Amercian Express have reduced my limit?

leccyboo

I have received a letter from Amex this morning reducing my credit limit from c£5000 to £800. I have had the card for around 8 months and have used the card to about £700 but have never missed a payment and actually cleared the card down to £200 3 days ago.

I earn £42k and have around £3000 outstanding on a car loan. Sold my house 3 months ago, so have no mortgage and currenty living with parents, so can't understand why this has happened!!!

I have just accessed my credit record from Equifax and it has no problems on it.

I phoned Amex and was put through to a call centre where the guy said he couldn't tell me why!!!

Should I be worried, has this happened to anyone else?

Villan

I had exactly the same experience with my BA Amex. One of the reasons for using this card for my expenses was to spend enough where I was eligible for the companion voucher where I could book a flight on BA Points and get a similar one free.

They lowered my limit to 700 from 10000 with no notification, which now means that I cannot spend the 20,000 per year

Awful service when I called them - it seems that CC customer service is getting worse all over

fozmcfc

Companies are being forced by the current financial climate to be responsible lenders.

If people have high limits, but are only using 25% of less of the available limit over a certain length of time, then I guess it is deemed that you do not require such a high limit.

Having said that I think lowering it by such a large amount to just over the OP highest balance is stingy.

mitrant

It is standard practice and is becoming increasingly more common at the moment. As fozmfc has said, the likelihood is that Amex have carried out a review of your account and seen that you have never carried a balance higher than £700 on the card and have consequently chosen to reduce your limit. Their reasons for doing this are pretty much their own.

It isn't necessarily something you should worry about and perhaps in a few months time you could request a credit limit increase.

[Deleted User]

mitrant wrote: »

It is standard practice and is becoming increasingly more common at the moment. As fozmfc has said, the likelihood is that Amex have carried out a review of your account and seen that you have never carried a balance higher than £700 on the card and have consequently chosen to reduce your limit. Their reasons for doing this are pretty much their own.

It isn't necessarily something you should worry about and perhaps in a few months time you could request a credit limit increase.

This is a new trend. In years gone by, credit card companies would up your limit for no reason. (I reckon to get you in more debt).

I've got an amex platinum with a limit of over £13000. I usually spend up to £2K per month but always pay it off. Guess I could be next.

I've also got an MBNA platinum that I've had for about 15 years with a limit of about £15K. Havent even used that for a year or two.

mitrant

[quote=[Deleted User];22812807]This is a new trend. In years gone by, credit card companies would up your limit for no reason. (I reckon to get you in more debt).

I've got an amex platinum with a limit of over £13000. I usually spend up to £2K per month but always pay it off. Guess I could be next.

I've also got an MBNA platinum that I've had for about 15 years with a limit of about £15K. Havent even used that for a year or two.[/QUOTE]

I know that several years back, long before the credit crunch, my cousin had her limit reduced by Capital One and when she enquired about it she was basically told that after having reviewed her account they felt it wasn't in their best interests to continue to provide the higher credit limit - I'm assuming they viewed her as a risk case for some reason. But limit reductions are not an entirely new thing, they're just more common now than they were before.

leccyboo

Thanks for your responses.

I will be cancelling my Amex Platinum tomorrow, there is absolutely no point in having this card with such a low limit!