AmEx canceled my credit card for No reason and hurt my credit

By: Katharine

Dear Sir:

This letter is to complain about the way I and my brother
have been treated by American Express’s Blue Card Division.
Our card number is xxxxxxxxxx.


I am a graduating senior at the University of Chicago, and I already have a family income of about $100,000. Our Blue Card has a very modest credit limit of $1,600. As the attached payment history shows, we have a perfect payment history, having paid substantially more than the minimum amount each month for two years.

In December, 2009, we paid American Express $1,591.99 on our account. On December 30, 2010, Blue Card Division’s Customer Service Department responded by cancelling our account. When we called to find out why, we were told that there were two reasons. (1) In October, we had a minimum payment due of $30, and we paid $65, but we drew our credit down by more than $65 by using our card. (2) Supposedly we have increased our debt level by taking out other credit cards.

The first answer is loony. There cannot be a secret rule
that one cannot use one’s Blue Card more than the amount of one’s
monthly payment. If there were such a rule, the Blue Card would not be a credit card. It would be some sort of dysfunctional debit card.

With regard to the second answer, I pointed out to Customer Service that I have neither applied for, nor received, any additional credit of any kind during the past 12 months. I have had other credit cards for years, and they too are in perfectly good standing. I asked Customer Service what negative information they have to the contrary, and they refused to tell me! I then asked them what information I might send them to correct the false information that they seem to have but will not share with me, and they said that there is nothing I can do.

When I was told that there is nothing I can do, I asked for your fax number. The Customer Service agent refused to tell me what it is. My brother had to call back and threaten the supervisor to obtain this fax number.

I conclude from this experience that Customer Service canceled our account because we broke some secret rule, and they will not tell us what it is. I guess that the secret rule is that we are not supposed to pay off the balance on our account, because that will reduce the amount of interest you can charge us. (The cancellation occurred immediately after we made our largest payment this year.) I also conclude that Customer Service is either loony or was lying to us. Probably both. So we canceled authorization for our third payment in December that seems to have set off these events. And we of course will continue to make (now minimum) monthly payments until our balance is paid in full.

Lastly, I conclude from this experience that I cannot count on American Express to follow its own rules. I cannot even depend on American Express not to lie to me. No one needs this. We did nothing to deserve this. Are you really so desperate that you have to treat good customers this way?


Yours very truly,


Katharine H. Stone