When it comes to the miles and points space, there a re few big players, American Express dominates the space to a big extent, given their vast array of consumer and business cards on offer. Moreover, they tend to offer some of the most generous welcome bonuses. Over the years, card issuers have tightened rules and placed more restrictions on welcome bonuses and how often one can get them. Since Amex is one of the big players in the space, the last thing you want to do is get on their wrong side. However, as per certain data points, Amex is apparently shutting down accounts. The reason? Misuse, according to certain reports.
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American Express Shutting Down Accounts due to ‘misuse’
As per DDG, there’s some chatter on Reddit and other forums about a new wave of account shutdowns. This new wave seems to be particularly focused on customers who are using US issued American Express cards but are based out of China. The conversations in these threads are in Chinese. If you translate the page, you’ll be able to read the conversation, even though the translation may not be very accurate word by word.
However, if you parse through, you can see a few reasons why Amex may have dropped the hammer on some accounts:
- Bill pay abuse
- Buying gift cards
In the recent past, Amex has been pretty vigilant and has cracked down on accounts based on certain factors like self-referral and excessive manufactured spending.
Again, in this case, these are merely speculative based on the chatter in the forum. However, one things seems to be clear that it’s a massive chunk of accounts that Amex has dropped the hammer on. In certain cases, people are a bit flummoxed as they’ve seen accounts shut down in spite of them not using their Amex cards for a while.
The Pundit’s Mantra
On October 23rd, multiple cardholders based out of China reported that their US Amex account s had been shut down. In certain cases, Amex shut down all their cards or also the cards of their family members. Amex sent emails to affected users stating that their accounts were shut down due to ‘indicia of abuse’.
The actual reason for these mass shutdowns still remains unclear, though some suspect misuse indicators or patterns pertaining to large scale buying via buying groups based outside the US, bill pay abuse and excessive purchases of gift cards.
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