. She actually did that and the credit showed up the next day. Still after this many years, how could you do that? I was embarrassed over a 40 purchase and AMEX couldn't even tell me what they were doing before they did it? I just pulled my credit report (my business is loaning money...imagine that)I have 25 ones on my credit and nothing derogatory. My debt/income is 38%. Im just upset that they can do this on a whim without any warning or regard to what the consequences might have been. I am going on a missions trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in August. What if they would have done this to me while I was out of the country and I had an emergency? Im not a litigious person, but Im thinking I would make an exception in this case.

Alfred of Humble, TX April 29, 2009

I have been an American Express Platinum card member for more than 25 years, am 100% debt free, no mortgage, with a net worth more than a million dollars. During the busiest part of my career I traveled abroad frequently, and depended on my Amex card. Being away from home while trying to pay my bill, often without statement in hand, I tended to overpay my estimated charges, since I depended on the account to be active. My intention was for the overpayment to be reflected as a credit on my account statement to apply toward future charges. Unknown to me at the time, Amex apparently had a policy, coded into system software, whereby their system automatically generated a paper refund check for these overpayments, and send it to the customer though the postal service. Mail service to me in foreign locations was slow and not dependable. I received about half of the statements sent and rarely any paper refund checks. Much of this occurred before the internet was a common business tool, and before Amex offered a direct bank debit bill pay service. The checks had a 120 day validity period. If they were not cashed within 120 days, they were void. With few exceptions, I never got the checks, or statements referencing the checks. So how do I know how many checks were sent over the years? Simple. Just look at my account history. Amex has my complete account history, right? Amex customer service tells me they can regularly access customer records from the 1980s for other customers, but not mine. Why? Amex cancelled my card without my knowledge just before they migrated all their records from their old legacy system, to a new system, in about 2006. Apparently, they did not migrate my account, with its 25 year history since it was closed shortly before the system migration. When they log into their legacy system, they see some records for my account number, but can not pull up any details. A request has been submitted to un-archive these records. I regularly overpaid so that my account would remain dependable. I suspect many refund checks were mailed, but none were cashed by me. When a check expires, Amex does not issue another check, and they do not credit the customer account. The money remains in an Amex bank account in their name, and they apparently have no intention of ever paying the customer.

Gabriel of Ladera Ranch, CA April 27, 2009

I had an Amercian Express/Costo platinum card since 2004 with a credit limit around 15,000, spent like 28,000 in 2008, paid full amount every month. Two weeks ago, American Express decided to lower my limit to 1,400, the first call to Customer Service they told me the reason was due to multiple credit inquires on my credit report (I'm in the process of buying a home -- doing mortgage shopping) they did NOT care and told me they can NOT do anything, so I cool off for a couple of days, thinking closing the account will hurt my credit score, so on my second call to Customer Service they now told me I have delinquent accounts on my credit report...I told them that's wrong, you must have mixed info or something, because I am monitoring my credit report for my mortgage hunt, again I was told they can NOT do anything about it and I needed to clear my credit!!!! this was the end, I did not care about the impact to my credit, I canceled the account and do NOT want to deal with American Express ever!! I just want to share my story and hope it helps when choosing there credit cards.

Jason of Pembroke, MA April 24, 2009

I have been an AMEX customer since 2003. I have never been late or missed a single payment. I lived overseas and spend an average yearly balance of 55,000 USD dollars. AMEX made a fortune off me in the currency conversions. Often I would call them and question the rate they used. I found they consistently were using rates at least 1.5% above the day's trading rate. I dealt with it and just figured cost of doing business. I returned home to U.S. and continued my average yearly spend expect I would pay off the amounts in full every month. In October of 2008 they lowered my credit limit without warning from 20K to like 1300. I was extremely upset... to say the least! So every month I would max that amount and pay in full. Then without warning again they canceled mine and my wife's card. I have over 200K in Delta Skymiles accumulated from using this card. I am furious. My wife is traveling to Singapore right now and she went to use the card and she was denied (it wasn't honored.) I stopped using the card so she could have that measly 1300 balance for some spending money. I am concerned how this affects my credit score rating. The reports usually indicate if you or the merchant card canceled the credit card and if this is the case and it affects my rating I will be pursuing legal matters. I recommend everyone communicating their AMEX experiences to newspapers, social media networking sites (Twitter Facebook) and I want everyone to know how AMEX treats its most reliable and creditworthy customers. We are being treated like criminals because of their incompetence to run a business properly. Shame on CEO Kenneth I. Chenault and his greedy practices and checkered polices that punish the good customers. The entire Board of Directors including: Alfred F. Kelly Jr., Edward P. Gilligan, Daniel T. Henry, Judson C. Linville, Ashwini Gupta, Stephen J. Squeri, John D. Hayes, Louise M. Parent, L. Kevin Cox are all also responsible for this absolutely defunct company. I spent months working on my credit and got it above 800. I have paid for my credit report to every month for a year to keep a close eye on it and AMEX told me that a derogatory public record was on the report. Ran it again on all 3 credit reporting agencies and NOTHING was evident... NOTHING! Called AMEX - no help as usual. Then they changed their story and said income to debt ratio. I owe only school loans. MY income far exceeds my school loans. I'm at a complete lost with this American Express. Good riddens!

Thomas of Washington, DC April 22, 2009

I have been an Am Ex customer since 1978. Around 1985, they offered me a Platinum card which I willingly accepted. With the card also came a very generous credit line for sign and travel. As always, I pay my AmEx card in full each month. To say that I put about 20K on the card annually would be about right, and this does not include S&T, which I pay in full anyway. Several months ago, I had probably the smallest monthly statement from Amex in history, 206.38. I have never been late with a payment or rolled over a balance from a previous month, as I knowmany due with Amex; they have always been fairly lax with that.

I truly forgot the bill and within a day after the due date got an harrasing call from a very ethnic individual who could not put a noun and verb together to save her life, she was stationed in Ft. Lauderdale. I told her I would get payment out today, my mistake. Two days later, she calls , after 9:00PM EST and begins to harras me again, and this time states she would ruin my credit if I didn not get that money immediately to them. I informed her that 1. she is calling after 9:00EST and she has violated numerous laws and 2. Being a member for 40 years and being late one time on 206.38 I do not beleieve is a big deal in the sceem of things. She became hostile and I told her I would not take such abuse and hung up. After a few days of thinking about it, I called Amex and cancelled my card. They asked why, I told them. The person would not give me her name, nor did she put any notes in the system, so there was no trail. I told them I stillwanted the card cancelled. They did. About a week later, I received a call from the President of Amex Platinum apologizing for the service, etc, etc and after 40 years, why would I cancel. I thought in this day and age, that was impressive. I explained the situation. He said..."we will issue you a 3,000 credit on your account and you can use it wherever you want." I paused for a moment, thanked him and said "no". He was dead silent and asked what could be done. I said, he needed to fire the inarticulate individual who caused me this stress and anxiety over 200 dollars. I was told they could not do that, I told him I didn't need his charity or his card. In this day and age consumers need to stand up for what is right, even if financial companies tried to do the right thing...he "NEVER" apologized to me for the associates rude behavior, that is what did it.

Ricky of Greenwell Springs, LA April 21, 2009

Report Your Experience
If you've had a bad experience -- or a good one -- with a consumer product or service, we'd like to hear about it. All complaints are reviewed by class action attorneys and are considered for publication on our site. Knowledge is power! Help spread the word. File your consumer report now.

Share		Follow us on Twitter.