The math this company uses to weave their web of numbers is amazing. Broken down, when you open your first American Express card, you are automatically assigned an APR based on your credit rating. You tell us your credit is high and you receive a 12.99% variable, too bad. AMEX says you suck. Deal with it, or close the account.
Yes, they do have promotional offers at lower rates … but you need to read everything carefully. ‘As low as 0% offered for some or most card members’. This is where either AMEX wisely gets you, or your stupid and don’t read the sentence. All you see is you’re getting 0%. So you sign up for the card, and the next thing is you got 6.99%. Why? Cause AMEX deemed your credit is that worthy. And you cant fight it. That’s all they offered .. deal with it.
So okay, lets say you already have an AMEX and somewhere around January 2009, your APR went up about 3%. Why? Because in November 2008, they sent out with your statements information that because of the market changes, they were raising the APR’s.
Perfectly legal. It’s quoted in the Terms and Agreement that you didn’t read that AMEX can do this.
But the AMEX crowd never gets that.
They could, conceivably, raise the APR to 80% if they wanted, and you can’t do a thing but cancel the card.
So the fools call in wondering why and we tell them all the same crap as mentioned above and they either want to cancel the card or make it lower.
Here’s what you need to know: if you had 7.99% or so, this is considered a standard rate. Meaning the average rate all card members have. Some have less … some have more .. .but the solid mid-point was 7.99%. So, January 2009, they went up to 10.94 or 12.99%.
Can you get it lowered?
Only the very rare and very few can get it lowered from the standard rate.
Want to know how to get a better rate? Time and current payments is the only way to do the trick … but even then, there is no guarantee. You have to NEVER be late and ALWAYS pay on time.
Here’s what happens when you don’t pay on time …
Lets say you got a card with a promotional rate of 0% for a year. You ring up 5,000 on your card and your not paying any interest. Suddenly, you lose your job and your late with one payment. Only one payment … say by two days. One day is all it takes, but it’s really seen in two days.
You will lose your promotional rate and go to what is called a default rate…usually at a whopping 27.24%
And American express will not tell you.
You see, here’s the truth about American Express. It’s all about silent disclosure. They hide nothing … but they are not obligated to tell you.
So you’re spending and you’re a little late. If you’re not paying attention, you lost your promotional rate, now you’re suddenly paying finance fees commensurate to the balance and you don’t even know why. It could go on for months at 27.24% … and all you have to do is call in and ask for it to be lowered.
That’s right. Ask…if you catch it early enough, we always lower the default rate from 27.24% down to something like 12 or less % depending on how deep the situation is with your payments and credit. Again, system generated. We have choices of one percentage or another and we typically lower it to the lower of the two for you.
Some card members, mostly the elderly and generally stupid card members let it stay at 27.24% for months … and then suddenly we can’t lower it back down at all.
Some card members really get penalized by American Express. This is what you need to know about late payments as well …
It’s July 10th and your payment is due on July 13th. You make your payment either by mail or by phone (I’ll get to that subject in a minute) … we receive and post it on the 14th. It’s late and you WILL receive a finance charge with your late fee.
But wait … it won’t stop there. You will keep receiving a finance charge for the next two billing cycles until your account shows current straight through. So if you were hit with a finance charge of $50 for being late … and you make your payment the next month on time … you will STILL get a finance charge. And the next month after that.
That’s how the system works. System generated … but that’s how it goes.
Sure you can call to have the fee waived … depending on your history with AMEX (not your membership tenure) the CCP may do it. Come off like an asshole, and the CCP will not. That much is up to us. You see, you can call in and ask to have your finance charge waived, and the system may deny you, but we can override it and still waive it for whatever reason.
I tended to waive the fees for people who were straight up and honest about their situations. The people who lost their jobs or simply forgot to mail a payment on time.
