The Economic "Crisis" Hits Home - American Express Part Duex

Third-Party Lenders IBM, De Lage Landen Cut Channel Credit

First it strikes customers and prospects, now the channel. 

From a Channel Web article, dated 11.10.08, by Scott Campbell - 

"Within the last week, Jay Tipton, vice president of Technology Specialists, saw credit lines cut by both American Express and IBM, moves that forced him to scramble to find replacement lines. "It takes time away from selling for me to work on this," Tipton said. "I don't know what I'm going to do. That's what I have to figure out."

Tipton said he got a call from American Express last week informing him that his line, which approached $30,000, had been reduced to about $10,000.

Technology Specialists used the line mostly to pay recurring bills, he said. "It got cut down to where things started bouncing," he said..." American Express told Tipton it was concerned that his monthly charges were too high. He said a slow summer caused him to delay a payment, but he had caught up by October." 

 And this regarding an entity I have written about before, De Lage Landen Financial: 

"...Meanwhile, Michael Bidwell, vice president of Know Problem Business Technologies, said a $25,000 credit line he had with De Lage Landen Financial Services through D&H Distributing was cut overnight last week,

"I ordered on Monday. I ordered on Tuesday. When I tried to order on Wednesday, they called to tell me it came back refused," Bidwell said. Bidwell said he called both parties, who blamed each other over the ending of the program. "They point fingers at each other but they never sent an e-mail or placed a call to their dealers," 

Bidwell said. It's likely that De Lage Landen pulled the program because it didn't make economic sense for the lender with so few customers utilizing it. Calls to De Lage Landen were not returned..." 

 For the independents and smaller channel VARs this is an issue. For your customers, this is an issue. For the larger hardware providers, K/M, RiKON, CBS, Xerox , this could become an issue - if not already.