AMEX has been closing a lot of cards every week for the past two months. People are not only losing a large amount of annual fees they already paid, but also many Membership Rewards and cashback. If you are within 24 hours after your card has been closed, you can check this article and call to request your points back.

This article covers some ways to push back.

Latest update

A CNBC reporter is now willing to cover AMEX's large-scale closings of Chinese cardholders, and needs impact data to document the losses and severity. Please fill out the form; we will remove key personal details before sharing it so the reporter can get a clear sense of what this looks like.

The form can also be used later for possible class actions, joint lawsuits, media coverage, CFPB complaints, small claims actions, and for connecting affected members.

Note: one form per person. If your family members were also closed, submit another form using the same identifier and details to make final statistics easier.

Thank you.

What you can do now

Here are a few things you can start right away. It only takes a few clicks. Full details are below.

Examples of successful pushback

Option 1: CFPB

CFPB stands for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It is a U.S. government agency that protects consumers in financial matters. If you feel you were treated unfairly by your bank, or if the bank is refusing to honor obligations, you can file a complaint with CFPB. CFPB will contact the bank’s relevant department (for example, Chase) on your behalf. In general, banks tend to take CFPB cases seriously, and complaints that may not be resolved by direct contact often get processed faster and more effectively after CFPB involvement.

Even though CFPB has faced shutdown risk since the Trump administration took office, it appears to still be operating. You can file a complaint about this AMEX closure wave. You only need to enter basic information online, and you can use ChatGPT to help draft the incident description.

Option 2: media coverage

If the impact is broad, TV and newspaper reporters may contact affected cardholders for interviews and reporting. In this wave, a number of affected members already spoke with a CNBC (Consumer News and Business Channel) reporter. They are willing to cover the story, but need a general sense of how many people were affected and the total losses.

So if your AMEX card was closed, please fill out the form below. We will compile the data and send a summary to the reporters. In theory, the more people who fill it out, the higher the chance of broader media attention. A little action could even lead to account reinstatement or direct compensation.

Option 3: small claims court

Small Claims Court is a local court for small civil disputes, and there is one in every jurisdiction. Small Claims Court does not care much about your immigration or citizenship status: international students, residents, and citizens can all file. You only need to be at least 18 to sue on your own; if you are under 18, you need a guardian.

Compared with regular court, small claims cases are generally simpler and much cheaper, and may be resolved more quickly because the amounts are smaller and there are fewer parties involved. Small debt disputes, minor breaches of contract, and car accidents are all examples that can be handled in small claims.

This AMEX closure situation is a good fit for small claims because, for an individual, losses in points and annual fees are usually not too high. In cases like this, after AMEX receives a summons, they usually choose to settle out of court. Large-company legal costs to defend can be much higher than settling with an individual. The author also previously sued Citi and successfully settled, receiving meaningful compensation.

Option 4: arbitration

Between small claims and lawyer-led lawsuits, arbitration is another route. Arbitration involves a neutral third party who proposes a compromise solution between you and the bank; if both sides agree, you may avoid court.

Arbitration is a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) where parties in a disagreement agree to have their case heard by a neutral third party, called an arbitrator, outside of the formal court system. The arbitrator's decision, known as an award, is usually binding and enforceable, similar to a court order.

When my family’s Citi cards were closed, I contacted a lawyer for arbitration. He had already helped multiple people reach agreements with Citi and had a fixed compensation package. To use his arbitration service, I only needed to provide the account closure paperwork, the full card number at the time of closure, and my personal information.

Then I signed an agreement with Citi. Three to four months later, I received compensation from Citi directly.

Arbitration is common with financial institutions and can also be suitable in cases where the amount may be too small for a class action but still worth pursuing directly.

Option 5: class action

For issues with broad impact, class actions can be used to seek compensation. However, class actions usually require broad impact before an attorney is willing to build a class case.

For example, when financial institutions or merchants leak users' personal information and public exposure leads to regulator action, regulators may issue fines. In those situations, attorneys often see "business opportunity" and may organize class actions. Even if each person’s loss is small, the combined recovery can be substantial when enough people are involved.

Defendants generally deny any wrongdoing and seek to settle out of court. Most of the total recovery may be paid to attorneys, with the remainder divided among class participants by per-person share or loss proportion.

Option 6: Sue directly

If your losses are especially significant, you can choose to sue directly. For example, if your business card was shut down and it disrupted normal business activity, causing substantial loss, you can contact a lawyer and seek compensation. If your credit profile is also impacted and this leads to major losses on things like a mortgage or car loan, you can also request compensation. If it is only the annual fee and a small amount of points, suing may not be worth the effort and attorney costs; in that case, small claims court is usually the easiest option.

I have no personal experience to share in this section. Please consult a lawyer.

Resolve it through AMEX’s process

AMEX’s card member agreement explains how disputes should be handled. You can follow the steps below.

In short:

  • First, send AMEX a claim notice (form link) that includes your information and the reason for your dispute. If you are not sure how to write it, you can draft your experience and issues and paste them into ChatGPT. Leave the signature field blank, then print and sign by hand. Mail it to the address provided; this is AMEX’s attorney proxy address in New York.
  • Thirty days after the claim notice is submitted, you may request mediation. Submit the claim to JAMS (1-800-352-5267, jamsadr.com) or the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") (1-800-778-7879, adr.org) for mediation. According to AMEX, AMEX pays for this.
  • You may also initiate Arbitration.
  • Only if none of these options can resolve the dispute should you proceed with litigation.

Summary

These six approaches are available, and you can pick whichever fits your situation best—though all of them require some effort to pursue. I hope anyone affected by this forced shutdown and unfair treatment can stand together and fight back. Otherwise, if banks get a taste for it, they may keep shutting down customers they consider “not high-quality” from time to time, and eventually we’ll all become easy targets.

My view is that most people’s losses are in small claims court territory. You can spend a bit of time and follow the small-claims steps we shared in previous posts—the process we used for suing Citi can be adapted for AMEX. In terms of impact, I suggest everyone fill out the form so this gets media coverage. If the issue reaches enough people and the losses are large enough, lawyers may get interested and launch a class action or arbitration. Both can be relatively straightforward paths to compensation—you only need to fill out a form and submit your details.

Finally, here is a message I posted in the AMEX shutdown group.

A unified message for everyone:

1. This is not the time to figure out where we went wrong or to identify a pattern. This is the time to push back using a US-style approach. Only by increasing the visibility of this issue can we realistically get compensation, make AMEX feel real pressure, and get AMEX to stop arbitrarily shutting accounts while denying refunds of fees and points. (Chase was fined before, which is why a 30-day point transfer period was later introduced; Citi was sued in small claims and got points and annual fees returned; I received compensation for a Citi shutdown through attorney-led arbitration.)

2. We don’t need to conclude that this specifically targets Chinese customers. Let’s start from the unfairness we are all experiencing. If a reporter or lawyer believes it is necessary to continue pursuing this, we can then consider collecting the relevant evidence.

3. There is currently a CNBC reporter who wants to report on this, and several group members have already discussed it in detail. Their editor also said there is room to dig deeper. If your AMEX account was shut down, please fill out the form: https://forms.gle/XTeCtxGtPtmn21hH6