![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
How not to run a company
Dec. 6th, 2010 07:25 pmSo, I received a letter from AmEx today. Despite its tatty marketing look, it said on the outside "this contains important information". So I opened it and read it.
As you may recall, I tore up my Amex Platinum card in July, mainly because I could see no justification for paying 300 notes a year for not very much.
Before I had the Amex Platinum I had an Amex Green Card. I basically had this card because, in 1997, it was just about the only piece of plastic that my shot-to-shit credit rating could get (that itself going back to the Birks financial crisis of 1990). Within a year or so I had a Visa card, and a year or so after that I had a Mastercard, and a year after that I actually had a functioning bank account again. before I could blink I was looking at a Schwab debit card as well and, the rest is history.
Anyhoo, one day around 1999 AmEx decided to send me a Green credit card. I never used it, although I continued to receive statements every year or so telling me that my credit limit was x gazillion pounds and that my balance was £0.00.
Then, this morning, a letter informs me that the Green Credit card (the one I never used, and whose whereabouts I could not establish -- so I assume that I have cut it up and thrown it away) is being discontinued and that from Feb 2011 I would have a Gold Credit card. The major differences would appear to be that the interst on the card is 30% a year rather than 19.9%, and that there is an annual fee of £36 instead of zero. A double whammy indeed.
"If you wish to cancel this, please call the number on the back of your card", the letter said, or go to www.americanexpress.co.uk/optout.
Since I had no idea of the number of my card, let alone the telephone number on the back of it, I just phoned my old Platinum card number and waited until it got fed up with me not entering any codes. I finally got through to a person, and by some miracle I remembered my Platinum Card telephone ID pin (not the same as my ATM pin, but the same as my old Mastercard Pin) which enable me to cancel the whole shebang.
But it's all a bit rich, isn't it? AmEx sends you a card that you haven't ordered (but which is "free") and then, a decade later, send you a letter that could easily be ignored, telling you that a £36 fee is going to be introduced so that (if you ever use the credit line) you can pay 30% APR instead of 19.9% APR. What if I'd not even bothered to open the letter (I'd completely forgotten about that credit card, TBH)?
I think that American Express is losing clients for its cards on both the retail and the customer side of things. I don't think that it will be too long before it goes the way of Discovery and Diners.
____________
As you may recall, I tore up my Amex Platinum card in July, mainly because I could see no justification for paying 300 notes a year for not very much.
Before I had the Amex Platinum I had an Amex Green Card. I basically had this card because, in 1997, it was just about the only piece of plastic that my shot-to-shit credit rating could get (that itself going back to the Birks financial crisis of 1990). Within a year or so I had a Visa card, and a year or so after that I had a Mastercard, and a year after that I actually had a functioning bank account again. before I could blink I was looking at a Schwab debit card as well and, the rest is history.
Anyhoo, one day around 1999 AmEx decided to send me a Green credit card. I never used it, although I continued to receive statements every year or so telling me that my credit limit was x gazillion pounds and that my balance was £0.00.
Then, this morning, a letter informs me that the Green Credit card (the one I never used, and whose whereabouts I could not establish -- so I assume that I have cut it up and thrown it away) is being discontinued and that from Feb 2011 I would have a Gold Credit card. The major differences would appear to be that the interst on the card is 30% a year rather than 19.9%, and that there is an annual fee of £36 instead of zero. A double whammy indeed.
"If you wish to cancel this, please call the number on the back of your card", the letter said, or go to www.americanexpress.co.uk/optout.
Since I had no idea of the number of my card, let alone the telephone number on the back of it, I just phoned my old Platinum card number and waited until it got fed up with me not entering any codes. I finally got through to a person, and by some miracle I remembered my Platinum Card telephone ID pin (not the same as my ATM pin, but the same as my old Mastercard Pin) which enable me to cancel the whole shebang.
But it's all a bit rich, isn't it? AmEx sends you a card that you haven't ordered (but which is "free") and then, a decade later, send you a letter that could easily be ignored, telling you that a £36 fee is going to be introduced so that (if you ever use the credit line) you can pay 30% APR instead of 19.9% APR. What if I'd not even bothered to open the letter (I'd completely forgotten about that credit card, TBH)?
I think that American Express is losing clients for its cards on both the retail and the customer side of things. I don't think that it will be too long before it goes the way of Discovery and Diners.
____________
