American Express did the same to me — and I've heard of many others. A while ago they moved their credit card business (on paper, anyway) to some state that allows 27% interest as a "default rate." Now, as soon as you pay late, go over your limit, or do anything else, they set your rate to the default rate of 27%.
I called the FTC to file a complaint and was told by the lady that "a lot of people are in the same boat." Amex is obviously is trying to cover for the huge money they have in jeopardy in bad loans by setting as many of their paying customers to the "default rate" as they can.
Someone in Washington had better wake up to this. Not that they'll do anything about it. But in case there's anyone left in government that actually cares about regular people getting destroyed by big money, please pay attention:
It's not enough to set limits on Amex (or other credit issuers) except for consumers "in default", because that's exactly what they're doing: making as many cardholders as they can "in default" through any means possible. Suddenly demanding full payment, adding fees that put people over their limit, saying payments weren't made on time, etc., then calling them "in default."
It's a deliberate move by American Express. They went on an offensive to put as many of their cardholders "in default" as they could, using any pretext, to set as many people's rates as they could to 27%.
What we need is a NATIONAL "default rate" to stop this sort of thing. Once Amex sets a rate like 27% — with no recourse for the creditor — there's NO WAY to pay off the balance. You're either a slave to them forever, or you have to face total ruin.
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