American Express Sales Teams Misled SMB Owners

A small group of American Express salespeople pushed credit cards on small business owners without adequate credit checks or through special offers that did not exist; the tactics were done by salespeople looking to secure incentive bonuses of up to $100,000; many of the aggressive salespeople started such tactics after Amex lost their partnership with Costco Wholesale; the pressure to hit sales targets to make up for the lost business forced people to make bad decisions; salespeople tried to close sales on phone lines that were not recorded and in some cases used social security numbers to open cards so a SMB owner would just have to active the card when they received it in the mail; Amex did an internal review and found that 0.25 percent of the 65 million new cards were inconsistent with company policies; the OCC has also looked into the matter and listened in on phone calls that were deemed inappropriate; Amex says they have fired or disciplined the salespeople responsible. The Wall Street Journal

  • Emily Donato

    With efforts in many different areas of the team, she helps manage, organize and execute digital and event content. She works with webinars, podcasts, social media along with managing the hundreds of speakers that attend our conferences. Emily was a part of the Zimmerman Advertising Program at the University of South Florida. She graduated in 2019 receiving a Bachelor of Science in Business Advertising.