amex has revived a closed 30 year old account ??

[Mustangfrank]

Well I called American Express and the cancelled card that has mysteriously appeared on my Amex account was a Charged Off account from 30 years ago.

I asked the Customer Rep if this was common and they said it is not common to suddenly appear on the Amex website but they said the charged off account does remain

in their files indefinately.

I asked if I should pay off the balance of $600 and they said the account was already charged off and it was up to me if I wanted to pay it off.

This does not appear on any of the Credit Bureau Reports and is not affecting my credit rating.

It does say that there is a balance due though on the card which is labeled canceled.

I asked if all my other cards were in good standing and they said yes.

I asked for their advice and they said they could not advise one way or the other it was up to me if I wanted to pay the 30 year old balance.

I guess they wrote off the debt.

Strange though.

The CR said it is not common but not uncommon either whatever that means.

[Sevenfeet]

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@Revelate wrote:

There's a chance they simply merged some historical account data for a bunch of customers, and yours simply happened to be one now viewable in a customer-facing database.  I doubt it was you specifically.

I'm of the opinion it's always better to be proactive in such scenarios, but this is an admittedly unfamiliar situation.  I don't think the situation is as dire as you think, presumably they did indeed know about the past debt if it was in a dataset to be merged anyway, I'm just surprised it shows up in the account interface.

Also non-zero chance they did a software upgrade and an account is suddenly now showing that hidden previously.  I think I'd flip a coin as to whether call, plead ignorance, and at least for me probably pay if they asked, or just ignore it for a month and see if it simply disappears.

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I work in IT and I would agree with this.  Recently an old record from Amex showed up on my wife's credit report describing that she was still an authorized user to her mother's Amex card.  Because of that it skewed her oldest account record to back when this green card was opened...nearly 30 years ago (she was 14 years old then).  I'm guessing that Amex has a new data system that is allowing them to expand the amount of historical data they can keep on their production system without performance penalties.  Usually when you are dealing with millions and millions of financial records going back decades, often you will limit the amount of historical data you keep because the system just wouldn't operate quickly.  But newer data servers can handle vastly larger data sets without penalty.

But when you bring back old data, you also bring back any errors that came along for the ride.  In this case, it still showed my wife as active authorized user, even though she hadn't been since the mid 90s.  Amex has corrected the issue, now showing the information as "terminated" but it still shows up in her credit report, where it hadn't before.  At first I thought it was a fluke but now I'm thinking that Amex is reviving historical data to their production system.

[dnice77]

Interesting, i know many on the boards will dispute me but if you can afford it id just pay the $600 and move on if its legitimatly your debt. It sucks some crazy debt popped back up but it may be better in the long run then if some automated comuter links everthing together and negitavely closes all your accounts.

i have a old CO out there i hope thhis doesnt happen to me. When i got back in AMEX i had 2 charge offs, i paid one before i found the credit blogs i didnt pay the other one.

i have a total of 6 AMEXs now... 3 personam, 2 biz and 1 corp. when i call amex only sometimes they bring up the charged off account, i think its when i call the Crop Card number.

[antae]

I would just pay it, but that's me.

[Mustangfrank]

I asked the Customer Rep if I am required to pay the 30 year old debt and she said no I was not because it was Charged Off and the card was 

 canceled. She said it would not affect my three other accounts which are in good standing.

But everytime I log into my Amex account now the old Gold Card is there and it shows $600 balance due and to pay by a certain date as if it were an active card.

To tell you the truth I don't even remember closing my account with an outstanding balance.

Maybe American Express is going after old unpaid balances.

Although if they wrote off this debt and I now pay it that would create some interesting book keeping.

[Mustangfrank]

I decided to leave the account alone as i don't have any documentation from Amex showing what this alleged unpaid debt is even for.

I do not want to open a can of worms.

If they want to close me down after 30 years then so be it.

I have excellent credit now and other cards.

If they do not want my business than I guess I would have to take it elswhere.

Funny today I received two pre approved Amex card offers for the same Gold Card they canceled and an additional travel card.

Go Figure.

[toppers555]

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@Mustangfrank wrote:

I decided to leave the account alone as i don't have any documentation from Amex showing what this alleged unpaid debt is even for.

I do not want to open a can of worms.

If they want to close me down after 30 years then so be it.

I have excellent credit now and other cards.

If they do not want my business than I guess I would have to take it elswhere.

Funny today I received two pre approved Amex card offers for the same Gold Card they canceled and an additional travel card.

Go Figure.

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Hopefully they don't shut you down, but again it only 600 bucks, and you know it a debt you owed.  I guess I am just a believer in paying my debts back .

[webhopper]

I'm not hearing that mustangfrank knows that a balance remained on the old account.

If I were in your shoes I would co tact amex and ask it to be removed from your account. If they wont; send a cease and desist letter via certified mail.

Whether you actually pay it is your choice. If it were me I would pay it if I believed it was legit.

[Mustangfrank]

I asked the customer rep if they had any records of the canceled card and she said no.
I asked her if I should pay the outstanding balance and she said it was already charged off. I asked her what I should do and she just said if I wanted to pay it off I could but then repeated the account has been charged off.
This account does not appear on any of the three Credit reporting Agencies as I have checked.
I would like to actually see what I am being charged for. What was purchased and when.
I quite honestly do not remember 30 years ago what I had outstanding. I would think I would remember if something went to collection.
The Amex website instructed me how to remove the card from my account and I followed the instructions.
I have found where people have paid off ancient debts to card companies and banks and have had their accounts canceled even if their present accounts are all in order.
My research tells me if I pay into this dead account then I could very well be opening Pandora's Box.
Something to think about.
I will continue researching for answers.
I must say the Amex customer reps were very nice and as helpful as they could be given the circumstances.

[j_casteel]

They wouldn't be losing 30years of business if they shut you down, but you'd lose 30years of backdating. You had the card in the 80s, it became a CO, and now recently app'd and got cards again. They backdated your new cards thus bringing your old CO card back up on your account. I'd pay it, but that's just me. If they told you that you don't need to then I guess don't and just see how everything goes.