Thanks for F'ing me in the A American Express!

[Gilligan]

Last week (7th) I get a call from my bank, "Hey, you have a payment going to Amex that is going to put your account into the negative."

Me, "hmm, I thought I was good... well, let's move some money around from one company to the other for now to cover this"

I go look and AHHH, I scheduled a payment and setup for autopayment at the same time ergo creating a double payment situation.  Woops, my bad.  So I get on and chat with Amex, explain what happened, no problem we will refund one of those, it will take up to 72 hours.

72 hours?  Ok, no problem, simple enough, I'll just leave that money transferred over until then.

I leave and go on a trip on Weds and don't get back till Monday.  Today I get a call from my wife, one of our employees is saying her check bounced!  WHAT?!  No way, that makes no sense.  I log in and we have a healthy dose of money in there but as I scroll down... WOW, that's a LOT of red!  EIGHT fees for paid or rejected over drafts!  Holy crap!  How is this possible?  I look down and NO refund from Amex!  Ah, thanks a lot guys!

Log into Amex and no payment.  I call them up (and I'm calling my bank with the other phone on my desk) and they say:

Amex "yeah, we see the conversation you had about the double payment.  It takes 7-10 days to transfer the funds"

Me:  "Uhh, no, you guys told me 72 hours, I trusted that you guys could do that and that didn't happen... I'm looking at $280 in charges and I don't know how many checks didn't clear right now"

I'm on the phone with my bank at the same time and they say only two checks didn't clear, luckily they were both my employees checks.  I grab the other guy and make sure he's not gonna be in a bind because obviously he has no idea that the check bounced.  He's good... back to Amex.

Amex "yeah, I see that we said 72 hours, we are going to expedite it right now."

Me:  "right, but my problem is that I have 8 fees going on right now plus I have employees that are incurring fees because of bounced checks"

In the end, they called me back and gave me a $335 credit which covers my fees and the fees my employees cover... but MAN what a sh!t storm of stuff to walk into this morning.

So much red... uhhh.

[Frog]

To make matters worse, AMEX has the reputation for giving the least time for payment after a bill, and the most hardnosed and quick to hit customers with fees!

[royster13]

I can not understand how any one in business can use Amex when they probably hate taking them and their high processing fees....

[3Deep]

We stop taking or using Amex years ago, we decided to stop taking CC for about 6 month to almost a year ...no machine nothing, then we found out later that year Amex was charging our autopay account every month.   I ask them how the hell your going to charge our account if we are not taking CC's, after a lot of back and forth we finally got our money back.

darryl

[Frog]

Even fewer in our area will have them soon since Costco is apparently ending their exclusive sweetheart deal.

[Gilligan]

You are right Andy... I hate taking them in.

They were the first to offer me a deal when we went in business.  It's easier to make sure I pay off that bill each month.  You don't want to know where our Visa went after we let it slip past paying it off every month.

We want to get away from it and we will.... just have to time it right.

And yes, they can be total pricks!

[Sbrem]

We simply won't use them, never a problem, the customer always has a MasterCard or Visa...

Steve

[farmboygraphics]

AMEX can go pound salt.

[Gilligan]

The saga continues...

So when she issued me that credit of $335 bucks she said that the refund would happen in 24 hours and that she would call each day till it was resolved.

Next day (not quite 24 hours) she calls and I tell her "no, nothing yet".  She says "ok, let me get in touch with that department and see what is going on.  This is Friday.

Monday comes and goes.

Today I log into both bank and amex and zip, nada.  Granted, I'm way into the black now and that's not really an issue... it's become a principle thing.  As Amex has failed THREE times to do what they said they would do.

72 hours = FAIL
24 hours = FAIL
Call each day until resolved = FAIL

I call up, I hear the beep telling me it's recording the call and she (different lady) says that the ticket was closed so it was finally submitted YESTERDAY and could take 1-2 business days to arrive in my account.  I express my lack of trust in what they are telling me based on the past 3 failings and she understands and we finish up the phone call.

Now, let's see how tomorrow goes!  LOL