American Express Now Regrets Issuing You All Those Cards

In what can only be described as a pretty desperate risk management directive, American Express is now offering customers $300 to pay off their balance and close their account by April 30th of this year. You read that right. They want you to pay your debt in full and cut the card. In exchange, you’ll get three a gift card with three Bejamins worth of spending power for your trouble.

With the economic downturn, more and more credit card holders are defaulting on their credit cards. If you carry multiple cards and keep running balances on each one, chances are now pretty good that you’ll end up defaulting on payments at some point. American Express is looking to nip that in the bud, hopefully, while you still have a source of income.

I’m not sure if this happened before but it does create a pretty odd situation. Put simply, they want to drive customers away. However, present circumstances have probably altered the definition of a high-risk customer and with the economy as it is, trying to prevent a disaster before it happens might be most prudent.

American Express appears to be sending the offer to all customers that fall into the above criteria - multiple cards with balances. If you’ve been looking to cut off some credit cards to better manage your finances, this actually sounds like a good offer, allowing you to keep a small amount of cash in the process. It could prove a disaster for your credit score, though. Remember, closing a line of credit can lower your score. Now, imagine closing two or three credit cards before the end of April - you can just imagine the possible repercussion.