Amex card suspended and then cancelled

[shaya]

Just had antoher friend tell me that he was suspended. Thats two this week! Amex inquisitors are out in full force.

[alig4th]

+2 people here

[Rui N.]

You guys have weird conversations with your friends.

[alig4th]

alig4th wrote:

+2 people here

Married couple, good full time income (not self employed). Two AMEX cards for one cancelled and three for the other (so neither holds an AMEX on their own accounts anymore)

Rui N. wrote:

You guys have weird conversations with your friends.

You don’t talk “points” with your points-collecting friends?

[Rui N.]

I have real friends.

[alig4th]

Rui N. wrote:

I have real friends.

Haha. Yeah. And I assume some of those real friends collect points? Although I also assume some of them might also be too cool to regularly post on point collecting forums. Unlike you and I.

[Rui N.]

If they collect points they have the decency to not let the world know how weird they are 🙂
Joking aside, besides my OH, I’ve been very unsuccessful in proselytising anyone on our religion.

[Cranzle]

Paypal friends & family is the next thing that’s going to hit the fan.
Social media is rife with people cycling 3x their monthly credit limit on Amex cards.
This ‘hack’ is also being promoted by property ‘gurus’ and ‘entrepreneurs’ on their blogs/podcasts.

[JDB]

Rui N. wrote:

I have real friends.

The great thing about real friends is that one can talk to them about absolutely anything in confidence. Not sure why points should be excluded.

[JDB]

Cranzle wrote:

Paypal friends & family is the next thing that’s going to hit the fan.
Social media is rife with people cycling 3x their monthly credit limit on Amex cards.
This ‘hack’ is also being promoted by property ‘gurus’ and ‘entrepreneurs’ on their blogs/podcasts.

Well, there are a lot of very thick people out there who can’t see the writing on the wall. PayPal is but one aspect.

[NorthernLass]

Interesting. I tried to pay a chunk of council tax via Paypal last week and it bounced back as “failed”. There was no indication of whether the issue was with the council, Amex, or Paypal but I did briefly wonder if one of these entities was blocking the transaction. I paid with the Virgin card directly instead as I’m well on target for both our BAPP 241’s this year but it’ll be annoying if this route is closed down permanently.

[alig4th]

NorthernLass wrote:

Interesting. I tried to pay a chunk of council tax via Paypal last week and it bounced back as “failed”. There was no indication of whether the issue was with the council, Amex, or Paypal but I did briefly wonder if one of these entities was blocking the transaction. I paid with the Virgin card directly instead as I’m well on target for both our BAPP 241’s this year but it’ll be annoying if this route is closed down permanently.

Very happy that most councils take at least Visa/MasterCard. Paying our, my brother’s, my parents’ and my parents-in-law’s council tax from the Barclays card this month has gotten me a fair way to my next voucher and a chunk of points…

I’m pretty sure that’s not “gaming” (no T&C broken, all legit spend) before anyone jumps on this.

[Harrier25]

JDB wrote:

Cranzle wrote:

Paypal friends & family is the next thing that’s going to hit the fan.
Social media is rife with people cycling 3x their monthly credit limit on Amex cards.
This ‘hack’ is also being promoted by property ‘gurus’ and ‘entrepreneurs’ on their blogs/podcasts.

Well, there are a lot of very thick people out there who can’t see the writing on the wall. PayPal is but one aspect.

It isn’t the case that there are a lot of people out there who are very thick, they’re idiots that just cannot keep their mouths shut and think they’re being clever by bragging.
“Look at me, aren’t I clever”…errr, no!

[NorthernLass]

Council tax is legit spend! They don’t have to accept credit cards (and indeed, some don’t).

[CarpalTravel]

Rui N. wrote:

If they collect points they have the decency to not let the world know how weird they are 🙂
Joking aside, besides my OH, I’ve been very unsuccessful in proselytising anyone on our religion.

So it isn’t just me then? I don’t push it but if anyone ever shows any interest, or it may be relevant to them, I mention it and go all in if they want to know more.

