In late 2008, Kevin Johnson returned to his home in Atlanta, Georgia, after a honeymoon abroad to find the financial system imploding and a letter from his credit card company in his postbox.
American Express was cutting his credit limit from $10,800 to $3,800. The reason, according to the letter, was that Mr Johnson had been shopping at stores frequented by people deemed by the credit card company to have a poor repayment history.
For Mr Johnson, who prides himself on being a media and internet entrepreneur, the notion that he would be financially limited because of the supposed behaviour of his fellow shoppers did not sit well at all. At the time, says Mr Johnson, his FICO score — the standard measure of creditworthiness in the US — was about 760, solidly within good credit territory.