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I’m currently travelling in East Asia (7 hour time difference) and woke up yesterday with an email from Amex saying that all my cards (Business Platinum with 15+ supplementary cards and my personal gold card) had been suspended. This came as a complete surprise to me so I immediately called them but apparently since I was outside of UK business hours nothing could be done.
I waited until the evening my time to call back and I was told my account had been flagged for financial review and I need to provide some documents related to my business for them to remove the block on my cards. Apparently I was sent an email about this but I thoroughly scrubbed my emails and definitely never received anything. I was then told they can reshare the email with the instructions on how to provide what’s required but it can take some time to come through so I can’t stay on the line with them until it arrives. I naively went to bed and woke up 8 hours later with still no email from them. This is incredibly frustrating as I could have provided the documents within minutes if I was simply told who I need to send them to.
I have essential business payments that need to be paid and every day that this goes unresolved is costing me thousands of pounds of lost business. Does anyone know whether its possible to escalate this so that it can be resolved over the weekend?
I feel particularly wronged by Amex here for a few reasons:
1. I was never initially given any notice prior to the cards being suspended which is extremely disruptive to my business. I’m spending GBP 1m+ on my business platinum card annually so why was no alternative attempts to contact me made (no follow up emails to check I had received the initial email, no phone calls etc.)?
2. My attempt to get a second email from them has also failed – suggesting their IT is likely faulty
3. Why was my personal card also blocked if this is an issue with my business? I have income outside this business which Amex are aware of that more than covers the minimum requirements for this card and my spending profileSince it seems likely all of these issues stem from Amex incompetence i.e. faulty IT with emails not being sent and the failure to follow up. Does anyone think I have a case for compensation here? (either MR points or financial compensation)
Who can I escalate this to?
Please let me know if anyone has ever had similar experiences.
This seems to be increasingly common these days, several people have posted recently about similar experiences, e.g:
https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/amex-have-cancelled-all-my-cards/
Unfortunately all I think you can do is carry on calling until this is resolved – ultimately you can log a complaint or go to the FOS but these will be lengthy processes.
Amex will probably argue that they are acting within their own Ts and Cs but they seem to be completely oblivious to the distress and inconvenience they cause their customers by implementing these reviews and closures with no apparent warning.
Also – I don’t know how it works, but for someone spending high amounts with Amex, do they not allocate you a personal account manager or other contact in the same way that banks do?
@Bloxorus that’s awful, especially if you are/were relying on the insurance cover for your trip. Yes they will tell you that they are acting within their T&Cs but also they do not adhere to their their T&Cs regarding notification of blocking cards/accounts.
The suspension of your account may or may not be entirely valid (there could be a potential rogue or fraudulent transaction, security breach or anything). Most obviously and sorry if this is teaching your grandmother to suck eggs – have you checked that your Email address on file is correct – could have been changed if the account has been compromised – this can occasionally be quite subtle (e.g. just a single character changed) if the intention is merely to stop warning Emails going out…)?
Failing to resolve it with the customer when they are on the line and being unable to resolve this over a weekend for a relatively high value account are both unarguably extremely poor.
Did you check your spam folder for their email?
For my case, kind people on here recommended steve.squeri@aexp.com and/or CEO Hannah.L.Lewis@aexp.com . Steve did actually reply to me on a Sunday afternoon, which I appreciated. Not that it made any difference to summary cancellation in my case, but you sound like a more important customer so may be worth a try. Good luck!
@Bloxorus – this sounds a bit of a nightmare if you need to make regular large payments. In response to your questions, they won’t give notice of suspensions as that would nullify the purpose of such suspensions. They have blocked your personal cards because they are part of the same credit profile as your business card for which you are personally liable (including the spending on your 15+ business supplementaries).
Unfortunately I don’t think anything is likely to happen over the weekend as even if a senior exec were to reply to any message, they can’t override credit decisions, although they can make sure the admin issue is addressed promptly. Amex in effect conducts constant credit reviews drawing data from external and internal sources as well as monitoring spend patterns, credit utilisation etc. They will have observed something from this process that has flagged your account for more detailed manual review which isn’t always super quick, even if requested documents are supplied by return.
