Posted on 11/26/2004 8:57:50 AM PST by freespirited
A woman who posed as a Saudi princess is suing American Express for letting her rack up an enormous credit card bill.
Antoinette Millard is suing the credit card company for letting her use a special "Centurion Black" card meant for people who charge more than $150,000 a year.
She says she was mentally ill at the time of her spending spree and that American Express should have known that she was acting irrationally and impulsively.
She is suing them for $2 million.
Millard is currently awaiting trial on grand larceny charges.
Millard had also been under scrutiny for posing as a Saudi princess to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise.
We really should bring back debtors prison.
Doesn't anybody feel any personal responsibility for their actions? Sick.
See what you made me do!
It's all Bush's fault.
I can see the logic in that. Logic, however, does not substitute for either reason or excuses. For that, you need magic.
And public flogging.
Nope. Because liberals have taught people that its always someone else's fault.
I have been saying that for years.
She'll just file for bankruptcy, and the other credit card holders will get to pay higher interest to make up for it.
Whoever the lawyer is who filed this suit for her, should match her dollar for dollar in fines, and day for day incarceration when they lose this ridiculous case.
I see another scumbag lawyer scam coming up. Why is it that all these truly evil people are either lawyers, spouses of lawyers, or simply grovel to lawyers?
they rate one notch below an amoeba as far as morals and decency are concerned. even a homosexual pedophile is better than the lawyers that allow them to prey on innocent children.
But, how can you pay off your debt if you are in prison!!??
I was thinking indentured servitude - to pay off the debt.
Tell you one thing.........you PAY AS YOU CHARGE with American Express. You don't have it at the end of the month, you're in deep doo-doo. Pretty good way to watch what you spend........so we rack up the charges and get these stupid points toward airplane tickets that we MIGHT use one day.*~*
Yeah - "get out of debt free card."
I certainly hope I don't have to pay fees to cover this loss. Amex should have required some strict due diligence before they issued a card for people who spend over $150K per year.
I don't see where the woman has any right to sue for damages, but Amex fully deserves to eat every last penny of the bill she racked up.
Stop me before I shop again?????????????
"she says she was mentally ill at the time..."
She still is! Sad to think the world is full
of buffoons like this.
Her lawyer ought to be disbarred for bringing this suit.
I have but one word..."Accountability". Hold oneself acoountable for their own actions.
Stop me before I charge again!
Hold myself accountable for misspelling!
This is easy to solve if she is aquited of the grand larceny charge by temparary insanity then give her the 2 mill.If however she is found guilty and sent to prison drop the case and make her pay off the american express legal bills through some sort of work release program along with the bill she origanally racked up with the card she got under false pretenses.
I don't understand some of these credit card companies. It seems they give cards to anyone. For example, they are waiting in the wings to issue credit cards to college students. I even know of someone in a nursing home on Medi-Cal who gets offers for credit cards in the mail. I don't think they use due diligence. They just want users to rack up interest rate payments as they fall more and more into debt.
My wife has a friend who got her first card at 24. By age 35, this woman had four credit cards and a monthly balance of $35,000. By age 40, the balance had gone to $45,000. Once you start trying to make just the minimum each month...you are permanently stuck. This woman eventually had a nervous breakdown. Several friends and relatives came out and put down $15k in cash to bring down the balance...the woman carved up the cards...and she is making a decent recovery now. But there is a 10-year period of her life where she was paying out $400 a month, just for interest. She could have made a huge downpayment with that kinda money.
These college kids who are getting the free cards and getting hooked, are the worst crowd. There ought to be a law that limits any credit card to a 21 year old or less...to $500, unless the parent signs the request. I have a office co-worker who has a daughter about to finish college and the kid has $4k in debt currently. The minute she gets a job in the spring...they are going to up the balance limit to $8k...and trap her further into the situation. It amazes me that congress does nothing about this issue.
Ouch! That first case is a nightmare. The second one is a whopping bad start, but at least it's a manageable dollar amount if she STOPS CHARGING ASAP.
Credit card companies have no business giving credit to college students under 21. They don't have a full time job yet and can really step into quicksand.
I can't believe what just happened yesterday. My son came home from the place where he is working part-time, and they actually pressured him to sign up for a credit card sponsored by that company because they had a quota to meet! Fortunately, he told me that when it comes in, he wants us to cancel it. Geez Louise, the nerve of these purveyors of credit cards!
Jesus H. Christ on a crutch. I get antsy when my balance is over $500, and have never failed to pay the monthly bill on time (except the one time it got lost in the mail).
Well, that depends on the individual situation (though I agree that the blizzard of solicitations reveals a lack of due diligence).
What really ought to be restricted is the mailing of unsolicited offers to get a credit card by just calling in and reading off the invitation code. That's an open door to identity theft against the (intended) recipient, and ought to be illegal for the same reason going around and picking people's doorlocks open (without breaking in yourself) is.
I've gotten pretty paranoid about these credit card solicitations. We get so many that there is a lot of opportunity for identify theft. I read that tearing them in half is not sufficient because that is actually a flag informing anyone rummaging through the trash that something important is in there. I didn't even realize you can just call it in. Fortunately, I did invest in a shredder and simply toss them all in. I've gotten to the point of almost enjoying my little shredding rituals.
"These college kids who are getting the free cards and getting hooked, are the worst crowd"? I take offense to that as a college student. You should realize that while some young people can't handle responsibility, there are those of us like myself who have stellar credit histories and have never had to pay a late fee. I also work harder in a day than you probably have in your entire life. Try not to generalize negative stereotypes about whole groups of people.
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