Amex Manager Reveals Questionable Sales Practices
A manager at American Express has revealed questionable practices about credit card sales. She first brought these issues to the higher-ups in the company before going public. But when she did so, her career started going downhill.
Sophia Lewis was a rising star at American Express. She says she saw some AmEx employees routinely submit corporate card applications without even looking into the companies’ financial information. Businesses would typically need at least $4 million in annual revenue to qualify for a corporate card, bout would often be approved even if they fell way short of that threshold. It was all about pocketing big commissions. Other current and former employees have corroborated fer story.
The WSJ article details how everything unfolded, starting in 2018. When she noticed these questionable practices, she alerted higher-ups. But AmEx, she said, had created a culture where employees can get rewarded for breaking rules. Instead of doing something about the complaint she brought up, AmEx suspended her in February for unrelated reasons. She had been working at AmEx since 2014 and was promoted in 2017.
Credit card issuers fight for customers, and they rely on big commissions to motivate salespeople. Commissions would vary between $475 to $650 per application. That is not always a good thing. AmEx salespeople have sometimes misled small-business owners to increase those card sign-ups, by misrepresenting card rewards or issuing cards without proper approval by the business.
AmEx’s commission structure has also caught the eye of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. AmEx has been instructed to change how it paid employees who sold small-business and corporate cards because it could increase the risk of misconduct. That is the division where Ms. Lewis works.
An AmEx spokesman told WSJ that higher-ups had properly referred Ms. Lewis’ concerns to “independent investigatory teams.” Her claims “were thoroughly reviewed and appropriately addressed” and that no “customer harm” was identified.
In February, Ms. Lewis was placed on a three-day paid suspension for breaking information-security policies by sending confidential information to her personal email. Ms. Lewis said she did nothing wrong and had only sent an email with information about a problematic sales call. She said she had also forwarded an email that she had written about sales problems to her personal account. later on she filed for stress related paid sick leave and then learned that her performance rating for 2019 had plummeted. During the first three quarters of 2019, she was a top performer.
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Seems all the rats in AMEX aren’t just on the RAT. Sounds very Wells Fargo of AMEX to reward employees for not following the rules.
Not surprising. I was promoted to a management position at my former company (notice “former”.. can you see where this is going?). We had a private meeting to discuss problems with other supervisors. I had the conjones to speak up (in an intelligent way, not blaming). Magically, shortly after, my subordinate was promoted over me. Stayed a few months and then left. Wasn’t worth the headache.
People don’t want to hear when things don’t work – they just want to hear “Yes”…
Don’t know if it’s good karma to hope karma comes around, but if it shows up, I’d be happy.