American Express: I hate you but I need you!
The setup: My wife and I live in Portland Oregon, but all of our friends and family live in or near Cincinnati Ohio. The only airline that flies direct between Portland and Cincinnati is Delta. Airline tickets are expensive (especially now that we have a young son, and have to buy three tickets when we travel). In order to afford more than one trip to Cincinnati a year, we needed a way to accumulate Delta SkyMiles. The only credit card in the United States that gives you Delta SkyMiles is the special American Express Delta SkyMiles card. It's not a "real" American Express card in that it actually has a credit limit and you can't use all of their online banking features, but you get the same privileges of paying an annual 'membership' fee and having your card turned down at stores that don't take it (and you usually get a recited dissertation from store clerks about how AmEx charges more money to retailers than other cards, which is always a blast). Anyway, we have the card, and for the first three years, things were good: We bought everything we could with the card (even put some monthly bills on it), paid it off each month, and accumulated the SkyMiles. But beginning last year, things started to break down.
The problem: Strong proponents of the Internet that we are, we buy almost all of our Christmas gifts online. For a few nights, my wife and I sit down and compile a list of people for whom we will be purchasing gifts, and decide which gifts we're going to get, and from where. Once that's all done, we go online and make a number of large orders from all selected retailers (all Amazon gifts in one order, all L.L. Bean in another order, and so on)... generally the bigger the order the more you save on shipping. Anyway, we've been doing this for a few years, but for reasons unknown to us, something quite annoying happened last year. A number of gifts we ordered then did not arrive by Christmas Day, even though we'd ordered them well in advance. Too many things were missing from too many places for it to be a shipping problem, so we started emailing retailers (and calling the ones who had phone numbers). In each case, American Express had denied the charges when they were presented for payment. Well, why didn't they tell us when we made our order, we asked? And why was American Express turning us down, when we knew we were within our credit limit?
The explanation: When you buy something online, many web commerce sites (who often outsource the handling of credit card transactions) don't actually present your charge for payment when you purchase something with your credit card. While you're making the purchase, they generally just check that your card information is valid, and that the account is still active. Once they DO finally get around to presenting charges, which may be a day or two after you made your purchase, it's up to them how to handle situations when your card gets turned down. Guess how most retailers handle this situation? They cancel your order and never tell you what happened. Now what about American Express? What was their deal? Well, we called them and beginning last year they began arbitrarily turning down what they considered to be "unusual" purchases on your account. They did this to "protect" you in case someone steals your card without you knowing it. No one from American Express ever asked us if our card had been stolen, or whether we were the ones who'd made the purchases. So what's the deal there? Here's the answer: They say that when a cashier tells you that your card's denied, to call American Express on the spot (hope you have a cell phone and a patient queue behind you) so you can clear things up with them and let the transaction go through. Okay... but what if you're shopping online and the web site doesn't present your charge for payment until tomorrow? Your presents don't arrive and no one tells you until it's far too late, that's what happens. Besides, it's fricking Christmas! Of COURSE you buy all sorts of crazy crap then that you normally wouldn't otherwise- and more of it! I keep having to tell Amazon to stop recommending me pregnancy guides and erotic massage videos specifically because of the Christmas buy-a-thon.
The kicker: So here's where it gets fun. Once you've navigated American Express's labyrinthine customer service phone menu and get connected with a support representative whose native language is not English, the representative, trying to be helpful, offers to make a note in your account to indicate when you plan to buy a bunch of stuff. Just let them know before you go on your spending spree, and they’ll approve everything within your spending limit. That's what they say, but don't believe it. No one reads those comments (if they ever even get stored- my wife discovered recently that a notification she had dutifully given American Express a few weeks ago never made it into their system)- a computer program that analyzes your buying habits turns your card down when it sees you spending more than usual, and just like AmEx's customer support reps, it doesn't celebrate Christmas or speak English.
The irony: American Express makes money by allowing charges, because as mentioned before, they do charge retailers a little more for handling their transactions than other cards. By wrongly turning down our transactions, they weren't just hassling us, their customers, but they were depriving themselves of income! Sweet business model you guys have there, AmEx!
The result: We signed up for another card. It won't give us those precious Delta SkyMiles, but it gives us cash back on most purchases, and it's a MasterCard so EVERYONE takes it. Oh yeah, no monthly fee.
The problem: Strong proponents of the Internet that we are, we buy almost all of our Christmas gifts online. For a few nights, my wife and I sit down and compile a list of people for whom we will be purchasing gifts, and decide which gifts we're going to get, and from where. Once that's all done, we go online and make a number of large orders from all selected retailers (all Amazon gifts in one order, all L.L. Bean in another order, and so on)... generally the bigger the order the more you save on shipping. Anyway, we've been doing this for a few years, but for reasons unknown to us, something quite annoying happened last year. A number of gifts we ordered then did not arrive by Christmas Day, even though we'd ordered them well in advance. Too many things were missing from too many places for it to be a shipping problem, so we started emailing retailers (and calling the ones who had phone numbers). In each case, American Express had denied the charges when they were presented for payment. Well, why didn't they tell us when we made our order, we asked? And why was American Express turning us down, when we knew we were within our credit limit?
