Is it worth getting Amex reinstated?

[Anonymous]

I posted awhile ago that Amex pulled my card in part (mostly) because they suddenly 'discovered' an old account I had had a balance owing.  That account had shown up on my reports last fall (same thing happened to 100s of other members here, i.e. old closed accounts showing up). Long/short is I called, they said yes old/closed in recovery, I said ok just tell me what I owed I'll pay, they said no records, don't worry, nothing I can do even when I insisted. I asked about applying for new cards, they said no problem, let us just remove this from your report.

So I app'd, approved, got them dated to my Member Since date, paid on time (early actually, sometimes a day or two after charges).  They cancelled without notice quoting the same old account, now all of a sudden it was $7,500.

I have asked if I pay that charge, as I asked to do before I applied, if they will reinstate, the best answer I get is 'maybe'.  Now I have no desire/intention to pay a 25 year old debt I offered to do unasked, if all it gets me is cancelled accounts I paid in good faith as well. I mean why pay $7500 to have youre credit ruined?

Anyway my question is this;

The Amex accounts were important because they were the only accounts of mine older then 1-2 years, as both cards they gave me were dated back to the '80s.

I do have some 'age' with AUs but on manual review that doesn't help.

As far as I know, the age of the closed accounts will still be counted in old/average.

Is it even worth it to muddle around with them, pay almost $10k in fees just to get it reinstated? Will my scores suffer horribly with a closed (but current and soon to be zero'd out) account that is 25 years old and my only remaining non-AUs are 1-2 years only.

I'd estimate with those and my util back where it belongs I'd he in the 750+ range across the board.

Not looking to get out of a debt, but I made offer to pay when I found out about it w/o question when it was 100% out of SOL, not collectable, and not reportable. Tried to do the right thing, but don't want the right thing to ruin me after the fact...

[Red1Blue]

I can not advice you what to do or not to do, I can share my expereince about my Oasis Card. I paid off $11.5K old company debt from 1995 and they issued me Optima Oasis with $5k CL. After 14 months I changed it to Clear. When I got the card and activated it, they CLD it to $1k CL. I am not happy about it again it is life and time to move on. At least I have my 14 year history added to CR and still Clear with $1k CL on my account as active so it add value to the AAoA. Hopefully one day they will give my $5K CL back.

[Anonymous]

Yeah that sounds like Amex sorry.

I guess I'm more curious about Fico Scoring as I don't really care if they reinstate AND lower to $50 IF it means I get the age and open account listed.  I'm wondering though if the closed/paid/current card with the age will get me pretty much the same benefit/score.  If there won't be much benefit between:

Started: 1982

Closed

Current

Balance $0

and

Started: 1982

Open

Current

Balance $0

 (not counting an CL of course)

is it worth the $8k or so they SAY I owe to get the latter vs the former.  As I understand it closed cards age still counts, the question is does 'Closed' hurt me in any other ways.

[Red1Blue]

I dont think closed vs open would make any difference at this point after 17+ years account. My suggestion, dont pay Amex, keep the money in the bank and use it for some thing else for your business. I would not deal with Amex after I have seen what they did to my account. I should have put my $11.5 K in the bank and use it for some thing else. If it is me, I would not pay Amex even a dime.

[Anonymous]

---

@Red1Blue wrote:
I dont think closed vs open would make any difference at this point after 17+ years account. My suggestion, dont pay Amex, keep the money in the bank and use it for some thing else for your business. I would not deal with Amex after I have seen what they did to my account. I should have put my $11.5 K in the bank and use it for some thing else. If it is me, I would not pay Amex even a dime.

---

That is kind of where I am at thanks. Let me ask you this then; some creditors say you need to have at least a 2-3 year history of credit of your own. With the Amex cards closed, I only have 18 months or so on any of my accounts.  Do the closed 25+ year cards 'count' in that case i.e. I had credit from 25 years ago with payments made on it in the last 90 days or so?

I had them on auto-pay so the Green was PIF last month, Amex Gold continues to pay min each month on time.

Message Edited by nyccc2 on 04-20-2009 03:07 PM

[Red1Blue]

Scores go up and down. I would not worry too much about them. Put your money in the bank.

[Anonymous]

Interesting I just pulled TU MyFico. Shows the two Amex as 'Cancelled By Guarantor' (not great on manual review I guess) but still counts their age in my oldest/average and my score remains at 709.  This WITH 9 of 10 accounts with balances and a 50% + Utilization. So seems I am far better served paying down those cards to get max 1 or 2 with balances and utilization to <10% that should slam me back up to 750+

I posted in another thread though that I was declined because of the util/# with balances, nothing I can do there, but curious what they meant by 'Collection INQUIRIES'. I have no Collections, and can't see if I have soft pulls from collection agencies, even though with no collection showing a collection inquiry should not ding me.

Anyway to get rid of those with disputes i.e. CA inquiry no Collection?

[Red1Blue]

Dont waste your time with inq's. Let them fall off. More you dispute the worse things can get. That happend to me with EX. After a while every thing I dispute they started putting as Major Derog. I finally gave up. Pay down the balances with that 8k and see what it does to your scores.

[Anonymous]

The things is I can't find any 'Collection Inquiry' only the recent app inquiries.

Do you mean you disputed inquiries and the marked those as derogs?