Is Your Amex Being Denied?
Has your Amex been denied recently? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. There have been widespread reports of American Express denying charges or asking people to pay their bills early this year. I have only heard this about their charge cards, including the Platinum and the Centurion.
Apparently, due to the tightening credit markets in the US, American Express is becoming more conservative with people’s spending habits, especially if they’re irregular. I had some friends tell me that Amex has been repeatedly calling them and asking for them to pay their Plum bill early. At first I thought it might just be them, but I have recently read about numerous people, across all cards, with good standing accounts, claim to have the same problem. Anyone else been running into this?
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Yes — in fact, just today I looked at my Google Adwords account and noticed my credit card was denied. I promptly logged into my account on the Amex website and learned that my account was under “financial review” and that I need to send them paperwork from the IRS within 5 days or they would close my account!
I promptly did so. I called and spoke to the Amex financial review team manager, Alex Dash, who was very kind and allowed me to continue using my Amex card while my account was under review.
They claim this “review” process happens to all accounts eventually, but I found it crazy that I wasn’t notified (they claim to have sent out a postal mail 2 days earlier) about the inability to use my primary card on my most important business expenditure!
I’m not sure if this financial review process is the same as what other’s are experiencing, but it’s not fun!!
Your situation is not unheard of Josh. I have heard of many people going under financial review. Have you recently changed your spending habits in adwords? Launch any large campaigns or scaled up recently? If so, that can do it. Especially if your charges went up by several grand. Hopefully, once you have gone through the financial review once, you won’t have to do it again.
Ok here’s my 2 cents worth. Well unfortunately this site appears to worship credit card debt and the truth is, credit card companies sap the life out millions of people each and every day. Mostly those who are living well beyond their means, and also those whom live has thrown a few too many curve balls in their direction. The true status of wealth is how much cash you have and not how much money you owe the credit card companies each month.
For “Dave”… Amex is charge card - it’s paid in full monthly.
People who do not have disposable income do not qualify for Platinum or Black Amex.
I see your concern, but you should be posting this on a Providian blog.
As I was driving from Iowa to Chicago, my card was denied at a gas pump in WI. That happened about three weeks ago. I had to call AmEx and a woman said, “We were a little bit scared. We thought your card was stolen”. I drive a lot, often covering long distances. I always buy gas with my AmEx Delta Platinum. Actually, I’ve covered more or less the same route this spring four or five times. So I don’t understand why they got “a little bit scared”.
i’m a newbie to the site and i’d like to thank “Paulie”. (tyvm)
best giggle, i’ve had in a long time! i love it!!
to answer the question, yes, had a problem on friday.
(Centurion cardholder since October 2007)
If I had an Amex Centurion and it was denied, I would be pretty upset!
While working retail recently, I had received a black card when someone was paying. I swiped the card and told the guy it declined just to see his reaction. His friends thought it was hilarious as his jaw it the floor.. But I quickly said I was just kidding. 
Yep! it happened to me. Just got a platinum card a few months ago. I’ve got perfect credit & cash in the bank and charge very heavily on my cards every month. Two weeks ago AMEX called demanding I pay the bill before the due date and they suspended the card till it was paid. I was rather insulted, I must say, and paid the bill. I wonder if it is a sign of the economy?
Amex - bill due in 16 days - they called and froze my account - froze it without reason. I have paid always on time and will continue to do so but they demanded more than this months bill and now….not on the due date but a call on Sunday to have $1200 more than the current balance - basically all outstanding charges paid in full to allow future use of the card…I pulled my credit only to find no changes! My scores are mid to high 750 to 800 and it doesn’t matter!
I’ll use cash from now on…I only used it for cash management…but I can do it with cash…$100 bills make peoples eyeballs pop out but my Amex platinum card doesn’t get a look - sad part is I don’t want others to know my business but they will…
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same thing with my amex platinum, 2 phone call to pay before statement date, 3rd phone call 8 day after statement (with in 21 days payment time)…next day, invite to Centurion card…that why i’m on this site, i can’t put up with getting 3 phone calls and card not working, when i pay on time
[...] there have been intermittent reports of outages (due to the economy tightening down on the credit industry) among affiliates, American [...]
nope. i have an amex starwood card, haven’t had any issues. although it’s based on credit limit.