The explanation: When you buy something online, many web commerce sites (who often outsource the handling of credit card transactions) don't actually present your charge for payment when you purchase something with your credit card. While you're making the purchase, they generally just check that your card information is valid, and that the account is still active. Once they DO finally get around to presenting charges, which may be a day or two after you made your purchase, it's up to them how to handle situations when your card gets turned down. Guess how most retailers handle this situation? They cancel your order and never tell you what happened. Now what about American Express? What was their deal? Well, we called them and beginning last year they began arbitrarily turning down what they considered to be "unusual" purchases on your account. They did this to "protect" you in case someone steals your card without you knowing it. No one from American Express ever asked us if our card had been stolen, or whether we were the ones who'd made the purchases. So what's the deal there? Here's the answer: They say that when a cashier tells you that your card's denied, to call American Express on the spot (hope you have a cell phone and a patient queue behind you) so you can clear things up with them and let the transaction go through. Okay... but what if you're shopping online and the web site doesn't present your charge for payment until tomorrow? Your presents don't arrive and no one tells you until it's far too late, that's what happens. Besides, it's fricking Christmas! Of COURSE you buy all sorts of crazy crap then that you normally wouldn't otherwise- and more of it! I keep having to tell Amazon to stop recommending me pregnancy guides and erotic massage videos specifically because of the Christmas buy-a-thon.
The kicker: So here's where it gets fun. Once you've navigated American Express's labyrinthine customer service phone menu and get connected with a support representative whose native language is not English, the representative, trying to be helpful, offers to make a note in your account to indicate when you plan to buy a bunch of stuff. Just let them know before you go on your spending spree, and they’ll approve everything within your spending limit. That's what they say, but don't believe it. No one reads those comments (if they ever even get stored- my wife discovered recently that a notification she had dutifully given American Express a few weeks ago never made it into their system)- a computer program that analyzes your buying habits turns your card down when it sees you spending more than usual, and just like AmEx's customer support reps, it doesn't celebrate Christmas or speak English.
The irony: American Express makes money by allowing charges, because as mentioned before, they do charge retailers a little more for handling their transactions than other cards. By wrongly turning down our transactions, they weren't just hassling us, their customers, but they were depriving themselves of income! Sweet business model you guys have there, AmEx!
The result: We signed up for another card. It won't give us those precious Delta SkyMiles, but it gives us cash back on most purchases, and it's a MasterCard so EVERYONE takes it. Oh yeah, no monthly fee.
9 Comments:
I just wanted to say that American Express did the same thing to me. And I hate American Express too, but thank God I don't need them. peqular1
By Anonymous, at 4:41 AM
Sounds like you should have more of a gripe with the online merchants who didnt bother to process your charge right away and never told you that it wasnt approved. American Express is picky with their cardmembers and charges to prevent getting ripped off for both themselves and their cardholders. If you are out of pattern then the system can start to refer your charges in. What this means is that the merchant is given the signal to call for verification, but so many cashiers out there are too ignorant or lazy to do this and simply tell you that the charge was declined when in fact it wasnt. All they needed to do was to call the merchant number and verify that you are the rightfull cardholder. *shrug* Its easy to complain about things that you dont know much about I guess.
By Anonymous, at 8:05 PM
Not that I expect you or anyone else to ever see this, Any, but what I DO understand is that we gave American Express a heads-up TWICE and they STILL blocked our transactions. If they weren't going to honor our request they should have told us so, so we could use our other cards.
By Josh, at 10:37 PM
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
By Anonymous, at 3:45 AM
Josh their is more to the story that you are leaving out...or you might want to check your credit...Because a Delta card, as you stated, is a credit card and American Express does not stop charges for out of pattern on a credit card...
By Anonymous, at 2:13 PM
Right, I totally made this all up. *shrugs* It's so bizarre that this one little post has drawn so much animosity. You don't even wanna see the comment I had to delete.
Look folks, this happened to us 2 years in a row, and it's true. No reason to lie about it, I was just venting here.
By Josh, at 5:29 PM
I had an amex charge card for 11 years. For no reason they decided to(and my credit standing is good)cancel it without letting me know. They are the most impersonal and unprofessional bunch of losers on the face of the earth. They don't deserve the business.
By Anonymous, at 3:37 AM
if you are a hvcm then amex would have treated you better. amex has a separate center in fortlauderdale fl, we speak english, we celebrate christmas and we work 24 hours a day for hvcm, open rcp and centurion card member. hvcm means high value cardmember.
By Anonymous, at 4:24 PM
I've been trying to get money back that AMEX owes me for weeks. The first time I called, they said OK, your check will be out in 3 days. Two weeks later, I call again. No record of my first call, and it'll take 40 days for them to investigate and send me my money. I will never use any AMEX product again. The customer service people just blow the whole thing off. I'm so angry. If I owed them money they'd be all over me, calling me, writing letters, ruining my credit rating.
By Kevin, at 2:06 PM
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