Credit Card Companies Pay Customers to Leave
Michael Shedlock recently wrote about American Express paying card holders to close their accounts. Let's take a look.
AmEx paying card holders to close their accounts
NEW YORK (Reuters) - American Express Co (NYSE:AXP - News), battered by mounting credit card losses, is offering $300 to a limited number of U.S. card holders who pay off their balances and close their accounts, the company said on Monday."We sent the offer out to a select number of card members," said Molly Faust, a company spokeswoman. "We are looking at different ways that we can manage credit risk based on the costumers overall credit profile."
The company did not say how many card holders would receive the offer and did not disclose the total of their card balances.
Card holders have until the end of February to accept the offer and must close their accounts in March or April. Each card holder will receive a $300 pre-paid American Express card.
This is a huge sign that credit card companies sense something coming. I think we can expect to start seeing a wave of troubles for credit card companies. American Express can obviously see something coming, and it seems they are trying to prepare for it.
Mish points out:
American Express needs to reconsider some of its trademarked slogans.
Revised Slogans
- "Don't Leave Home Without It" needs to become "Don't Leave Home With It".
- For our Canadian friends, "Ne Partez Pas Sans Elle" needs to become "Ne Partez Pas Avec Elle"
- "Lifetime Membership" needs to be changed to "Lifetime Membership Maybe"
- "Use The Card. Reap The Rewards" is clearly outdated. "Cancel The Card; Reap The Rewards" more accurately describes the current state of affairs.
Thanks Mish for the article and the humor. I think it's safe to say that we still have some credit problems ahead of us with credit card debt, and possibly (probably) with other forms of debt that have been less-problematic so far. We aren't out of the woods yet, lets see if other credit card companies begin to offer similar deals.