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Got a letter through today from AMEX saying after looking at my payment history (always paid in full and never missed) and my credit reference agencies files (checked all three not a single change on any of them) they’ve decided to put my simple interest rate up 0.26% or 4.2% a year kindly informed this is an extra 26p per £100 a month and is done to offset any increased risk of my inability to pay them?
Anyone else had one of these letters? I just put a reasonable sized transaction through, triggered my companion voucher at the end of last month and put the card back in the draw and then the letter came a week later!
Person on the phone was kind enough and said the tone of the letter wasn’t ideal but they’d heard of a few of these going out but had no idea on the reasoning behind it.
I think this is a general raise across the board. Shouldn’t be an issue if you’re paying off your balance every month. Card companies are obviously looking for ways to make more money, like with the pay over x months Amex also introduced recently.
There seems to be a lot of reassessment of risk at Amex at the moment, related to spend on the card. I imagine it was automated based on your large transaction. If you are paying off in full it should make no difference to you, but should highlight sudden large unusual (for the card) transactions may make Amex a bit edgy.
The large purchase wasn’t that large (several thousand) and was in line with other large purchases made on the account over time.
After I’d put it through and triggered the 2-4-1 I stopped using the card and went back to my other AMEX and then 10 days later they generated that letter
Strange! I mean it’s not the end of the world as I always pay in full anyway but the wording about increased risk & payment history & credit reference agencies in the letter got me concerned.
As I said, it seems to be a general thing at the moment.
https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/amex-personal-rate-upped-due-to-increased-risk/
Barclays did the same a few weeks ago.
Had the increase for my Cashback Everyday card a few months ago. Same thing happened last year and then they dropped it back down after 6-7 months.
Check your credit report, just in case there’s something there that shouldn’t be.
I also got this letter after i had closed my BAPP account!
Triple checked all three credit files and nothing has changed across all of them – all been the same for years now . . .
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