American Express
Stealth APR increase on all balances, card cancelled in response

"Stealth" Interest Rate Increase

Check your last two hard copy AMEX statements for "Important Information about your Account"

Buried in the fine print on the reverse side of your bill may be a note telling you that as of a certain date your APR on all new charges and previous balances will be increasing. (In my case 30% - from 9.99% to 12.99%)

When called they will attempt to distract you with a recital of AMEX's supposed benefits rather than give you a reason for the increase. When pressed all they can say is that they're doing this on a "lot of" cards.

I expressed my outrage clearly, figuring that my excellent credit and routine high (interest generating) balances would lead them to try to retain me as a customer. Guess again. They made no movement to retract their unwarranted so I immediately cancelled their card after a (until now) good 10 year relationship. All outstanding balances on this profitable card (for them) will be paid off within 60 days - and at the old rate since I closed the account.

My question is this... Is this the kind of idiotic business plan we are now subsidizing with our bailout money. If it is, we are all in big trouble

Company: American Express
Country: USA
State: Texas

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