I am extremely particular about my credit.  During my youth I ran up a bunch of debt and poorly managed my money, ruining my credit score for years.  With a lot of hard work, years in the making, my credit score is near perfect.

All that is to say, when I apply for credit somewhere, I do it with a purpose.  I’m not a big fan of American Express, particularly because of the high rates they charge their merchants for processing (my company being one of them).  However, I applied for a small business American Express card several years ago, because they wave their yearly $100 annual fee.  It wasn’t too long ago that I also applied for a Line of Credit, in case my business needed to float some cash for some reason.

Both accounts were solely based on personal credit and I was told that up front.

So where did my problem with American Express come to view?

When they reduced my line of credit to 13% of what they originally offered.  And they did this the first time I used the line of credit over 3 months after I opened the account. (I had only used it because I didn’t have a regular business check with me, yet had one of their checks with me.)

It’s insulting to have a line of credit with less than $1500.  Not to mention their yearly fee was $100, which I had already paid for.

Their reason?  Because I didn’t have a Dunn & Bradstreet number.  (Don’t get me started on that!  I’ve requested a number from them on 3 separate occasions).  Yet remember that my line of credit was secured off of my personal credit, not my business credit worthiness.

Bait and switch … I’ll be filing a complaint with the FDIC.  In the meantime, I don’t recommend their Line of Credit product for Small Businesses.