AMEX TAKING TARP MONEY TO INDIA

[kpete]

SHOCKER: AMEX TAKING TARP MONEY TO INDIA
by BenJah
Fri Feb 13, 2009 at 02:35:31 PM PST

Below the fold, you will see a letter that I sent to my employees today. This is not merely about American Express using TARP money to take American Jobs to India. What is even more shocking is that Amex has adopted a policy that is explicitly hostile to small business and hostile to those of us trying to create jobs for working Americans. I think the letter pretty much speaks for itself.

Dear Employees:

I have five (5) American Express cards. Two (2) of these cards are personal accounts which have zero balances. I always pay these personal cards in full each month. However, I have not used the cards in several months, so they have both stayed at a zero balance. The other three (3) cards are business accounts. One of these is also a zero balance and has been so for well over a year. A second card was used (almost) in full over two (2) years ago and since that time, I have made payments every month on time. The third and final account is the card I use in order to run our business. It is a 30k line, which I use for our day-to-day operations. The card was about 15k used, with about 15k in available credit. I make timely payments each and every month. We use that card for the company vehicles. They are set up to ìautopayî our car insurance and for our EZ-Pass account. We also use the cards for a number of repetitive business transactions we conduct with the City of New York.

I have been a ìcardmemberî with American Express for 12 years. Iíve made purchases totalling somewhere between $750,000.00 and $1,000,000.00 using those cards. Taking into account the interest Iíve paid, as well as the fees Amex charges their merchants, it is safe to say Amex has made 50k minimum in profits off my accounts.

Last week I received two letters from American Express. The first letter stated that they had ìreviewed my accountî and seen that some negative credit reporting had been done by a different creditor. (This debt is in dispute and is currently the subject of litigation.) Amex explained that they were reducing the limit on one of my personal accounts from $12,000.00 to $1,000.00. This is the same amount of credit I had with them when I first became a ìcardmemberî in 1997. (Of course, if I had maxed out my cards, they would not have been able to do this. Since I was responsible with these accounts, and carried a zero balance, they were able to pull virtually all my credit with no notice and no risk to themselves.)

The second letter from Amex announced that they were reducing the credit line on our business card. They reduced the limit from 30k down to 15k, leaving our company with a whopping $200.00 of available credit to run our business operations. As a result, we will now begin receiving notifications of rejected payments. The cars may now be uninsured. Some of our legal filings with NYC may not go through. We will be scrambling for weeks to cure all this, rather than trying to grow the company and provide more jobs for American workers. When I called Amex Customer Service, I was connected (of course) to a call center in India. The representative explained that I could apply for a credit limit increase but that it would not be considered for at least one week and would probably not be granted anyway.

I explained to the representative that American Express became a bank in November in order to access to taxpayer money under the TARP. Amex is currently standing in line for a second handout under recent Congressional legislation. The purpose of these taxpayer-funded bailouts was to encourage banks like American Express to continue extending credit to business. Small businesses like ours are what drive the U.S. economy. We create American jobs. Amex creates jobs in India. In any event, it seems clear that Amex is simply pocketing these public funds. They should be denied any further taxpayer money.

I am sorry to bring such news, but I do not want you to think that the coming flood of phone calls is the result of personal irresponsibility. Instead, we are paying the price for American corporate greed and eight (8) years of political ineptitude and corruption. I plan to publish this letter widely in the hopes that it will spare others from a similar fate.

Regretfully,

Benjamin M. Adams, Esq
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2/13/172450/460/416/697240

[Hello_Kitty]

1. k and r. eom

[Mike 03]

2. My mother had the limit on her AEX card reduced as well without explanation,

in spite of the fact she also pays her balance off monthly in its entirety. Maybe it's because she never approaches her limit. My father also has the same limit, yet his limit was not reduced.

My limits were recently increased (at Citi and Chase). I also pay all of my balances off monthly. It's nuts.

[femrap]

18. Maybe the 'banks' are returning to

their old ways of the '70's: No or limited credit for women. You have no idea what I had to do to get a credit card!!! But my guy friends who made less money than I did had no problem.

I threatened to sue and got my card. I had to make a big stink and a scene.

[Aloha Spirit]

3. Same thing happened with my credit card, down a couple thousand worth of credit.

[BootinUp]

4. Well its one side of the story, but probably true...

the banking elites need to be put in a vise until they cry uncle, and the federal government needs to be the vise.

[AndyA]

5. My Father had an AMEX account that dated back to 1958.

He had excellent credit with them for many years, sometimes charging huge amounts and paying them off at the end of the month when the bill came. This went on for decades. Then, he was hospitalized with congestive heart failure. At that point, neither he nor anyone in the family cared about paying the bills, our focus was on getting him well and back home.