It’s the idiots that come off like they want it waived because their an asshole … they got rejected by me every time. So then they want to cancel the card, I cancel it for them … they call back a week later and try to reinstate the card … they can’t do it so they need to reapply for a new card. Suddenly they lost their rate and they have to start from scratch … not to mention pay their balance on the card they cancelled.
There is sooooooooooooooo much more I’m going to share. Got Questions…I’ll tell you all I know.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
American Express Card Members
Never will you find such a wretched hive of arrogance and idiocy. AMEX is very smart; they deliver this mystique about their card and their services: Exclusive. Membership. Privilege. All catch phrases that people with low self-esteem eat up in a heartbeat. And that’s proven by the fools that call in every day:
For example, lady calls up asking for to waive her late fee because she’s been a member for 10 years and she’s never been late before. Well, bitch … there’s always a first time. And guess what?? 60% of them always lie … as we see your record for at least a year back and, yes, she’s been late a few times before.
When nothing works, they always fall back on that being a member since crap and it doesn’t phase us CCP’s nor does it even phase the company as a whole.
What American Express card members fail to realize is this is just another charge/credit card. You spend on it… you pay it back. What’s the mystery?
And your membership isn’t accepted everywhere because American Express charges the merchant too much. So how exclusive can you be if the place you need to shop takes any card BUT yours?
Additionally, because of the high marketing to make you feel special, the spouses to official card members try to get into the act. They are the worst kinds.
You see, there is only ONE account holder and the rest are additional card holders. The BASIC CARD MEMBER (BCM) is control of the account and no information can be let loose to anyone but that person unless anyone is listed as an AUTHORIZED ACCOUNT MANAGER (AAM). Permitted information on the ADDITIONALs side of the account can be told to the owner of that card, but if you are not the BCM, you’re answers are restricted.
Even worse if you’re just the spouse. So, for example, the wife of HENRY MITCHELL calls in to get an increase on her husband’s card, we can’t do it unless we’re speaking to the BCM.
The spouse goes ballistic because she either believes she’s an authorized account manager, or just because she believes she deserves the same privileges. I’m usually quick to hang up on these clowns that aren’t authorized for anything.
Really quick.
The worst ones are those who expect to get their Annual Percentage Rate (APR’s) lowered at the drop of the dime and when they can’t … they threaten to cancel their accounts. Well, let’s see … a new member every minute verses you leaving the company. PLUS you still have to pay AMEX whatever balance is left on the card.
For every 5 AMEX card members pulling a hissy fit and canceling their card, 4 of them return to re-activate it. And they’ll pitch a bitch about anything and close their accounts, only running back because they need to feel special … which is what AMEX is selling. Can’t lower you’re rate, you cancel the card … but you come back. Can’t waive the late fee after you’ve been late once or twenty times (it doesn’t matter) … you cancel the card.
Go ahead … American express doesn’t care. We’ll try to sell you back sometimes, but for the most part, their always more people coming on that will take your place and, quite frankly, you’re not that special.
Again, it’s just a charge/credit card … and you owe them. So pay up or stop using the card.
That said, let’s move on to APR’s
For example, lady calls up asking for to waive her late fee because she’s been a member for 10 years and she’s never been late before. Well, bitch … there’s always a first time. And guess what?? 60% of them always lie … as we see your record for at least a year back and, yes, she’s been late a few times before.
When nothing works, they always fall back on that being a member since crap and it doesn’t phase us CCP’s nor does it even phase the company as a whole.
What American Express card members fail to realize is this is just another charge/credit card. You spend on it… you pay it back. What’s the mystery?
And your membership isn’t accepted everywhere because American Express charges the merchant too much. So how exclusive can you be if the place you need to shop takes any card BUT yours?
Additionally, because of the high marketing to make you feel special, the spouses to official card members try to get into the act. They are the worst kinds.
You see, there is only ONE account holder and the rest are additional card holders. The BASIC CARD MEMBER (BCM) is control of the account and no information can be let loose to anyone but that person unless anyone is listed as an AUTHORIZED ACCOUNT MANAGER (AAM). Permitted information on the ADDITIONALs side of the account can be told to the owner of that card, but if you are not the BCM, you’re answers are restricted.
