It's ridiculous to punish one customer for the problems of a "class of others", instead of looking at the individual credit and payment history of each customer.
later reading ping
It won’t be too far off: “Mr. Yokel, you ingest too much HFCS and alcohol. You have been reported to the National Health Agency.”
THank you, American Express (a subsidiary of NPR).
I have heard that credit card companies stand to lose money for the first time ever. As soon as I can gather up some cash, I am going to offer to pay them 2/3 of my outstanding balance in a lump sum if they will take it. Of course it must be in writing first.
What they wanted to do was monitor the programs I watched and then sell that info to their advertisers. I never plugged it in, lol.
AMEX definitely DOES look at individual credit and payment history of each customer. The standard AMEX card doesn’t carry any formal limit, and the real limit is constantly being adjusted based on all the factors AMEX can get hold of. Many years ago, I suddenly started making much bigger charges than I’d historically done (like single charges in amounts similar to what I’d historically charged over an entire year). The first one was actually airline tickets for a business trip that was going to be reimbursed. They didn’t block the charge when I made it, but did wisely give me a call soon afterwards just to inquire about 1) whether I’d actually made the purchase, and 2) what my current income was. As my charging patterns gradually rose much higher, and my payments remained timely, I never heard from AMEX again, and never had a charge blocked or questioned.
If somebody is charging payments to, for example, a sketchy multi-level marketing outfit (”just buy our $1000 start-up package, and you’ll soon be making $100,000 a year”), half of whose AMEX account holder customers had defaulted on their AMEX card payments within 6 months of making their first charge with the “merchant”, AMEX would be nuts not to scrutinize the account and reduce it if other factors weren’t impressive enough to offset the black mark.
I don't think that it sounds stupid or evil. I wouldn't want to loan money to somebody who appears to be spending it at adult establishments either and is apparently too stupid to realize he should be paying cash for items he doesn't want the wife to know about.
If ya take somone’s money, even on a loan with a promise to repay, ya ain’t got much to complain about if they’re checking up on your ability to repay it.
Irresponsible use of credit is what got us into this mess...now we’re going to complain when the finance company is trying to keep ahead of the game and restrict their losses?
If the American Express customers don’t like it, I suppose they could use their Visa or Mastercard.
Sometimes I really don’t get all the fuss.
Insurance companies are doing the same thing as well.
You can blame "data mining" for these sorts of activities, that is, where huge databases are subjected to very esoteric statistical analyses to spot future trends. One of the prime culprits/beneficiaries is SAS. If this practice is curtailed in the future, that could negatively impact SAS, possibly leading to layoffs at the software firm.
I never had a credit card in my life(I’m 50). I use my debit card with a VISA logo for most purchases. I guess I am old fashion. I feel if you don’t have the money, don’t buy it. You can rent a car if you travel with the debit card. They charge between 200 and 400 dollars deposit that is returned to your checking account when the car is returned.
I would send them a thanks but no thanks for the opportunity to pay 17% interest.
IMO, anything over about 12% is userous. When it gets up about 29%, they should be locking people up and throwing away the key.
I’m going back to cash. Except for emergencies, using credit cards for conveniences is borrowing money from your future.
When you owe someone money. They own you.
There are some good owners and some bad owners.
When you use a credit card or even a checking account. You are
giving up some of your personal freedom.
Perhaps, but I'm nost sure that they can look at your credit history without your permission. Yes, they can certainly look at your payment and spending patterns with their card but that's expected. After all, they do know if you pay or not, and they do know where you use your card. And they know where you live and they can find demographic data on your neighborhood - that is public information.
This is interesting. As a provider I will be sure that I tell my clients to watch where they use their credit cards or they will be tracked. Medical care and medicines are tracked and may hurt your credit score.