Consumer complaint received 2017-08-14
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: MD
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Closing your account
Sub-issue: Company closed your account

Complaint:
In XXXX 2017 I applied for two AmEx products -- XXXX and XXXX. Both were subsequently approved. After receiving my cards, I jumped through a few hoops to verify my identity and began using the cards. I especially used the XXXX card to meet the spending threshold to receive XXXX Membership Rewards Points. Approximately one month after using the cards, I received a message telling me my cards were suspended. I immediately knew why -- American Express decided to conduct their infamous " Financial Review. '' I 've read countless horror stories about this prior to applying for these products. They did n't bother me because most of them involved circumstances that do n't apply to me. I know American Express claims they do this as a " sound business practice, '' but when reviewing data points, it does n't seem like it helps because in recent quarterly reports, XXXX and XXXX showed the strongest performance when it comes to overall portfolio health ( chargeoffs, loan debt, interest income, operational cost ). They both surpassed American Express, and they do n't conduct the infamous " Financial Review. '' After learning my suspicion was correct, I contacted AmEx and it was requested I submit documents requested by XXXX XXXX, 2017 or my account would be closed. When speaking to the representative, I told her to go ahead and close my accounts because I was not interested in playing American Express ' game. She insisted that she did not want to close my accounts and that I should just submit to the review. She won the day, so I acquiesced. I do n't receive any taxable income. My income consists of Social Security, Roth IRA and child support I receive because I am the legal guardian of my granddaughter. ROTH IRA draws are not taxed because they are originally contributed post income tax ; I do n't exceed the threshold for SS tax and ROTH IRA withdraws do not count toward the threshold ; and support income is not taxable. As such, I am not required to file taxes and much to American Express ' dismay I 'm sure, there 's no tax transcripts for them to poke through. I submitted bank statements to American Express approximately a month ago. Since that point, my accounts remained suspended and I heard no reply. I received several phone calls during this time, but they were messages telling me they needed the Social Security number for an authorized user -- which they already had because the account was duplicative. Today, XXXX XXXX, 2017, I received an email from AmEx telling me my accounts were canceled. If I said I was shocked, I 'd be lying. I 've read how American Express conducts business, and this was par for the course. However, I 'm concerned about two things. First, this was done without communicating to me why and without any communication from the people in the ivory tower who conduct these reviews. In addition, I was told I had until XX/XX/XXXX to complete this, and this action was taken on XX/XX/XXXX. It would be nice if AmEx reopened my accounts, and that is my request, but I 'm not naive or delusional enough to think that 's going to happen. I 'm not going to fret if they do n't. There are plenty of other card issuers available, and most are in better shape than American Express -- especially after hemorrhaging from their loss of XXXX portfolio. Instead, the main purpose of my complaint is to receive the XXXX membership rewards points and to create one more entry in the complaint database against American Express. Sure, it 's just one more complaint, but it gives one more piece of information to regulators to reel in the credit card industry from engaging in the egregious act of summarily closing cardholders ' accounts with no notice or explanation. Surely the industry realizes that the days of this practice are coming to a close, and as soon as the Orange pretend President, Donald, is impeached or resigns and the country is cleansed of Republican greed, a Democrat will take action to curb these  abuses.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation