Allowing inmates to run the asylum
From Denny Hatch’s e-newsletter:
Take a gander at this paragraph from a Wall Street Journal story by Robin Sidel on
AmEx recently slapped a $1,100-a-month spending limit on John and Monica Bell’s platinum AmEx charge card. The reason: AmEx customers who pay with plastic at the same places where Mrs. Bell shops and have the same mortgage lender have poor repayment histories, according to a letter sent by AmEx.
The couple pays $450 a year for the card which promises “no pre-set spending limit.” The couple routinely spent $5,000 a month that’s $60,000 a year and has never been late with a payment.
If the data goons are allowed to start treating blue-ribbon American Express Platinum Cardmembers like chronic deadbeats, what will happen to the rest of us?
The excess of zeal that fueled the subprime real estate debacle has turned into an excess of fear.