American Express Cancels Credit Card Lines After Bail-Out Of Funds

All Business credit card lines appear to have been cancelled by American Express, following the recent bail out of financial institutions, of which American Express was a generous recipient. Many businesses are being affected such as www.GiftBerry.org, a non profit

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All Business credit card lines appear to have been cancelled by American Express, following the recent bail-out of financial institutions, of which American Express was a generous recipient.

Many businesses are being affected such as www.GiftBerry.org, a non-profit that provides online software to Schools and Charities for free. “American Express has always helped us when we had a problem,” says Barbara Castleman, director of www.GiftBerry.org, based in Los Angeles, “But cancelling our account with a four day notice is absurd, and will limit the number of charities and schools we can help.”

American Express has received billions from the Federal Government in this latest round of Financial Sector bailouts, and appears to be setting the stage to impair the businesses and non-profits it provides financial services for.

To make ends meet, www.GiftBerry.org is doing what many other small Charities and businesses are doing, cutting staff to stay afloat. “We rely on donations and corporate grants to provide cost-saving fundraising and administrative software to charities, but several corporate grants have not occurred this year, and small donations are down,” says Castleman, “Many of us have had to cut our salaries just to keep the staff we have left working.”

The good news for www.GiftBerry.org is that the number of charity and school sign-ups have tripled since the economy started to fumble late last year. “Our free software saves the average charity or school up to $200,000 per year and over one ton of paper, so in these difficult times, www.GiftBerry.org is very appealing to the non-profit/charity sector,” says Castleman.

D.C.

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