I’ve had trouble recently closing credit card accounts. Just wasn’t happy with the modified “rewards” structure. The customer service drone wanted to know why I was leaving the XXXXX “Family” after 12 years. I told her just close the account. She literally tried to psycho analyze me and wanted me to speak with her manager. Unreal.
That’s their job.
You call to cancel a card, and you immediately get sent to the bank’s card retention department. The folks there have incentives and get bonuses based on how many cards they “save”. Amex is the worst one for this. They’ll keep you on the phone forever trying to get you to stay by offering to waive fees, lower interest rates, free balance transfers, etc....until you almost have to resort to profanity to get them to cancel the card.
I closed an AMEX card just the other day. Took me about 2 minutes, no hassle at all. Got an email confirmation within an hour and they are sending a followup snailmail. The only thing they asked for the next day was for me to participate in a survey, which I refused, and that was the end of it.