Body
**Has anyone else gone through something like this with American Express?** If so, I would love to know **how to deal with this issue**, I will be contacting them tomorrow (Monday) morning. If you have dealt with it, how did you resolve it?
I’ve been with Amex for over 25 years. Between my business and personal cards, I’ve probably run somewhere between $30–50 million through them over that time. Never missed a payment. **Never had a problem. I have paid early EVERY month** on my Plum card to receive the cash back. My personal credit score is over 800. My business has been more profitable every year it has been in existence. There should be zero flags to show a problem.
Then out of nowhere, this past Saturday evening around 6:45 PM, I get an email saying my available credit limits have been reduced on all six of my cards. I thought it had to be spam. Logged in and it was real. Every single card had its limit cut dramatically, some by as much as 90%.
That instantly made several cards show as “over limit” by tens of thousands of dollars, even though I hadn’t made a new charge. Just because Amex decided to lower the limit after the balance was already there. No warning, no explanation. Just an email after hours on a weekend.
Now I have personal cards showing a balance greater than the credit limit, which will negatively impact my credit score if the credit bureau happens to pull the data today.
So I called the number on the back of the card and got sent to a recording saying underwriting was closed until Monday morning. There was no way to get past that prompt once I put my card info in. They sent the email ten minutes after they closed, so there was literally no way to talk to anyone. Perfect timing, right?
Now imagine if I were traveling internationally or needed those cards to cover scheduled payments. Too bad. They just stop working. Some of mine already declined Sunday morning for pending charges, and of course Amex won’t be covering any fees or fallout from that.
I tried the chat on their site, spent 15 minutes explaining everything, only to be told I needed to call a “special number” where someone could help me as a “long time valued customer.” I called it, and got the same voicemail saying to try again Monday. Valued customer...right.
So here I am, 25 years of loyalty, perfect history, and six suddenly crippled accounts that I can’t even use because someone at Amex flipped a switch and didn’t think about what that does to small business owners who rely on those cards every day.
If this can happen to me, it can happen to any of you. And it raises real questions about how Amex handles risk, or maybe just their cash exposure, without giving long-time customers any warning or chance to prepare.
For small business owners, this is something to think about before making Amex your main line of credit. Because “member since 1998” apparently doesn’t mean much when their algorithm or someone working risk on a weekend decides to cut you off on a Saturday night.
Top comments (4)