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Am-Ex... Positive Report

hvacrsteve

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Diamond level and American Express derated!

I just want to report my experiences with Hilton Diamond level and American Express the last few days.
If I knew what I knew now I would never have either one of them!
Diamond level was derated last year with changes regarding inventory level at any given hotel. It is now basically not any better than any other program. With American Express I have been spoken to like I was a piece of trash today.
They didn't recieve payment because of mail delivery and you would have thought I had never paid them ever. I have 7 cards which they cut off and this was the first time we had ever had an issue! I spent 4 hours on the phone with them today bitching them out! I am still not done! The lady called me on my cell phone in the middle of a client meeting and had a bitchy attitude!
The people at American Express are clueless on customer service!

I am mad because I thought there was a relationship their!
They don't know what that means!
 

Talent312

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I am mad because I thought there was a relationship their!

Sorry to be picky, but you meant "there." Also, its "receive" not recieve.

In any event, I don't think its just AmEx that has lost their way on customer relations. I thinks its almost every financial instution that only seems to care that its computer has spit out the name of another dead-beat, nevermind how many years you've been a paying customer. We're only as valuable to them as our last bill.

Even local credit unions have gotten snooty recently. The one I've belonged to for 20 years couldn't care less. At least the new one in town is still trying to attract a following with service.
 

Remy

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The grass is always greener. I received a new Chase credit card the other day, two months after applying for it. Turns out the post office took it on a tour of the country. It arrived the same day as the bill for the annual fee. The bill being due two days prior to its arrival.

Long story short, you're not going to get better treatment elsewhere unless it's local. Good luck!
 

PigsDad

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That is too bad the way they treated you, but as Talent said, it is all over the place these days.

One thing that Amex offers is an autopay option -- I have that set up to pay the bill on the due date, so I never have to worry if I am on vacation, if the bill gets lost in the mail, etc. If you want to stick with them, you might want to look into that. It can save a lot of headaches!

Kurt
 

DeniseM

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I pay online and get an instant receipt - easy.
 

itradehilton

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I second the pay online way, all I need is internet connection and my friendly e-mail reminders from customer service.
 

Talent312

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Some small businesses (perhaps hvacrsteve's is one) have accounting systems that don't know how to deal with electronic payments.

My DW is an accountant for a construction company who's accounting system is still based on DOS. About all it knows how to do is print checks. They issue checks to all their subs, vendors and employees.

Upgrading to Windows would have required re-creating hundreds of accounts and re-entering thousands of transactions, and their server didn't have room for both systems.
 

sjuhawk_jd

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Some small businesses (perhaps hvacrsteve's is one) have accounting systems that don't know how to deal with electronic payments.

My DW is an accountant for a construction company who's accounting system is still based on DOS. About all it knows how to do is print checks. They issue checks to all their subs, vendors and employees.

Upgrading to Windows would have required re-creating hundreds of accounts and re-entering thousands of transactions, and their server didn't have room for both systems.

If they can afford an accountant, then they should be able to afford a new server also.
 

hvacrsteve

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That is too bad the way they treated you, but as Talent said, it is all over the place these days.

One thing that Amex offers is an autopay option -- I have that set up to pay the bill on the due date, so I never have to worry if I am on vacation, if the bill gets lost in the mail, etc. If you want to stick with them, you might want to look into that. It can save a lot of headaches!

Kurt

We have state of the art software and computers, we just replaced all of our computers and servers several months ago.
We also updated our software as well.
We have over 300 vendors which we deal with every month.

Amex is just one of them.

If it were a fixed amount every month we would do direct deposit, however the bill can swing from 4k to 100k in purchases on any given month.
We always send out checks when the amounts are that large.

There are many reasons for this.

The biggest is the time to separate these out of a check run and manually deal with it.
The check runs are simple and quick.
It is also simpler to reconcile.
If we could pay all of bills the same way it would work, but to pull 1 or 2 bills out is just a pain.
I have never had an issue with the way we do it now, it works great.
Amex completely over reacted and made themselves look like a bunch of idiots.
I am parking my personal ones indefinitely and parking all but two of the corporate ones for now.

I refuse to be treated that way. I have always thought American Express was a pretty top rate company, I now know and feel otherwise.

I am just glad I don't depend heavily on them, then I would be even more upset.
Honestly Citibank has been much better to deal with.
I think we are going to expand their use and close the American Express.
 

sjuhawk_jd

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We have state of the art software and computers, we just replaced all of our computers and servers several months ago.
We also updated our software as well.
We have over 300 vendors which we deal with every month.

Amex is just one of them.

If it were a fixed amount every month we would do direct deposit, however the bill can swing from 4k to 100k in purchases on any given month.
We always send out checks when the amounts are that large.

There are many reasons for this.

The biggest is the time to separate these out of a check run and manually deal with it.
The check runs are simple and quick.
It is also simpler to reconcile.
If we could pay all of bills the same way it would work, but to pull 1 or 2 bills out is just a pain.
I have never had an issue with the way we do it now, it works great.
Amex completely over reacted and made themselves look like a bunch of idiots.
I am parking my personal ones indefinitely and parking all but two of the corporate ones for now.

I refuse to be treated that way. I have always thought American Express was a pretty top rate company, I now know and feel otherwise.

