I'm so mad I could spit blood. On Monday night, American Express (AMEX) cancelled my current card at about 10PM, long after I stop checking my e-mails. No phone call was made to me. Tuesday morning, I open my e-mail and find multiple e-mails about them cancelling said card and assigning a new card number, but don't worry, your old card will work until you activate the new card. The reason given was that they were protecting me from possible theft of my info and fraud. Not happy, but OK. Next, I try to contact AMEX about how they determined this, so I can possibly take steps to avoid doing business with the company or organization that was compromised. They won't tell me who was compromised. Now I'm getting upset.

Next, customer service rep asks me if I was going to use my card? What kind of dumb question is that, of course I intend to use my card, why else would I have it? Oh, because it has already been deactivated, despite what the e-mail said!

Ok, so, when will I get the replacement card? A week. Beg pardon, you cancelled my card and it will take a week to replace it? What if I had been traveling internationally or something? Oh, then it would be to you in a day. How about you expedite sending the card to me? The soonest the expedited card will arrive is Friday (remember this conversation is Tuesday AM).

Fine, expedite it, at least I'll have it for the weekend. Well, it is now Friday night, and no UPS or FedEx package with my card, and no stickers on the door indicating they tried to deliver it. I check my e-mails for a tracking number and find nothing.

So back to calling AMEX customer service. The automated response is that my card will arrive on Monday. After I get a human on the line, HE can't find a tracking number either! He goes away for awhile comes back and tells me there was no expedited service note on the card and that they sent it by USPS! Do they want it lost or stolen??

Mind you, I have been a faithful customer of AMEX for over 30 years, and we run the vast majority of our day to day and monthly expenses through their services, and this is how I am treated. If I didn't have so much of our payments and such tied to them I'd cancel it tomorrow. If I ever get a new card, I will certainly transition as much as I can away from them.

As an aside, every time I called AMEX customer service, during normal business hours, I got a call center in another country where English is obviously a second language. Due to hearing loss and tinnitus I have trouble understanding most accents and had to ask to be transferred to a call center in the states.

That really sucks for you. To date (knock on wood), AMEX has been one of the few companies where I have always found their CSR's to be top tier and looking for ways to help solve whatever issue I had.

I would agree with Ronin. I have had nothing but the best possible service from AMEX. They have/had a large complex in Salt Lake City that I usually get routed to when I call. I think they may have scaled it back or totally closed it.

I have had better luck with higher end cards like AMEX Platinum, Chase Sapphire Reserve, etc. It seems that an entry level card gets entry level service.

Amex has consistently provided me with excellent customer service. I've used their concierge service and plain old calls to customer service multiple times; never less than outstanding. Sorry you have troubles.

Amex burned me while I was serving in Europe. Haven't used them since 1977 or so.

Hmmmmm...

My card was expiring end of July...and I didn’t get a replacement...so I called.

Replacement was sent in June. I never received. They said it was never activated.

Sent me a new one NEXT day.

Received...activated...no issues.

You mileage may vary I guess...go figure.

I had my last experience with AMEX about 4 decades ago. Stationed in Frankfurt, Germany. Had payroll deposited directly to Amex account.

On TDY duty which required a LOT of travel all over Germany. Getting ready to go out on another of those "exciting" inspection trips and stopped at AMEX branch to pick up $35 dollars. They refused to give it to me as I had no money in the account. Say what!?!?!?!

We had several 1000 in the account as we were getting ready to get out of the army and other things. Told the asshole to call the HQ in downtown Frankfurt that I was on my way and would be closing all accounts when I got there.

Buddy and I got to the HQ and were met by the branch manager who could not apologize enough.

Tough shit buddy. Close the damned account, right now. Argument ensued, but he closed my account, as well as my buddy's.

Went across the street to the Chase Manhattan branch, deposited the money and walked out with a checkbook.

Funny thing, only AMEX had banking on post, and when I needed cash, I went to the AMEX office, cashed the check and they never called to see if I had money in the bank. Seems that AMEX has not improved.

