crazy Amex backdating question

[FutureBillionaire]

I had an Amex in college back in the days when I destroyed my credit.  I want to backdate my membership to that date, but they can't seem to locate the account.  Someone in another forum mentioned that they were able to convince them to do this without them locating an account. Has anyone heard of or dealt with a situation similar to this?

[ceemee2203]

Happened to me. You just have to be persistent. 

[thom02099]

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@ceemee2203 wrote:

Happened to me. You just have to be persistent. 

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Same scenario as OP, but different result from above.  Guess it depends on the decade OP and above are talking about !

I had an AMEX Green card waaaaay back in the day, after getting out of college and on my own and got my first AMEX in 1976.  Let it lapse for lack of use. Fast forward to 1991, when I applied again, got another Green card, but "abused" it and had account closed.  Fast forward to 2000s, tried again for AMEX and got the Clear/Zync cards, and got the backdate to 1991 since my internal files were clean.  I asked them about backdating to 1976 several times, but they couldn't find evidence of my account that far back, so no go on backdating that far.

[FutureBillionaire]

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@thom02099 wrote:

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@ceemee2203 wrote:

Happened to me. You just have to be persistent. 

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Same scenario as OP, but different result from above.  Guess it depends on the decade OP and above are talking about !

I had an AMEX Green card waaaaay back in the day, after getting out of college and on my own and got my first AMEX in 1976.  Let it lapse for lack of use. Fast forward to 1991, when I applied again, got another Green card, but "abused" it and had account closed.  Fast forward to 2000s, tried again for AMEX and got the Clear/Zync cards, and got the backdate to 1991 since my internal files were clean.  I asked them about backdating to 1976 several times, but they couldn't find evidence of my account that far back, so no go on backdating that far.

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They also told me that they needed evidence.  I know for a fact that I had one freshman year of college.  I bought a Nintendo 64 with it as my first purchase.

[NJTurnpike]

There's an AMEX Research & Recovery number you could try 1-800-700-7619.  They might have better luck finding your old account than the typical CSR number.

[Sevenfeet]

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@FutureBillionaire wrote:

I had an Amex in college back in the days when I destroyed my credit.  I want to backdate my membership to that date, but they can't seem to locate the account.  Someone in another forum mentioned that they were able to convince them to do this without them locating an account. Has anyone heard of or dealt with a situation similar to this?

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Ahem.

I think the reason I got them to do it was that I was only asking to backdate for another 12 months.  I figured I had gotten my original Green card back in the spring of '88.  My Gold came in March of '89 and in those days, it seemed that they closed the old account and just opened a new one, starting over.  Back-office computer systems to make a seemless transition were a lot cruder back then.

 If you're asking for five or 10 years, that may be a bit more of a problem.  But I agree...if the phone number from the archive group can help, that's your best option.

[FutureBillionaire]

Thanks all.  I'm just trying to find every possible solution.

[ceemee2203]

I was made an AU of a biz card in 12/11 (my first AMEX). They couldn't find my info but still backdated me to 05/08.

I did provide them with the card number, however, but she never found the account.