Doing well by doing good; or, Fuck You AmEx.
Last week I had a couple of transactions with my Amex card declined. No reason given, just declined. Feh.
So I called Amex to say "hey, what's going on." Their response was to give me a pop quiz on stuff, including really asinine assertions about identity verification.
For example, they asked for my driver's license number. Now let's assume for the moment that they ought to have that info (apparently it's public records and they mine those records, who knew) but under the assumption someone has stolen only my Amex card and not my wallet so as to have my driver's license number you ALSO have to assume said person is somehow not able to access the same public records that Amex can access to mine my number.
I thought I had written up the bit about going through the idiot-quiz wringer with the IRS but I can't find it so just take as given that I am NOT in a mood to be pop-quizzed by random strangers who are supposed to be helping me fix a problem THEY created.
After a few minutes of this bullshit from the front peon I ask to get transferred to a manager who gives me MORE pop-quiz bullshit. At this point I'm barely restraining myself from shouting at them, and ask to be transferred to the department where I can cancel my card. Which they refuse to do. SRSLY? I hung up on her in mid-justification for why I should stay on the phone for more of her verbal abuse rather than fulfilling my requests.
Pygment kindly hands me the latest Amex bill since we use it for lots of the recurring charitable donations we do and I start calling these organizations to move my donations off. As I pointed out to the Amex drones, I have multiple cards. I get CC offers for new cards all the time. I don't need to put up with your BS in order to have a credit card.
Looking at the monthly amounts for some of the organizations I realize they're a bit lower than we can handle right now so while I'm on the phone with them switching my CC number I increase my donation. Amazingly, nobody else thinks it's a good idea to subject me to random pop quizzes.
So, thanks to Amex being bad at customer service Oxfam and Amnesty International will get more money from me. And Amex will get none. I think I'm happy with that outcome.
So I called Amex to say "hey, what's going on." Their response was to give me a pop quiz on stuff, including really asinine assertions about identity verification.
For example, they asked for my driver's license number. Now let's assume for the moment that they ought to have that info (apparently it's public records and they mine those records, who knew) but under the assumption someone has stolen only my Amex card and not my wallet so as to have my driver's license number you ALSO have to assume said person is somehow not able to access the same public records that Amex can access to mine my number.
I thought I had written up the bit about going through the idiot-quiz wringer with the IRS but I can't find it so just take as given that I am NOT in a mood to be pop-quizzed by random strangers who are supposed to be helping me fix a problem THEY created.
After a few minutes of this bullshit from the front peon I ask to get transferred to a manager who gives me MORE pop-quiz bullshit. At this point I'm barely restraining myself from shouting at them, and ask to be transferred to the department where I can cancel my card. Which they refuse to do. SRSLY? I hung up on her in mid-justification for why I should stay on the phone for more of her verbal abuse rather than fulfilling my requests.
Pygment kindly hands me the latest Amex bill since we use it for lots of the recurring charitable donations we do and I start calling these organizations to move my donations off. As I pointed out to the Amex drones, I have multiple cards. I get CC offers for new cards all the time. I don't need to put up with your BS in order to have a credit card.
Looking at the monthly amounts for some of the organizations I realize they're a bit lower than we can handle right now so while I'm on the phone with them switching my CC number I increase my donation. Amazingly, nobody else thinks it's a good idea to subject me to random pop quizzes.
So, thanks to Amex being bad at customer service Oxfam and Amnesty International will get more money from me. And Amex will get none. I think I'm happy with that outcome.