Even worse if you’re just the spouse. So, for example, the wife of HENRY MITCHELL calls in to get an increase on her husband’s card, we can’t do it unless we’re speaking to the BCM.
The spouse goes ballistic because she either believes she’s an authorized account manager, or just because she believes she deserves the same privileges. I’m usually quick to hang up on these clowns that aren’t authorized for anything.
Really quick.
The worst ones are those who expect to get their Annual Percentage Rate (APR’s) lowered at the drop of the dime and when they can’t … they threaten to cancel their accounts. Well, let’s see … a new member every minute verses you leaving the company. PLUS you still have to pay AMEX whatever balance is left on the card.
For every 5 AMEX card members pulling a hissy fit and canceling their card, 4 of them return to re-activate it. And they’ll pitch a bitch about anything and close their accounts, only running back because they need to feel special … which is what AMEX is selling. Can’t lower you’re rate, you cancel the card … but you come back. Can’t waive the late fee after you’ve been late once or twenty times (it doesn’t matter) … you cancel the card.
Go ahead … American express doesn’t care. We’ll try to sell you back sometimes, but for the most part, their always more people coming on that will take your place and, quite frankly, you’re not that special.
Again, it’s just a charge/credit card … and you owe them. So pay up or stop using the card.
That said, let’s move on to APR’s
Customer Care Professional
First, let’s talk about who your Customer Care Professional (called a CCP) is. He or she can be anyone from the tip of Rhode Island to the shores of California working from their home and/or an office in Phoenix, Arizona. I worked from a third-party company that allowed me to work from home with various hours to choose from. The convenience of working from home was the allure. It was supposed to give me the flexibility to manage the family and allow me to get my writing done.
The problem, and it’s more of a personal issue than company problem … it’s very difficult to write after a day of listening to American Express Customers whining daily. And I do mean whining. These are people who AMEX deemed worthy of getting a credit card and, after years of feeling special for having the card, feel they have earned exclusive privileges to be pains in the ass to the CCP’s. Everything from needing to waive a late fee, to where their membership points are to wondering why they’re APR’s are sky rocketing. All well and good valid requests … but if you get these calls back to back for eight hours, it wears on the average CCP and, since many of us do not work within a office but from our homes, the lack of managerial overseeing creates a mood of who needs this crap and disgruntled feelings. The average AMEX card owner is very, very arrogant and considering that so many random people aren’t tied to an office, receiving pivotal private information on an hour to hour basis (address, phone numbers, expiration dates, social security numbers, etc), you would think they would be careful how they treat whom they are dealing with.
Am I saying people are stealing card member information? I don’t know anyone at all particularly, but my question is to you …what’s stopping them? Any given day, I will have scraps of papers of social security numbers and information that I have to throw out after writing things down to access accounts. You see, when the caller makes a mistake at the automated system, it gets steered to a CCP and that CCP may ask to re-enter the account number and ask you some security questions to make sure you are who you say you are.
The average arrogant card member tends to get annoyed at this part. Swearing they typed in the number correctly when they didn’t. If that were so, they would never have to come and speak to us.
The CCP asks a series of questions based on how you set your password when you opened the account. The problem with AMEX is, 80% of the time, new cards they issue out to new members don’t have a password setup for when you call in. So, it gives the default question: What is your mother’s maiden name? Again, 80% of the card members never set up. The other 20% usually forget it.
If you don’t know it, that’s okay. Usually the next question is what is your year of birth? And if you know that, then you are suppose to be given an opportunity to change your password through a voice response system. Because we know you’re annoyed by now, we usually just don’t give you the opportunity to change it and just move on. If you answered the year of birth question right, the account is displayed and we can talk to you.
Even if you’re not you.