Out of all the people I have ever preached to though, over the years, I only know of two who have actually gone on to collect the points, and only one of them has gone on to any real effort. She actually messaged me a few weeks back thanking me for the help, as by using the airmiles she had just saved over 3k (whilst still taking into account the cost to collect) on her first booking. Safe to say, they were beyond delighted.

Most others only seem to show a flicker of followup interest the week before they want to make a booking, and then seem disheartened to know they can’t realistically earn 150k+ points and a voucher in that period. I guess I am no loss to the world of marketing!

Sorry, gone O/T.

[Rui N.]

I got an Amex referral once from a work colleague and that was it.
Most real friends sometimes show sort of amazement of the trips I can make, but never are interested when I tell them how I can “afford” them.

[NorthernLass]

Same here. Mainly our friends are very similar to us in terms of education and income etc, but call us jet-setters yet show the same complete lack of interest in being able to travel like we do (though P2 and I being relatively young retirees does help as well!)

[Peter K]

People don’t want to commit to putting the effort in.

One person went for an amex platinum which they’ve since kept and don’t want to diversify from that.

Another went for an amex cashback card and again have kept with it…but when I had the 18k (or 24k I forget which) referral offer, I suggested their player 2 also goes for an amex and I’d chuck in £60 as a sweetner on top of their usual bonus….not interested. They just wanted to put through spend on one card as it kept things simple. Even when I pointed out £60 was the equivalent of the cashback on £12000 spend (a lot for them) they weren’t interested 🤷🏻‍♂️

[sh-uk]

Going back to the original topic, I just spoke to a friend who believes that my cancellation after only having the card a couple of weeks was because I was paying it off pretty much as I went, instead of waiting until the end of the month. He thinks it may have signalled to the system that I was unable to pay (when, I guess on some level I thought I was signalling the opposite!). I didn’t really have a repayment plan in place and figured I would just figure it out as I went… but perhaps in my getting to know how this all works I inadvertently did things that suggest I am ‘unwilling or unable to make repayments’ (as per the letter I received)?

Going forward, does anyone have any advice on repayments? What would card companies like to see exactly? Again, I’m incredibly new to this whole thing.

Thanks.

[NorthernLass]

I pay all our cards off every couple of weeks as I don’t like running large balances and had never had an issue with this. In fact, I thought that it goes on your credit record as a positive every time you pay down a card balance? But common sense suggests that people who genuinely can’t pay wait until the statement lands then pay the minimum or less than the full amount owing.

[Froggee]

sh-uk wrote:

Going back to the original topic, I just spoke to a friend who believes that my cancellation after only having the card a couple of weeks was because I was paying it off pretty much as I went, instead of waiting until the end of the month. He thinks it may have signalled to the system that I was unable to pay (when, I guess on some level I thought I was signalling the opposite!). I didn’t really have a repayment plan in place and figured I would just figure it out as I went… but perhaps in my getting to know how this all works I inadvertently did things that suggest I am ‘unwilling or unable to make repayments’ (as per the letter I received)?

Going forward, does anyone have any advice on repayments? What would card companies like to see exactly? Again, I’m incredibly new to this whole thing.

Thanks.

Card companies like direct debits paid from a bank account in your name. They probably prefer a direct debit for the minimum payment as that maximises their profits but in terms of being solvent, a direct debit for the full bill would work best.

I suspect there will be more to it then paying it off as you went although if something triggered Amex to look at your account in more detail, then doing this would seem a bit weird.

[The Savage Squirrel]

If you are paying off as you go … and in that way managing to spend multiples of your credit limit in one month on a card you’ve only just opened, then might this trigger some automatic risk management algorithm?

[NorthernLass]

Yes, that would be a bit different. I never spend anything like my credit limit in a month, I just don’t like big bills appearing!

[Cranzle]

Amex are checking the account holder names from where the payment has come. I think it’s only with new cards and they haven’t implemented it with all the historical setups yet.

[NorthernLass]

A post earlier about (another) reader being given the wrong Amex cancellation date also mentioned that on chat the agent was almost complaining about people signing up for the 70k bonus costing Amex a fortune, so that makes me wonder if these accounts are the ones Amex is being particularly proactive about “reviewing” for a reason to close them down?

It would be interesting to know how many cards have been suspended then closed prior to the 70k avios posting …