Translation: they have screwed you and your business, deservedly or not.
Only having Amex cards for your business is the strangest part though! Always have a back up
Only having Amex cards for your business is the strangest part though! Always have a back up
Yes, the OP’s suggestion of thousands of pounds of lost business because an Amex has been suspended didn’t sound right. If you are putting through £1m+ on the Amex card, one must have other available payment methods. In the context of compensation referred to by the OP, while they might chuck £50/£100 for inconvenience if the OP attempted to claim for any actual losses incurred by the suspension, that might be a two edged sword as it would tell Amex nobody else wanted to extend you credit or that the company had insufficient cash flow/resources.
Have you ever done MS?
I’m currently travelling in East Asia (7 hour time difference) and woke up yesterday with an email from Amex saying that all my cards (Business Platinum with 15+ supplementary cards and my personal gold card) had been suspended. This came as a complete surprise to me so I immediately called them but apparently since I was outside of UK business hours nothing could be done.
I waited until the evening my time to call back and I was told my account had been flagged for financial review and I need to provide some documents related to my business for them to remove the block on my cards. Apparently I was sent an email about this but I thoroughly scrubbed my emails and definitely never received anything. I was then told they can reshare the email with the instructions on how to provide what’s required but it can take some time to come through so I can’t stay on the line with them until it arrives. I naively went to bed and woke up 8 hours later with still no email from them. This is incredibly frustrating as I could have provided the documents within minutes if I was simply told who I need to send them to.
I have essential business payments that need to be paid and every day that this goes unresolved is costing me thousands of pounds of lost business. Does anyone know whether its possible to escalate this so that it can be resolved over the weekend?
I feel particularly wronged by Amex here for a few reasons:
1. I was never initially given any notice prior to the cards being suspended which is extremely disruptive to my business. I’m spending GBP 1m+ on my business platinum card annually so why was no alternative attempts to contact me made (no follow up emails to check I had received the initial email, no phone calls etc.)?
2. My attempt to get a second email from them has also failed – suggesting their IT is likely faulty
3. Why was my personal card also blocked if this is an issue with my business? I have income outside this business which Amex are aware of that more than covers the minimum requirements for this card and my spending profileSince it seems likely all of these issues stem from Amex incompetence i.e. faulty IT with emails not being sent and the failure to follow up. Does anyone think I have a case for compensation here? (either MR points or financial compensation)
Who can I escalate this to?
Please let me know if anyone has ever had similar experiences.
Did you ever get this sorted?
Did you ever get this sorted?
Not the OP, but since they never posted back I assume it was resolved. I got hit with a credit review earlier this year, I hold Amex cards in multiple countries, but it was UK which reviewed me.
Nothing really to it, they want to know your income, source of income, etc. – I explained my somewhat complicated situation, that I get paid in a different currency, by a foreign organisation but have significant ties to the UK still, including full, regularly used banking facilities and, most importantly a residential address. I also hold multiple citizenship (including the UK). Broke down my income/expenditure on average (converting all to GBP for ease their end). A few days later I got a message saying my card had been reactivated, all good.
They possibly got spooked by a significant increase in debt held in the UK, which I explained was at 0%, showed I was making payments, proved I had the £ on hand to repay it immediately if anything were to happen and what my plan was to repay it (they’ve started dropping off, but at one point were providing a modest income I could have frugally lived on each month).
@QFFlyer – although it’s rather tedious, this seems to be the sensible approach! It does appear from previous posts here that some people take umbrage when asked about their financial situation so get rather uncooperative or annoyed and then provide the bare minimum and that whole approach can raise questions in itself and then they are surprised to get shut down.
It’s all better though than three recently reported FOS cases against Amex because CIFAS markers have been placed against the cardholder following these routine enquiries. One supplied faked bank statements that Amex checked with the bank because they looked suspicious, another who supplied similarly faked statements claimed it wasn’t him who uploaded them but a friend messing about and another tried to pass his father’s bank statements off as his own with the connivance of his father. None of the complaints were upheld.
Not the OP, but since they never posted back I assume it was resolved.
In my experience those that do get a situation resolved in their favour / to their satisfaction are more likly to come back and report their success than those that failed in that respect.
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