Amex credit card rant

Pablo

What the F?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I just noticed that they raised my rate 3 points last month! From 7.99 to 10.99 (had good credit, so I got the best rate on my blue card). I called them to ask what happened, and they said they sent something about it in November. I don't remember that. They said that due to tough economic times they had to raise thier rates. Tough economic times?!? What they hell do you think i'm going through! I told her "your going though tough times so you are going to screw me over?!?". What the F?!?!??! I tried not to give her a hard time (she's just a rep). But what the hell is that? I have zillion dollar balance and they bump my rate 40%?!?!? I'll have to call them back when I'm not so pissed off and see if I can get my rate back (I may even sick my wife on them).

Gaara

BE CAREFUL. Amex has been slashing limits left and right, don't want to trigger a financial review, or worse universal default.

vlam

Yup.. be care with the review.. When it gets to the financial review part, just mind as well as close the card(s)

TNRabbit

Find another card that will give you a zero percent balance transfer & move it all over. You can keep switching like this indefinitely for zero percent. Tell AMEX to go F**K themselves.

nadams

Ran into the same issue with my ProvidianWashingtonMutualChase card. I'm looking at getting a line of credit from my local credit union and transferring the balance over.

bobman1235

TNRabbit wrote: »

Find another card that will give you a zero percent balance transfer & move it all over. You can keep switching like this indefinitely for zero percent.

If you do this too often it is NOT good for your credit rating.

wallstreet

Funny how the credit worthy folks get stuck paying the bill for the idiots that 1) charged up more than they could ever hope to pay back and 2) the brainless companies that even allowed them the opportunity to charge up more than they could ever hope to pay back. So we, the responsible ones, get to bail out the credit company and consumers. The answer here is simple, cash.

Sherardp

I fired AMEX and went to MC and Visa. AMEX is rarely accepted overseas in Japan.

Dennis Gardner

A Zillion dollar balance sounds like you are living beyond your means......pay them off and use cash. I've never had anyone decline to accept a Franklin. If a card is required, the debit works great.....

Polkitup2

Yea, a Zillion dollars is a lot of money. A guy at work showed me his credit card statement where they just raised his rate to 27%. Luckily he pays it off every month.

phuz

Weird. They just lowered the rate on one of my cards.

They've also lowered the limits on both of my AMEXs. No biggie though. It's expected in times like this. AMEX is a darn good company and their customer service is top notch. Stick with 'em, and you'll be rewarded when this mess is all over.

Citi however tried to jack up my rate, I called and opted out and closed the account.

WilliamM2

Pay the card off each month, and the rates don't matter. I never pay any interest on my cards.

Gaara

bobman1235 wrote: »

If you do this too often it is NOT good for your credit rating.

Why? I figure it could screw up your average age, but if you close out the accounts it won't. It will temporarily effect your card utilization, and the hard pull will be on there for 6 months, but both are temporary.

WilliamM2 wrote: »

Pay the card off each month, and the rates don't matter. I never pay any interest on my cards.

No clue what my rates are, never been a concern. Paid $22 in interest in my life due to my own screw up with the due date. Made over $700 in rewards, not to mention the $1000+ on B/T offers.

MikeC78

Gaara wrote: »

Why? I figure it could screw up your average age, but if you close out the accounts it won't. It will temporarily effect your card utilization, and the hard pull will be on there for 6 months, but both are temporary.

He's not talking about just one initial time, it's if you keep doing that over and over with a large balance. You are a risk. If you are opening a bunch of new credit and closing them, you are a risk, which in result hurts your score. Hard pulls are on your score are there longer than 6 months. However, your score is temporary, correct.

You always keep the card opened that you had the longest(even though you never use it), closing it can hurt your age of credit. Closing accounts doesn't necessarily help you, it lowers your total available credit.

Gaara

MikeC78 wrote: »

He's not talking about just one initial time, it's if you keep doing that over and over with a large balance. You are a risk. If you are opening a bunch of new credit and closing them, you are a risk, which in result hurts your score. Hard pulls are on your score are there longer than 6 months. However, your score is temporary, correct.

You always keep the card opened that you had the longest(even though you never use it), closing it can hurt your age of credit. Closing accounts doesn't necessarily help you, it lowers your total available credit.

I was under the impression that a hard pull was on a report for 2 years, but only adversely affected your score for 6 months. So if the person where to open a new card once a year to transfer balances, the ding would have dropped by the time they open the next card. You make a good point, today this could be seen as high risk and have some adverse effects.

Yeah, I know the average age can hurt you, which is why I would think closing the new cards (after transferring the available credit) would be beneficial. If they were left open it would bring down your average age, but if they were closed it would keep it high.

I guess the only downside I see is if you had a high utilization on that single card. Like if you transferred $9k of debt from a $20k card to a $10k card, going from 45% -> 90% on a single card, even though your overall utilization would improve.

madmax

Two months ago I did a cash transfer from AmEx to my Visa. I knew I wouldn't want to pay it off until after tax time so I called Visa and asked them for zero percent for 6 months and they said OK. I love the blue card, usually make close to $300 a year on rebates. You can pay that back pretty quickly if you pay interest though. Pay them off as soon as you can, it feels good!
madmax

BlueFox

Does AMEX still charge a yearly fee to use their card? I stopped using them in the early 80s, and stayed with Visa. Since then I have never made a CC payment, yearly or monthly. I just charge what I can afford to pay. The funny part is the upper limit kept getting increased since I never made any payments. I guess the logic is once your limit is high enough to buy a house you will charge more.

madmax

They have a "Blue" card which charges no fee and pays a decent percentage rebate once a year. You don't have to pay off every month but if not then you pay interest. Last time I checked the rate it was around 12%. They took care of two different internet sellers who didn't want to send the merchandise or refund the money. They seem pretty effective if you have a problem.

shack

madmax wrote:

They have a "Blue" card which charges no fee and pays a decent percentage rebate once a year. You don't have to pay off every month but if not then you pay interest. Last time I checked the rate it was around 12%. They took care of two different internet sellers who didn't want to send the merchandise or refund the money. They seem pretty effective if you have a problem.

So far I've had no problems with my AmEx Blue card. They are pretty good about dealing with problem tranaction resolution and like Chuck said, I get a decent rebate check. No annual fee and I have no clue as to what my interest rate is since I pay the balance in full each month.

Peter Johns

My name is Peter Johns and On December 14, 2008, an article I wrote for Helium.com was viewed and passed on - by some estimates - to over 600,000 people in 24 hours. I made $1,246.00 in 24 hours and I've never been the same since.

It explains a "catch" I found in a credit card company's 0% offer and how I flipped it around on them. I'm sure part of the reason it went viral is because it's about a financial "David and Goliath" story of sorts during a global economic crisis.

Again, over 600,000 people viewed it in just 24 hours. The question is, why?. We're talking about an article, not a **** pic or a severed head video, just an article. Any business program would take a gem like this and build a class around it. Business students - given the assignment to write a "viral" article - would find one like this, that's already gone viral, and study it exhaustively.
It's at this link:

http://www.helium.com/items/887146-credit-cards-dirty-little-secrets

It still boggles my mind!