I'm so glad I googled this!!! My husband and I are actively paying off a balance of $21k; this is our only credit card balance. After making a payment of $9,200 last week, they lowered our credit line to 13,000. My husband was so angry that in this economy, they punish people actually making payments! We had planned to pay off all but $5k by the end of this month.

Amex gave us the line that we have deragotory credit, etc....I immediately pulled our score and it's just below 700 despite the fact that we purchased a house recently.

I secured a fixed rate interest loan through our bank for the remaining $5k and we got a Mastercard with a reasonable limit for hubby to use on business expenses. Amex will go in the drawer and never be used again.

They sure loved the $400 a month in interest we were paying to them every month...on time and over the minimum payments. Guess they know how to encourage people NOT to use their cards!

Thanks to everyone for sharing their stories. It's comforting to know that it wasn't just us.