From there, anyone crafty enough can just reset the password (provided they know additional questions like previous resident, or a family member no in their household).
We are given strict rules not to over-challenge anyone who calls. So if the card comes up on the screen with the name MARY RICHARDS and it’s a male voice … if the person who called answered all the voice prompts correctly and still says his name is MARY RICHARDS, we have to still give out information as asked. Naturally, we try to get the right information…like the card comes up on the screen MARY RICHARDS but the person admits he or she is the spouse, additional card owner, etc … we adjust our screens to acknowledge who we’re talking to … but most times, if all passwords are answered correctly, a woman’s name on the card and the male voice will not be challenged if he says he’s Mary. Sounds funny, but it’s true.
There are a multitude of Work-From-Home companies that work for American Express. They give a couple months of training through online and telephone conferences. Truthfully, the training is long and intense, but you get to really see the kinds of people working for American Express through these months. Mostly women … housewives who need to be home for one reason or another. They require that all those working from home regard a zero-noise tolerance, but from time to time I’ve heard stories of the CCP caught with the barking dog in the background, small party or children going on in the background.
Then at certain times of the evening, AMEX calls get transferred to other farmed out countries and by the next day, card members are asking whether or not the CCP is from America. You see, for whatever reasons AMEX has, mostly financial, to keep their 24-hour service in motion, they need to farm out help overseas or in patches of American communities that have a concentration of a specific race willing to do the job. Not every call is actually diverted to Pakistan … however the work could be farmed out to an American company run by those of Hindu heritage.
Still not good enough for the average card member that, often times, bridges on racism on how they don’t want to talk to an accented CCP.
With calls coming in by the multitude specific times of the year, it’s really hard for the average CCP to really care about your problems after being yelled at and often abused by card members. So don’t be surprised if you get hung up on consistently if you come off making demands.
No, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been a member. You can be a card member since 1922 but if you’re late with a payment, you will get a late fee. It’s system generated … stop complaining and pay your bills on time.
Always remember, American Express is a business first. Your friend dead last. And the average CCP has even less interest in your wellbeing … especially if your acting belligerent over something that could have been handled if you, the card member, would just calm down and listen.
But the American Express Card Member will always act if their high and mighty … forgetting the CCP has their personal history in their hands.
The problem, and it’s more of a personal issue than company problem … it’s very difficult to write after a day of listening to American Express Customers whining daily. And I do mean whining. These are people who AMEX deemed worthy of getting a credit card and, after years of feeling special for having the card, feel they have earned exclusive privileges to be pains in the ass to the CCP’s. Everything from needing to waive a late fee, to where their membership points are to wondering why they’re APR’s are sky rocketing. All well and good valid requests … but if you get these calls back to back for eight hours, it wears on the average CCP and, since many of us do not work within a office but from our homes, the lack of managerial overseeing creates a mood of who needs this crap and disgruntled feelings. The average AMEX card owner is very, very arrogant and considering that so many random people aren’t tied to an office, receiving pivotal private information on an hour to hour basis (address, phone numbers, expiration dates, social security numbers, etc), you would think they would be careful how they treat whom they are dealing with.
Am I saying people are stealing card member information? I don’t know anyone at all particularly, but my question is to you …what’s stopping them? Any given day, I will have scraps of papers of social security numbers and information that I have to throw out after writing things down to access accounts. You see, when the caller makes a mistake at the automated system, it gets steered to a CCP and that CCP may ask to re-enter the account number and ask you some security questions to make sure you are who you say you are.
The average arrogant card member tends to get annoyed at this part. Swearing they typed in the number correctly when they didn’t. If that were so, they would never have to come and speak to us.
The CCP asks a series of questions based on how you set your password when you opened the account. The problem with AMEX is, 80% of the time, new cards they issue out to new members don’t have a password setup for when you call in. So, it gives the default question: What is your mother’s maiden name? Again, 80% of the card members never set up. The other 20% usually forget it.