I am just glad I don't depend heavily on them, then I would be even more upset.
Honestly Citibank has been much better to deal with.
I think we are going to expand their use and close the American Express.

Just don't throw the baby out with the bathwater!

AMEX is a quality organization and they have great products. Bad apples or good apples (but having a bad day) are everywhere. I will not be surprised to see rants about citibank here in few months (or years).
 

IngridN

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Just don't throw the baby out with the bathwater!

AMEX is a quality organization and they have great products. Bad apples or good apples (but having a bad day) are everywhere. I will not be surprised to see rants about citibank here in few months (or years).

No need to wait for the rant...Citi refuses to honor POAs. Never did find out who stole $2K from my dad's IRA, but by then I didn't give a s**t. A friend had the same issue of Citi not recognizing her POA when handling her father's affairs. Fortunately it was only a small $ account and she was able to deplete it paying for his nursing home care.

Ingrid
 

Tamaradarann

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Auto Pay

I second the pay online way, all I need is internet connection and my friendly e-mail reminders from customer service.

I monitor my charges and payments on line but I have Auto Pay and don't worry about being late. It is their problem all I do is make sure I have enough in the checking account and if I don't I have my checking linked with my savings account to back it up.

If credit cards are causing problems instead of easy of use and payment perhaps they are more trouble to you than they are worth.
 

falmouth3

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No need to wait for the rant...Citi refuses to honor POAs. Never did find out who stole $2K from my dad's IRA, but by then I didn't give a s**t. A friend had the same issue of Citi not recognizing her POA when handling her father's affairs. Fortunately it was only a small $ account and she was able to deplete it paying for his nursing home care.

Ingrid

I've found that many/most financial institutions don't recognize a standard (legal) POA. I've had to have my mother get their company specific forms signed and notarized in order for me to handle her financial interests.

Sue
 

Talent312

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Given a recent complaint about Am-Ex in the HGVC forum, I wanted to report a positive experience.

They contacted me today about a suspicious charge which they had blocked. It was a $900 internet charge to a Euro-merchant. I advised that was a fraud, and they proceeded to review a few other pending charges, one of which was a fraud.

They closed my account and promised me a new card by Tuesday. I was impressed by their pro-active efforts to detect and stop fraud in its tracks.
 
Last edited:

Remy

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Given a recent complaint about Am-Ex in the HGVC forum, I wanted to report a positive experience.

They contacted me today about a suspicious charge which they had blocked. It was a $900 internet charge to a Euro-merchant. I advised that was a fraud, and they proceeded to review a few other pending charges, one of which was a fraud.

They closed my account and promised me a new card by Tuesday. I was impressed by their pro-active efforts to detect and stop fraud in its tracks.

In July of last year I received a call moments after an attempt was made to purchase $3k in British Airways tickets on my HH card in a Eurozone country. It occurred shortly after visiting The Hilton Caribe in Puerto Rico but could have been lifted at a number of places along the way.

The great thing about AmEx is they FedEx overnight a new card. It arrived the next day. Barclays will do that for $25 and only after the card is printed using their abnormally slow channels. And AmEx extends this courtesy even if the cause isn't fraud. My card was deformed after going through the dryer and they again overnighted me a new card.

Like I commented above. The grass always seems greener. I game cards for bonuses, so I have at least one from all the majors and AmEx is one of the better ones when it comes to service.
 

IngridN

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I've found that many/most financial institutions don't recognize a standard (legal) POA. I've had to have my mother get their company specific forms signed and notarized in order for me to handle her financial interests.

Sue

Sue...I missed your post. I as well as my friend had no trouble with the other financial institutions our fathers did business with, only Citi. My father had other bank accounts as well as several IRA/401ks. Dealing with Citi was a nightmare.

Ingrid
 

Remy

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Thread titles

How did the thread title change?

I noticed that. Kinda contradictory to the OPs message. Did my title make it change too?
 

bogey21

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I'm still miffed at American Express. Member since 1956; high balances; low balances; never late with a payment in 50+ years. About two years ago I had a balance of just South of $10,000 on my revolving card. I paid it off. Less than one month later they reduced my credit line to $1,000. I haven't used any of my American Express cards since.

George
 

Talent312

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How did the thread title change?

That was my doing...
I started a separate thread with the new title and then asked a mod to append it to hcavrsteve's original rant. Somehow the merger caused my title to supercede his. :cool:
 

Talent312

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I'm still miffed at American Express. Member since 1956; high balances; low balances; never late with a payment in 50+ years. About two years ago I had a balance of just South of $10,000 on my revolving card. I paid it off. Less than one month later they reduced my credit line to $1,000.

How rude!
But that was when they were tightening up on everybody's credit.
I bumped my CL up to $80K by merging accounts and they cut me in half
... not that I would ever charge anywhere near either sum.
 

hvacrsteve

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Latest Update!
I didn't know that my business account and my personal account were linked!
American Express also cut off all of my accounts when the business account was late.
They also didn't bother telling me either.

That has caused me major issues since I used AMEX to auto pay other things which just happened to hit the account when it was suspended!

So I will closing one or the other, that is never going to happen again!

Considering Honors points have been so devalued from what they were,
I am still not sure which one to wack.
 
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