American Express Pays $300 For Best Customers To Leave

File this one into the nominations box for the highly coveted "Worst Business Decision of The Year Award." -- I'd say only Gatorade's rebranding to "G" has a shot of beating American Express on this one... Maybe. So, here's the scoop, American Express has decided to pay a bunch of it's best customers $300 bucks to leave. That's right... they are giving customers a $300 gift card to peace out. Good thinking, AMEX, that's one way to reduce the ole portfolio.

Ok, we all know what they are doing here. They are trying to entire some of their riskier customers (those revolving a balance and not making any purchases) to close up shop and move out. Of course, the problem is, the people who really are in trouble aren't going to be able to pay off their balance and move on with life. Nope, only the people with liquidity can do that... you know, the kind of people that AMEX would actually like to keep as customers?... DUH!

Adding an insult (to your intelligence) to injury (their business), AMEX company spokeswoman Faust, says:

"The intention is to help cardholders lower their debt and encourage responsible management of their credit," says Ms. Faust. It's being promoted as a means for customers to "simplify their finances."

Wow, that's freaking rich. AMEX is simply trying to help customers lower their debt and be more fiscally resonsible. A little odd, however, since AMEX has a big, fat fiduciary duty to their stock-holders, and no such duty to customers. I think it's far more likely they were just trying to get rid of deadbeats before they became charged-off deadbeats. Seems a lot more likely, eh?

To be fair, AMEX could simply just close all those accounts and not give out the $300 bucks. Guess they didn't want the bad PR. Irony is some funny shit.

But I will say, also, the Credit Card pictured above is the absolute best rewards card in world if you travel (and don't revolve balances). Extremely rich rewards.