American Express is continuing it’s attack on small business owners. The latest battlefield is the credit lines of small businesses who have never been late on a payment or gone over their limit. It’s understanding that the risks have increased for AMEX but you would think they would try to keep the best customers instead of kicking them when the economy is down. Here is a short excerpt from letter directly from American Express to an employer of six people.
Given today’s difficult economic environment, all of us need to think about how we control expenses and reduce risks. At American Express we want to be a responsible lender during prosperous times and more challenging ones. This means carefully reviewing the spending and debt profiles of our Cardmembers – and making difficult decisions.
Translation… we over extended ourselves and we need to cover our butt. We believe that the short-term risks are greater than the long-term impact of not being there for our best customers when they need us most.
Your credit limit may have changed, but your value to us has not. We remain committed to our relationship with you.
Translation… please try not to hate us to much. Even though our actions say that we don’t trust you we want you to continue to believe that you are important to us.
Good luck American Express. You’re actions are tarnishing your brand. You used to be the best friend of small business. Now you’re becoming a fair weather friend. We’ll remember how you treated us during these “challenging times”.
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Almost every small business owner that I’ve talked with as said that their AMEX account has been modified without warning. It looks like they’re working overtime to “reduce risk”. When all is said and done I wonder if they’ll have any happy customers left.