When he got home from the hospital, he discovered that his AMEX account had been closed due to 2 missed payments. TWO. In 34 years, he was late on TWO PAYMENTS. They closed his account and sent him to collections while he was in the hospital with congestive heart failure! And no, learning why the payments had been missed didn't seem to matter one bit.

To me, this shows more than anything what kind of a company American Express is. Ellen DeGeneres should be ashamed for promoting this company.

I am not surprised to learn they are now taking advantage of American taxpayers.

[spanone]

6. why not? it was a parting gift from bu$h* & chenee

[Autumn Colors]

7. This happened to me on a much smaller scale

I, too, had an AMEX card that had a revolving balance on it, but that I would also use for some monthly business expenses. The latter are paid in full each month in addition to a portion of the revolving balance. I have had a perfect payment record with them for years.

Then, I started getting notices that my autopay payments were being rejected .... my business phone bill, our internet service, etc. I called AMEX and was told of the decrease in the line of credit and that I had been sent a letter. That letter arrived several days later.

I used AMEX for those expenses for the convenience of being able to make that one payment on a specific date each month. Now, I also needed to scramble to pay these bills a couple weeks before I normally would.

I have since canceled my AMEX card.

[4 t 4]

10. Well thank god we

gave them 700 billion dollars. It really did the trick. I know they have only gotten 350 so far Only 350 Billion but lets fight giving anything to the people till the bitter end. Oh also it has Nothing to do with the credit default swaps it's the peoples fault because they bought houses they couldn't afford. (Even thought the banks way inflated the prices of the houses when a mortgage was applied for)

[Greyhound]

8. And the exodus continues on our dime. K&R

[SmileyRose]

9. We were in the same situation in September with AMX

The owner of our business, and other small businesses around us, in addition to all of us accounting folks are completely baffled by the moronic choices creditors (amex in particular) are adopting. I cannot even begin to tell you how many of our business partners are getting screwed by AMX. And when it's all over, we won't forget who turned a back on us and who stood by us.

[4 t 4]

11. I'm one sick mother

because when I see "Ignored" it does my heart good !

[TBF]

12. K&R n/t

[AntiFascist]

13. K&R, I wonder about AMEX! n/t

[Coexist]

14. oy.

[CrispyQ]

15. I don't think Wall St. has a clue how angry Main St. is.

I know up until now they haven't cared that we're angry, but the heat is building. We're not at a boil yet, but they are out of the kitchen & have no clue that things are about to erupt.

Every day is a new story of "Taxpayers, bend over & grab your ankles."

[cascadiance]

16. It's been happening to me and others too.

I think they're trying to trap people into over limit situations, to increase their fees they get.

My balance was a little high with a recent move I made and a large moving fee, that I'm incrementally paying down over the next few months.

They've chopped my limit to just over what I owe.

Just the last month, I was trying to correct a problem with another vendor who charged me for $300+ for some goods that hadn't been delivered yet. As part of resolving it, they created a new order. Didn't know it, but they reversed the charges on the first order and TRIED to rebill it on a new order to resolve this, but were turned down on my card then, unbeknnownst to me until fter the fact.

At the same time I made a big payment that they received on one day, about the same time they tried to reverse this charge. They then lowered my credit limit, so that this charge wouldn't go through and they rejected it. And didn't credit my account my newer payment until a day later... See how f'ing CREATIVE FINANCING is going on in these companies.

As soon as I've paid this off, And they just reduced my AMEX Optima card to near nothing, which makes it rather useless even though I have no balance on it and only had a mistaken payment towards it in the last year.

I'm cancelling these cards as soon as I pay them off, when I pay them off, especially if I perhaps enough of us can send letters to Costco to not only take AMEX cards exclusively.

I think that's one thing that we all can do, and LET AMEX KNOW that you aren't going to take their BS lying down. If enough of us do this, perhaps AMEX will be made to pay for their recent BS practices.

A couple of years ago, I would have felt that my AMEX card was one of my better cards for service, etc. But not more!

[cascadiance]

17. We shoudl ALL petition Costco to STOP only taking AMEX cards...

I have to believe that Costco has to be one of their more valuable business relationships, especially with progressives like us that prefer to go their to shop. If we got a big petition drive and all wrote in to Costco to ask them to aaccept other credit cards (VISA or Mastercard), then I think we might be able to fight back against their BS!

[aquart]

20. They only take Amex? That's awful.

Had no idea.

[aquart]

19. Small business hates Amex right back.

Always took a prohibitive percentage of every sale. Whole lotta stores won't touch their cards.

[spooky3]

21. Send this to Maxine Waters! She raised a similar issue during the hearings.