How long will other creditors cancelling your accounts, affect your ability to get credit with them, etc?

Question

Aside from going bankrupt in early 2005, I was informed that with American Express, that I keep gettingdelined beacuse of the main reason which his "American Express has previously cancelled your accounts," as the main reason.

Will this be a factor for Amex to deny me credit indefinitely, or only as long as the bankrupcy or what?

I'm not really sure what to do in this case?

Answer 1

With general credit, all activities stay (Credit Cards, Loans, Court Orders) on your credit report for 7 years from the last date of action.

Individual credit companies may keep your information of past accounts with them longer than that, but it's usually not disclosed.

Based on the Credit Report alone (from the information you've provided), you still have around 1-3 years before your old account gets removed & the Bankruptcy notice won't get removed until 2012.

While the Bankruptcy notice won't necessarily kill your chances for getting another AMEX card (but it does hurt your significantly), the old card is pretty much what's hurting you...  So you won't likely be able to apply for one until 2009 at the earliest.

The only thing I would suggest doing is to check out your credit reports.  Go to http://www.annualcreditreport.com to get your free credit report from each of the Credit Reporting Companies.

Please note that the US Government (that sponsor Annual Credit Report.com) limits you to 1 FREE report from each company in a 12 month period...  so you can either get all 3 reports once a year or 1 report every 4 months, depending on how you want to monitor your credit reports.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

If you defaulted on other Amex card(s), I don't know how you had received the Amex charge unless you had it before you defaulted on other Amex card(s) or you were approved because you (accidentally) slipped through the cracks.

Amex blacklists those who default on "Amex" cards and will not remove a persons name from the blacklist until the card that was defaulted on is paid. Even if the card was included in bankruptcy.

Amex may overlook an "older" charge off with another creditor, they often overlook bankruptcies that have a couple years age on them, but they do not overlook charge offs with their own products. As long as defaulted Amex cards remain unpaid, that person will continue to be blacklisted, even if it's 20 or 40+ years down the road.

If having an Amex card is important to you, and you have previous unpaid charged off cards with them, you will have to pay them to enter into their Oasis program. Oasis is like a probationary period, though if you already have the charge card with them then they may(?) bypass that period.

If Amex is not that important to you then you might research other banks/creditors or credit unions to find one that fits your needs.

Answer 3

Once a creditor cancels your account they typically will never open you another one. (especially if you declared bankruptcy).

You said you have an AMEX charge card currently.  If that's the case, why are you trying to open another account?

Bankruptcy stays on your credit 7-10 years.  Since the decline in the housing market and the subprime fiasco creditors have seriously tightened up their qualifications to issue a credit card or line of credit.

Answer 4

Bankruptcy stays on your record for 7 - 10 years, but Amex is free to have a different policy.

Are you a credit union member? Why don't you try getting a card there, their decision will let you know for sure if its the bankruptcy that's getting Amex to decline your card or their internal policy.  

Answer 5

This could be an American Express policy.  If you already have an Amex card, why not get a Visa, Mastercard, or Discover card instead.  It makes more sense to have completely different credit cards anyway.