If you don’t know it, that’s okay. Usually the next question is what is your year of birth? And if you know that, then you are suppose to be given an opportunity to change your password through a voice response system. Because we know you’re annoyed by now, we usually just don’t give you the opportunity to change it and just move on. If you answered the year of birth question right, the account is displayed and we can talk to you.
Even if you’re not you.
From there, anyone crafty enough can just reset the password (provided they know additional questions like previous resident, or a family member no in their household).
We are given strict rules not to over-challenge anyone who calls. So if the card comes up on the screen with the name MARY RICHARDS and it’s a male voice … if the person who called answered all the voice prompts correctly and still says his name is MARY RICHARDS, we have to still give out information as asked. Naturally, we try to get the right information…like the card comes up on the screen MARY RICHARDS but the person admits he or she is the spouse, additional card owner, etc … we adjust our screens to acknowledge who we’re talking to … but most times, if all passwords are answered correctly, a woman’s name on the card and the male voice will not be challenged if he says he’s Mary. Sounds funny, but it’s true.
There are a multitude of Work-From-Home companies that work for American Express. They give a couple months of training through online and telephone conferences. Truthfully, the training is long and intense, but you get to really see the kinds of people working for American Express through these months. Mostly women … housewives who need to be home for one reason or another. They require that all those working from home regard a zero-noise tolerance, but from time to time I’ve heard stories of the CCP caught with the barking dog in the background, small party or children going on in the background.
Then at certain times of the evening, AMEX calls get transferred to other farmed out countries and by the next day, card members are asking whether or not the CCP is from America. You see, for whatever reasons AMEX has, mostly financial, to keep their 24-hour service in motion, they need to farm out help overseas or in patches of American communities that have a concentration of a specific race willing to do the job. Not every call is actually diverted to Pakistan … however the work could be farmed out to an American company run by those of Hindu heritage.
Still not good enough for the average card member that, often times, bridges on racism on how they don’t want to talk to an accented CCP.
With calls coming in by the multitude specific times of the year, it’s really hard for the average CCP to really care about your problems after being yelled at and often abused by card members. So don’t be surprised if you get hung up on consistently if you come off making demands.
No, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been a member. You can be a card member since 1922 but if you’re late with a payment, you will get a late fee. It’s system generated … stop complaining and pay your bills on time.
Always remember, American Express is a business first. Your friend dead last. And the average CCP has even less interest in your wellbeing … especially if your acting belligerent over something that could have been handled if you, the card member, would just calm down and listen.
But the American Express Card Member will always act if their high and mighty … forgetting the CCP has their personal history in their hands.
Why I hate American Express and Why You Need To Read This Blog!
Perhaps one of the worst decisions I made in my life was working for American Express. On one hand, jobs like these are grist for the mill; sweet fodder to help enhance real life experiences in a story. I am first and foremost a writer and never professed to be attune to the customer service field. Though I’ve had experience managing at Wal-Mart in my years and those little jobs you don’t add to your resume through high school and college that dealt with the public, I try to avoid customer service because, quite frankly, the customer is crazy.
But when the company you work for is just as archaic, out of touch and careless about the customers they are trying to serve, then what are you to do. As much as this may come across as just another disgruntled ex-employee, you need to see the world of credit from what is supposed to be the cream of the crop of credit cards. The education I received...I now bestow to you. A warning? No … most of what I’m about to share with you is all in the fine print of your membership terms and agreement that you never read.
And American Express, and any other credit card company out there, knows you don’t.
But when the company you work for is just as archaic, out of touch and careless about the customers they are trying to serve, then what are you to do. As much as this may come across as just another disgruntled ex-employee, you need to see the world of credit from what is supposed to be the cream of the crop of credit cards. The education I received...I now bestow to you. A warning? No … most of what I’m about to share with you is all in the fine print of your membership terms and agreement that you never read.
And American Express, and any other credit card company out there, knows you don’t.
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