Yikes! That was a mouthful.
So my story begins about a year ago at the beginning of the Covid crisis. I work in the carnival / Outdoor amusement industry as a concessions guy. Our industry over night had shut down and things were looking extremely scary.
At the beginning of each season, we as a whole make huge investments in new equipment in preparation for our season. I had been down the path of rebuilding and did everything in my power to avoid defaulting on any payments. I worked @ Uber, Lyft, Instacart, Shipt.. I took out ads on craigslist to deliver furniture and even got a job painting airport runways.. In the end I had to enter into an Amex program and make monthly payments on my platinum card. During the time I was in the program, all of my accounts were frozen... But my payment were very managable at $500.00 per month spread over 5 years.
By August, I Started a new Temporary business.. I opened two stores and had 7 portable operations spread througout 4 states.. Thankfully due to hard work and a bit of luck, I was able to repay my Amex balance in Full and exit out of the 5 year payment plan in 5 months.. (phew, that was close)
Then it happened.. In February, I woke up one day and my my platinum card had a $4,000.00 limit.. My blue business card had a new limit of $700.00, My other two Amex cards were reduced to $1,000.00 limits.. Around this time, fairs and festivals were starting to open again and things were looking up. I continued to use my cards within the imposed limits and at times became very frustrated.. In Apr, I spent over $60,000.00 between my Blue business and Platinum cards which often required that I pay multiple times per day..
I had to pay so frequently to use the cards, that sometimes they would freeze all payments until they called the bank to verify funds.. which sometimes took as much as 40 minutes.. Talk about being mad and frustrated.. I called to speak to the responsible lending team, and sent tax returns for my business, but they wanted my personal assets that were run dry staying a float during a year where I was shut down.. I told them .. yeah, my income last year was 0.. I opened a savings account with AMEX and started direct depositing my paychecks into the account. (what I went through to keep these cards)
Anyway long story short, I finally "semi" passed a financial review today after my third attempt at getting a higher limt.. My platinum card still has a limit.. but its a much higher and usable $29,300.00 limit. Im working on getting the $700.00 limit raised on my Blue Business Card.
These hoops that you have to jump through to work with Amex are absolutely amazing. That being said, I'm glad I survived and back on track to higher limits with then.
Last Inquiry 12/23/2022 Ally Bank Mortgage
Wow. Thanks for sharing.
GL!
They did send me a notice letting me konw the limit had been placed on my accounts. They also gave me a list of reasons..
@tparks5961 I believe you can appeal. I haven't tried myself, but I felt their reasons were not valid. I would see if they're willing to remove the limits. It never hurts to ask 
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Glad you came out of the work problems. Personally I would never rely on any bank that did this to me ever again and I suggest you start moving your business away from Amex and towards CUs and other banks. Once you hammered the balance to zip in 5 months on a 5 yr deal and that didnt matter would be the end of them for me. I dont carry Amex cards and never will again.
Hey dale,
Ill be under 5/24 in October. If it wasn't for that fact, I would have applied for Chase business cards.
After the work done over the past few months to get a decent limit, I'll have a few cards report this month to see how they react. Ill post UTI of around 35%. I just need a break from paying this much attention to balances 8*)
I missed the statement date by 1 day on 3 cards last month so I had 3 cards report with a balance.. Dealing with them has been so exhausting.
I'm not sure if chase is any better.. Any thoughts?
@tparks5961 wrote:Hey dale,
Ill be under 5/24 in October. If it wasn't for that fact, I would have applied for Chase business cards.
After the work done over the past few months to get a decent limit, I'll have a few cards report this month to see how they react. Ill post UTI of around 35%. I just need a break from paying this much attention to balances 8*)
I missed the statement date by 1 day on 3 cards last month so I had 3 cards report with a balance.. Dealing with them has been so exhausting.
I'm not sure if chase is any better.. Any thoughts?
You could get a Chase card but they are known to whack just like Amex does though typically not demanding tax returns straight from the IRS for financial review. If it were myself I would most likely get one Chase business card and seek out several credit unions that offer business credit for a card or even a business LOC. Spreading the risk around really helps avoid this kind of thing.
@gdale6 wrote:
You could get a Chase card but they are known to whack just like Amex does though typically not demanding tax returns straight from the IRS for financial review. If it were myself I would most likely get one Chase business card and seek out several credit unions that offer business credit for a card or even a business LOC. Spreading the risk around really helps avoid this kind of thing.
+ 100
Over my 50+ years of CC's, all my current favorites are CU's.
I don't have Chase, Amex, BofA, or Citi (* Anymore *)
PS: I don't miss any of them either. 