Interesting: Amex paying card holders to close their accounts

Need to get higher risk clients of your books? One way is to pay them to leave, and that’s exactly what American Express is doing.

Amex is paying a number of card holders $300 to close their accounts.

“We sent the offer out to a select number of card members,” a company spokeswoman quoted by Reuters said. “We are looking at different ways that we can manage credit risk based on the costumers overall credit profile.”

Card holders must accept the offer by the end of February, and have to close their accounts in March or April. On successfully meeting the requirements, the now former card holders receive a $300 pre-paid American Express card.

Amex was once the domain of the rich, but in recent years has expanded aggressively into consumer credit. That exposure has left Amex, like its competitors with a growing amount of bad debt given the broader economic climate.

$300 to get rid of your credit card sounds like a great deal, and is probably the only time you’re ever likely to see a credit card company pay users as opposed to just raping them taking from them.