By Adam Jusko, ProudMoney.com, adam@proudmoney.com
If you are an American Express cardholder, you can choose to “turn off” or “freeze” your Amex card temporarily if you think you may have lost your card or you believe someone may be using it fraudulently. When you’ve found the card or believe it’s OK to use it again, you can easily “turn on” or “unfreeze” the card again. Here’s how to do it:
Go to https://global.americanexpress.com/account-management/freeze-card? and log in to your account. You will a screen similar to this:
Click on that “Freeze Card” button in the lower right corner to freeze / turn off your card. When you click the button, you should then see this screen:
Notice that your card is now frozen, but it will only be turned off for 7 days. After that, it will be automatically turned on again, so be sure to either locate the card or contact American Express if you believe it is lost permanently or has been stolen.
You can unfreeze or “turn on” the card again anytime; you don’t have to wait for the full 7 days if you want it unfrozen again. On the right side of the image above, you’ll see that the second line down says “You can quickly unfreeze your Card at any time.” and “Unfreeze your card” is linked. When you click that link, you’ll get the screen below:
And when you click the “Unfreeze Card” button in the lower right corner, you’ll see a new screen to confirm that your card is unfrozen again:
Finally, as mentioned on the very first image above, when you “freeze” or “turn off” your American Express credit card, it can’t be used for new purchases, but it still could be charged for recurring purchases (like a Netflix subscription, for example) or at online merchants where you’ve previously used the card and let the merchant keep it on file for future transactions.