Yeah I agree wholeheartedly with all you guys. Each of these banks have a certain thing that gets them twisted on a very high level. NSF is one of them. I wouldn't poke that bear personally tbh.
I too had the Platinum (and have it again now) and in my hayday I spent way more than you and never had a missed payment and always PIF every month. I even put a $30K custom Harley-Davidson motorcyle on it one month. Then my business failed and even though I didn't owe AX a dime at the time they canceled all my cards. Took me 19 years to get back in. But on an up note my new cards have my original Member Since date of 1984 lol. Also meaning AX never forgets lol.
@bigseegar a $30k motorcycle? My Man... I LOVE swiping for things with wheels. Did it with each of my kids cars, and a truck I bought last year. The dealer said it was the strangest deal he had ever done, but they were fascinated. And with all the civil asset forfeiture happening I explained that its pretty darn safe too.
@805orbust wrote:@bigseegar a $30k motorcycle? My Man... I LOVE swiping for things with wheels. Did it with each of my kids cars, and a truck I bought last year. The dealer said it was the strangest deal he had ever done, but they were fascinated. And with all the civil asset forfeiture happening I explained that its pretty darn safe too.
Haha yeah it was a pretty nice deal. I was in Atlanta on business and stopped by the HD Store there. Dang if they didn't have the bike I wanted on the floor for sale, albeit marked up an extra grand. Living nearby in NC but also knowing I was going to be in San Antonio the following week and Dallas the week have that, I ask the GM if I could put a deposit on it using a credit card to hold it for 2 weeks. He replied you can put the whole bike on a card if you want, I don't care. SO I whipped out the old Platinum and did just that lol. Drove down 2 weeks later and picked it up.
@W261w261 wrote:If you wouldn't mind reliving a painful experience, could you share what you believed was the process that resulted in Amex canceling your cards even though you were paid up? Was there any one thing on the rest of your CR, a big dive on your score, civil litigation of some kind? Did you keep the Amex accounts paid hoping they would not react to what was going on in the rest of your financial life? If you could relive that period, aside from the business failing, is there some way that you think you could have contoured your profile such that Amex would not have had a fear attack and canceled you out?
I never to this day have ask AmEx of even tried to figure it out. Because honestly I don't blame them. I was in a bad business situation all of a sudden due to the then economy and it wasn't AmeX's fault they were just protecting themselves and I've never to this day blamed them for that. Matter of fact looking back it was probably a blessing because I'm sure had they not closed them when they did I would have ended up unintentionally burning them probably. I'm pretty sure their closure was a result of the way AmEx monitors your personal credit reports monthly and your business DNB reports. I think they probably (I mean they are in the financial business) saw that an all of a sudden growing business debt and personal debt to a smaller degree as an adverse warning. Eventually I was forced to file personal and business BK, but that was after they canceled my cards. I tried to stay afloat longer than I should thus going deeper in the hole and I think they saw that as well. They also knew that my normal spend on my AmEx cards, especially my Platinum card, which back then was invitation only based on your spend on your Gold card, like the Black card (it didn't exsist yet) is today, was always very high so they were spooked about the possibility of a significant loss there as well.
It took years to get back on my feet and eventually build another business that employeed 52 full-time people with an income of $4.5 million before I sold it to a national chain. To show you how strong their Black List is though, even though I had totally rebuilt my personal and business credit, personal net worth and was paying myself an IRS documented $60,000 a month salary. They still didn't let me back in until last year and after I had sold the business and greatly reduced my income. Almost exactly 19 years to the day they booted me. I now have 6 AmEx cards including the Platinum again.
