Normally, credit card companies do everything they can to get consumers to sign up for their products, become addicted to spending money that we don't have, and pay them extraordinary amounts of interest.

However, with the credit crisis looming on bank balance sheets and increasing levels of late payments and defaults on credit card balances, American Express has decided to reverse course.

Now, they are offering an incentive to selected borrowers who pay off what they owe to American Express and cancel their cards.  The company offered to pay invited customers who cancel between March 1st and April 30th a stipend of $300.

Clearly, this is not a program that is being rolled out because AmEx suddenly cares about your financial well-being and wants to help you manage your money better.  It is a way to incent customers who have large outstanding balances to move those balances elsewhere, so that American Express looks better to outside investors.

Of course, we should pay off our balances and stop using our credit cards as part of our money management discipline.  Now, we have an unusual partner in our corner as well.