AMEX ruined my credit too - long story. I hate them too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how long has it been since they assessed the fee? 30 days and I'm with you. 90 days and not so much.

They assessed the fee on May 25. I paid the bill about 2 days later (immediately got a notification of a credit score change and paid it), and called today.

But when was it originally due?

It sounds like you were more than 30 days late.

OP here. Yes, I think it was between 30-60 days. I didn't get any bills from Am Ex, but it was my negligence not to look online. But it was because I don't ever use the card and haven't used it in a full year. I understand I have to pay my bills. But this wasn't me forgetting to pay my credit card that I use. It was an annual fee from the card itself. It seems a little like extortion. This was their annual fee for NEXT year. If I didn't pay it, cancel my damn card. Don't report it to a credit agency and then refuse to remove the report after it has been resolved. This is their fee for me to continue to be their customer. If I haven't paid it, it seems Draconian to destroy my credit score, no?

Anyway, I'm reporting it to the BBB. I know I'm ultimately at fault -- my issue is that my fault was very small (it was $125 annual fee, for goodness sake) and their reaction was very large.

Amex is supposed to send you a paper bill unless you opt out. Amex is far worse to deal with than a bank visa or mastercard. Those I get people in the USA. When you call the amex numbers ask for a US call center and the people in India are supposed to transfer you. That might work since it is what you can do with amex travel.

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:OP again. They removed it from my credit report!

Bullshit. Total bullshit.

I work for one of the three bureaus and manage disputes.

Well, luckily for me my credit score doesn't depend on whether or not you believe it. The delinquency was removed and my credit score went back up above 750. That's all I wanted.

Suuuure... I suppose the bureaus decided to update their trade lines for you off cycle. Enjoy being a cunt.

You might want to take a look at what is wrong with your life that this is upsetting you so. OP missed a payment. You, however, are missing something a little more serious.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. They removed it from my credit report!

Bullshit. Total bullshit.

I work for one of the three bureaus and manage disputes.

Well, luckily for me my credit score doesn't depend on whether or not you believe it. The delinquency was removed and my credit score went back up above 750. That's all I wanted.

Suuuure... I suppose the bureaus decided to update their trade lines for you off cycle. Enjoy being a cunt.

The same thing happened to me. My credit score dropped to low 700s! It had been around 800 before. Honestly I didn't care that much. Didn't impact getting a mortgage, I don't need credit for anything else, and its going back up over time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. They removed it from my credit report!

Bullshit. Total bullshit.

I work for one of the three bureaus and manage disputes.

Well, luckily for me my credit score doesn't depend on whether or not you believe it. The delinquency was removed and my credit score went back up above 750. That's all I wanted.

Anonymous wrote:OP again. They removed it from my credit report!

Bullshit. Total bullshit.

I work for one of the three bureaus and manage disputes.

OP again. They removed it from my credit report!

I learned to open all bills and read them. That's smart.

OP, I would call and call again - but when you speak to a rep., play nice. I'd guess you sound frustrated and may be quite short with them- which I understand. Explain what happened, maybe say you weren't expecting a bill, maybe that you thought the card had been canceled due to lack of activity... Try to get them to e sympathetic to you, and say you have had good customer service from them in the past and hope it can continue. Say you understand paying the fee but try to get it off the report. It doesn't need to be there. That's just nasty

Why would you pay $125 a year for a card you never use? You know that you can track your charges and balances online?

Yes, the arbitrator passed your "claim" to Amex. What did you think they would do? How could the other side respond if they didn't know about your "claim?"

This is your fault. You screwed up. What kind of resolution do you expect? GL on that one. We'll be waiting for an update.

Credit companies are assholes. Something similar happened to me in law school. One of the dept stores sent me a duplicate "reward" check. I should have received a single $25 check. I received two, sent to my mother's address (I had just moved). She cashed them or spent them and didn't tell me. I explained what happened when my student loan for the upcoming semester was declined. I would have been forced to sit out the semester (and had to explain for next year's financing) because the assholes wouldn't let me pay the $25 (and I offered to pay a penalty). I explained that my loans would be affected. They didn't care.

I barely scraped enough together from other sources and it caused a HUGE amount of grief for me. Over something stupid that they had in their control to change. BTW, less I get accused of having some big c/c bill while in school, I had a ZERO balance. I opened it for a single purchase that I paid off. This was their mistake.

Nothing but commiseration from me, OP.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are mind numbingly stupid. You screwed up and your resulting credit drop is entirely your fault AND the logical consequence of your mistake.

Please don't waste the time of some poor soul at the BBB -- you don't have a problem with Amex that needs resolution, you have a problem not being able to grow up and accept responsibility for your mistakes.

Are you one of those people who had their mommy call their professors because they got a bad grade, are you a special snowflake?

Too bad. I'm using BBB to see if Am Ex will remove the delinquency from my record. You guys really have a lot of pent up energy.

Well, go ahead and take it out on lil' ol' me. Happy to provide an outlet for your pent up rage.

I used to be a BBB arbitrator. I don't have any pent up rage but if your case came to me you'd be bounced out on your entitled keister in about 2 seconds with a request to not waste the BBB's time when there are plenty of people with genuine, substantive complaints to pursue.

Well, I'll keep you all posted. My BBB arbitrator has passed my complaint on to Am Ex. So I'm on my way to resolution! Yeah!

ex BBB arbitrator here... while you're doing your little victory dance, you may be informed to know that EVERY arbitrator passes on every complaint to the other side for a response...

WTF do you think the process is? Of course both sides get to be heard before there's a decision. Your "Yeah!" betrays a naive and juvenile, self-absorbed posture, whether or not you get anything out of this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've always had amazing customer service from Amex, but then again, I'm not the type of customer to whine about $125, either.

I would gladly have paid a $125 PENALTY not to have my credit score dinged.

Nothing fishy. Just as I said. I'm at fault. I didn't see the bill came in, and so it was a month late. Try to call customer service and you're in the Philippines. Which is only to say that it has been outsourced and these guys are really not given a lot of discretion when it comes to expunging something from the account. So I'll try BBB, where I see there are thousands of complaints against Am Ex, and in which I see most of them are satisfactorily resolved.

As for the "what would you say to your mother?" of course I understand no one knows me. But I just wanted to provide a little perspective. I might actually be a nice person who can't afford to have my credit score zinged, and it's possible to forget one credit card you never use and still be really responsible. But of course I know you guys don't know me, so no harm with the other perspectives!

Maybe the problem isn't with AMEX, maybe the problem is the company computing the credit score. Those are usually third party products to another third party and there formulation and algorithm could be off. I would take it up with whatever company is reporting the score.

Hey op just want to chime in to say WTF is everybody's problem? What a weird feeding frenzy. You made a simple mistake and you are totally within reason to expect a little leniency. Demand, no, but keep calling until you get through to someone who at least understands. Good luck.