NEVER, EVER use American Express!!!!!

Oh, what a day it has been. Josh and I have been trying to get and stay out of debt since we got married. We are big Dave Ramsey fans and have been trying to follow some of his tips. Anyway, we have had our ups and downs and have had to use credit, I am sure we are not the only one. Josh has had an American Express card on and off since 2003. We had no interest for a year and paid our card off in August. Things got a little tight around the holidays and we ended up using it for gift. Well to the point of my story, we received a letter in the mail saying they closed our account? What, why? We had just paid our card off three weeks ago and did use it again just last week. So it has a small amount of money on it nothing close to our 1000 dollars limit which we just had lowered significantly two months ago.

I continued to read on in this letter from such a horrible company. They said that our card was closed due to our credit score. American Express has recently preformed a credit check with Experian and from our "report" we had too many inquires within the year, too much revolving debt, length of time accounts have been established and number of account with delinquency. By this point I am very upset. I know we have debt but nothing has ever been delinquent or late. I made a call to American Express and did not do much listening I really ripped two people a part. Recently in the media American express has said they are giving certain customers with high debts and delinquent accounts 300 dollar gift card for paying off their card by April.

Does anyone else see the problem, lets reward those who are irresponsible and run up high debts, miss or don't make payments with a 300 dollar gift card to pay their card off, thanks for your business? What about those of us who are making their payment and do not miss payments? What do we get? Oh thats right our account closed! Josh and I did some research into our credit report. I had NOTHING late or delinquent on my credit. On Josh he had two late payments on two separate cards from SEVEN years ago, thats it! Also it showed that when we were in the process of trying to reduce our burden of a car we could not afford last spring, every car dealer we went to interested in a car they checked our credit. So that is why we had too many inquires, neither of us had any idea this happened.

I contacted our bank to ask them some questions on credit. Having accounts open for a long period or time and in good standing is actually GOOD not bad for your credit. So because American express is in a ton of debt and sinking they have to close my account and ding my credit. When Josh called he was told that they didn't even get a report just a summary, so they did not even know our score or which accounts were delinquent. They also told Josh that they are trying to become more like a bank so they can receive stimulus money! Wow, they need the government to bail them out yet they treat their good customers like crap! I also talked to my mother in law who take applications for American Express and she just took 6 new credit card applications last night and she still approves 3/4 of the applicants. So they are really not trying to get out of debt they just want the government to fix all their problems.

Sorry for such a huge venting blog, but we were both very upset. I ended my conversation with American Express with the fact that I will never use their company again, I will never recommend their company, and I hoped that their credit card goes down the drain. Call me bitter if you may but spread the word DO NOT USE AMERICAN EXPRESS!!!