Costco American Express dirty guerilla credit card tactics

I have the day off – Happy New Year’s Eve by the way – and so I was just going through one of my four remaining credit card statements.

This one happens to be my Costco American Express card; a card I have about 12 more months to pay on. I started scanning the basics: balance, date my last payment was received, etc. and then I looked at the finance charge. Oh the finance charge, that little bit of data that laughs at me every month and says, “this is money that should be going to your retirement accounts and investments.”

Anyway, I noticed that my finance charge is a actually slightly higher this month, even though the balance on my card is lower. Where’s that stinking APR?!

Of course, there it is, American Express has decided to arbitrarily raise my interest rate another 2 points! I immediately call to politely inquire as to why in the hell they raised my interest rate, I’m not late, I pay over the minimums, etc., and the nice young lady on the phone says, “American Express sent you a letter in August letting you know that we were going to do this.” I of course ask, “any particular reason why?” To which she responds, “American Express decided it was in the company’s best interest to increase rates across the board because of the difficult economic times.”

I almost sprayed my coffee across the room! THEY are having difficult economic times and to solve it, they pass through higher rates to their customers who are just having a peachy old time in this economy??

Brilliant customer service move by American Express and they need to know that in my case, it probably is a smart move that they squeeze me for every penny they can get for the next 12 months.

Because the second that balance goes to zero, the card will be canceled and destroyed, they will never get another penny from me, and I’ll gladly tell them that I’ve ended a seven year, so called relationship, because of “difficult...economic...times.”