This is a placeholder for more thorough documentation of the pain that American Express have caused me. I have grave concerns that their behaviour may have a negative influence on my credit ratings, and I need to supply them a history of the problem in writing, presumably to encourage me not to proceed. I'll update this over the next few days; currently it's a copy of my comments in my diary.

American Express: We don't need no steenking customers

A few months ago I got an American Express credit card. As I mentioned at the time, I had had problems with them in the past, and hoped that things would be better this time round. They were not. Right from the word “go” I had problems with their web site, which locked me out of the system. Attempts to arrange direct debit failed in similar manner; to this day, direct debit has not been set up correctly. I tried again in January 2009. The web site was still broken, but they promised to send me a form, which never came.

All that wouldn't have been so bad if my March invoice hadn't got lost. The first I heard of it was when I got the following invoice with a supplementary charge. I called them up and resolved the problem—they were prepared to waive the charge because I had always paid in full, and fortunately this particular invoice had been very small. So I arranged to pay shortly before the date specified in the invoice.

But that wasn't the end of the matter. On 12 May 2009 I received another stupid call (“This is American Express, can you please identify yourself?”), telling me that I was in serious trouble because my account was in arrears. It seems that this part of American Express had wanted me to pay the sum immediately, and not to wait until the date stated on the invoice. What kind of nonsense is that, especially since I discussed exactly this matter with the previous consultant? Getting sense out of these people is like getting blood out of a stone, but the second consultant (Veronica) did tell me that the first one had given me incorrect advice, but that she would accept it, and I would have no further problems. I asked her how I could know that some future consultant would not say that she had given me incorrect advice; that was, of course, impossible.

Today the impossible happened: I received a letter from American Express, dated 21 May 2009, with the statement:

We recently reviewed your account and have revised your credit limit. The credit limit on your American Express Credit Card noted above has been reduced immediately.

The reduction was to $1,900—barely more than the current balance. Clearly this was related to the previous incident. And they didn't even bother to call me to tell me! Yvonne later told me that she had been unable to pay at two different places on the following day: payment was rejected with the statement “Declined. Prov. Error 02. Contact Issuer”.

Called up American Express and confirmed, yes, this was a result of the previous issues, which two different consultants told me had been resolved. Spoke to two different people, Geoff, who was on his first day, and Roland, who claimed to be his supervisor. Neither could explain to me what “Prov. Error 02” meant, though Roland went off looking, and after only 5 minutes confirmed that it was because they had dropped this credit limit immediately and without notice—to which, he told me, they are entitled.

Clearly American Express have forgotten the purpose of this relationship. The idea is to make payment transactions easier, not more difficult. It's in their own interest to ensure that these payments are easier. This includes the direct debit facility, which takes them two months to set up—why? And if I can't rely on the credit limit being available, why should I even bother? I signed up with American Express in the hope that they wouldn't be as stupid about security as Verified by VISA, but even that didn't happen.

So: American Express is still at least as bad as they ever have been. I asked for a written apology (“I do apologize”) and confirmation that this incident will not somehow find its way into my credit history, but for that I have to ask in writing to “Executive Correspondence”. Maybe that's not such a bad idea: I already have evidence that I can't rely on arrangements made over the phone. I suppose it's typical that Roland took two minutes to find the address, which proved to be the one on the letterhead—and then got it wrong.

So: I'll write a letter in minute detail, numbering the points to which I want an answer. Part of the letter will be this text, which I'll keep up to date in my product reviews directory .