Guess AMEX ain't what it once was.
They used to provide some unique services, no more. No point in paying annual fees for what a lot of other providers will give you at no charge.

I have to say I've had stellar customer service from AmEx everytime.

Piling on here, but have had good service from AmEx. They, like most of the other major carriers (Citi, Capital One, and so on) tend to overnight cards to you when there has been a problem with some pressing. AmEx has gone over and above once, when they overnighted a card to a hotel while travelling abroad.

--k

No complaints here. In fact replacement cards are the only things that make it here overnight.

Just went through a long and unnecessarily complicated issue with one of my Amex cards; part of it was my fault, part of it theirs. I called their dedicated credit Line, got past the fact that someone from India answered the call because she was more than pleasant and the moment she realized that she could not solve my issues, she offered to transfer to someone who could.

I never felt like I was being read a script, and after about 30 minutes my issues was resolved in a way that was significantly better than I had hoped or asked for.

They definitely bought themselves another few years of loyalty. (I’ve been with them since 1999)

Only issue I had with AMEX recently was the payment section of the website was down and I had try to use the "pay by phone" option. No joy there either. I managed to get someone on the phone to get it done finally.

I’m with the others who’ve had nothing but great customer service from AmEx.

I just want to eliminate one possibility. I understand how you might feel that they canceled your card without giving you a heads up. Might you have been a tad irritated already when you first made contact and why the person didn’t do as much as she could to help you out?

Thanks for reminding me about this. We have since upgraded our cards to the platinum level at the insistence of my wife, who had perfectly reasonable points. And shortly after we got the new cards, they had to cancel her’s due to, wait for it, fraud. This time they got her a card within a few days, no problem. The account is technically in my name. Since then I had one instance of a questionable charge, which I called the fraud line about. Once again, their response was to propose canceling my existing card, which I told them no, just don’t pay that charge! I’m just disputing it. They finally agreed to do that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a huge fan of AMEX and their fraud department up to this year had been excellent. I don’t know what changed, but they need to address it sooner than later.

Always been great with me. Just had to have a new card/# issued about 2 weeks ago. They said I could use existing card for FTF transactions but not for online purchases until new card was issued- appx 2-3 days. Also recurring payments (bills, etc) would not be interrupted.

Bob

My Amex has been compromised a few times. They say a new card will arrive in a week.
I say no worries, other cards to use. Amex then sends it overnight. Overall they are very good.

Thanks for the post, OP!!

Have a gold card, which runs about $90 a year, I think. Anyway, I don’t use ANY benefits from the card and am not in any “rewards” program.

I’ve started using my MC for pretty much everything because I AM enrolled in that rewards program. Need to tranfer the one or two automatic charges from the AMEX card to the MC and maybe shut down that $90 a year card from which I’m seeing zero benefit…

If you're paying an annual fee for any card, you need to know how to use the benefits that come with it. The BGR (business gold rewards) card is worth far more than its annual fee IF you use it the way it's meant to be used. I used to work at Amex and knew all the ins and out of each card, but it's been a while and I don't recall them now. I got rid of BGR and went to business platinum because of business travel. Sure, $695 sounds outrageous for an annual fee. But I get to hit the Amex lounge in just about every airport I depart from or layover in, and that's especially nice when a flight gets delayed by a few hours. Countless other benefits I use and don't use, but it easily pays for itself. The 5x points I get from booking travel with the card gets me a free trip to Europe once a year. I've gotten $400 worth of credits from Dell via this card in 2023, got my Global Entry and Clear fees covered, $200 credit with Amer. Airlines and probably a few others I can't recall. Whatever rewards card you pay for, make sure you know how to use it such that you're basically getting paid to do so.

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:
Thanks for the post, OP!!

Have a gold card, which runs about $90 a year, I think. Anyway, I don’t use ANY benefits from the card and am not in any “rewards” program.

Just FYI - the Gold is $250. I get more than my value from it with the 4% restaurant points and Uber offers.

I use the cash back Blue for groceries (6% cash back).

Rick gets into better detail in the post above…