fucking amex.....uggggg
 

so i've never had an american express card before, but i hear they have a great platnuim card that gives me 1.5 air miles for every canadian dollar spent - so i figgure I'll use it and within 2 months with my bandwidth bills be at the top of air canada's points reward program allowing for free upgrades from coach to first class... good idea right??

so i wana charge my bandwidth bill on it, and knowing that the amount in question is more than your typical charge at a hotel or restruant, i call them to verify that i can do this. They tell me i have to prove that i have the funds first - no biggie - hell i'll even pre-pay but they so no, just prove you have the ability to pay this. ok. so i give them my banking info and they contact my bank and my bank responds that it's no problem. ok, so i go ahead and make the charges - DECLINED.

what the fuck?

I call amex and they tell me that was an unusuallly large charge amount and they always decline charges of that size on a new account. grrrr - i quietly and politly remind her that i pre-arranged this with amex 2 days ago. i get every excuse under the sun. finnally a supervisor tells me that they need 48 hours to process info received from my bank which was FAXED in yesterday. so i have to patiently wait till tomorrow to see if i can infact do this. in the mean time i'm left looking like i dont pay my bills!!!!!!! grrrrrrr

You're such a bottom feeder, pay your bills :winkwink:

DH

i fell like jay.

LMAO DH...

I am sure they will realize soon enough you are legit... I say they giving you a hard time cause you a Canuck

:1orglaugh

I have heard some real horror stories about Amex fucking up people's credit by continuously doing credit checks due to very large transactions.

I would be wary of them - make sure they dont fuck you up.

to be honest i only want to do this 2 times to max out the air miles program, then get a few different U.S. visa's with different air miles programs for the different major airlines and max them out too. the points last for YEARS - might as well have max on about 4-5 airlines.

Try World Perks visa. Mine is through US Bank, but they may use other banking companies. They add up real fast.

I stopped using them years back.I needed some fast cash so the only way I could get it was to drive all the way to the fucking airport to some amex bank machine,to make it worse they of course charged me US funds on which they promptly took out of my chequing account 30 days later without a fucking statement.Needless to say I cut it in half and never used them again.

Mwaa Mwaa Mwaaaaaaaaa

I'm sure your host will understand. My card got declined for 2 months before my hosting got shut off. Turns out I forgot to update the billing after I reported a card lost and got a new one. Was no biggie, back up in a few minutes.

Reminds me of that Adam Sandler movie where he buys hundreds of cans of pudding just to get airmiles.

:)

doing that next - want to max air canada first, and i have to goto the usa in person to apply for one as i'm a non resident - already asked them.

movie?!?!?!?! lol, ask around, someone in this biz DID that on a GRAND scale with granola bars a few years ago.....

Anytime I hear of Amex, the image I see is there's nothing too expensive for an Amex cardholder. That's the image all their ads portrayed of themselves but they'd decline a hosting charge? Seems weird if you ask me. Visa would have no problem authorizing that :)

WG

that really sucks if you prearranged it, im sure your bandwidth provider wont mind waiting one more day for you though

here's the thing - amex has no limit - they just accept or decline on their own whimps. visa has a limit. you can buy ANYTHING with a visa up to that limit.


now i WANT the amex black card. i've heard through the grapevine what it takes to get one and i can sustain those kind of charges for a year on my account to qualify so I'm on a mission now to get one.

That's what I thought came along with the Amex, the prestige of no limit. But definitely, the Amex black is one of those cards I would love to have too. It's invite basis after a certain dollar amount spent I believe, is it not?

WG

rhumor is it's by referral of another black card holder and you have to have a min sustained balance each month for over a year

Punch Drunk Love? Yeah..

Actually that story was real. (The pudding that is).

Claim: A clever consumer earned a lifetime of free air travel by taking advantage of a Healthy Choice pudding promotion.

Status: True.

http://www.snopes.com/business/deals/pudding.asp

"David Phillips, a civil engineer at UC-Davis, has become a cult hero in the obsessive subculture of people who collect frequent-flier miles by converting $3,150 worth of pudding into 1.2 million miles. Oh, yeah-he's also going to claim an $815 tax hahahahaha-off.

Last May, Phillips was pushing his shopping cart down the frozen-food aisle of his local supermarket when a promotion on a Healthy Choice frozen entrée caught his eye: He could earn 500 miles for every 10 Universal Product Codes (bar codes) from Healthy Choice products he sent to the company by Dec 31. Even better: Any Healthy Choice bar codes mailed by the end of the month would rack up double the mileage, or 1,000 miles for every 10 labels. "

Interesting... now you got me interested in getting one :)
WG

I got an offer for an amex business card the other day in the mail....I'm not even going to bother with it. Screw 'em.

dude - you don't even have a FUCKING CLUE as to what someone relativly well known in this industry actually did with granola bars. course you never did have a clue.

that story is NOTHING compared to what he did......

yeah i've seen that movie also. i think it was called punch drunk love

If you don't have an Amex black, you aren't really elite. :1orglaugh

ahhh

Once you get it worked out with Amex you won't use anything else. You might even begin to hate establishments that don't take it because they're cheap bastards.

I cashed in around 500,000 reward points this year from Amex. Not bad, I definitely enjoyed the $5000 in free shopping.

:)

Brad

Sounds KINDA like my "Fuck Banks" thread a while back... Had deposited checks in an account in excess of a wire amount but the wire was refused until a 5 day holding period passed.

So annoying. :feels-hot

Oh... and with the rewards program if you do it right you can turn your rewards points into shopping at hundreds of online places or into miles for various airlines. Additionally, when you use the Amex platinum, you will have access to places like the WorldPerks Club (NorthWest) or Delta's and Continental's equivalents when you buy your ticket through their travel site.

I'm working on getting that Amex Black card... maybe by 2005 Internext! lol

I bet Mr. Fiction has one...

:glugglug

Brad

Credit cards come in handy all the time. Its the paying time that beats the fun out of it.

Two words: TD Visa.

very deep and insightful, mr. postbot.

Well...the pudding guy had a movie made about his story. And that dipshit Adam Sandler played him.

What's this granola story you say that this is NOTHING compared to?

Nice :thumbsup

got it - the GM card one

nice:thumbsup

Tell Amex you know Juicy ....you wont have any probs after that

Years ago I used to have one, They want to see you establish a pattern of charging and paying. I had a fresh card and Charged 2 TVs to it the first time out. They called my bank and the manager backed me. They approved it. They asked me also do I have the money in there ? I told them why would I use the card If I had the money? From then on I used to charge 10-15k at a time no sweat. :thumbsup

If AMEX does decline it will be for unpayed bills or abnormal purchases
If you have just got your card phone them and tell them what kinda regular bills you have coming out so they know what to expect.

I'm a centurion member ;p so all bow to the Bastard

Amex is a closed loop transaction system -- all the funding, financing, approvals,etc are done through one central system, therefore they can make their own rules regarding payment and charge allowances. And they are notoriously bad at fraud control imo -- Sleazy is totally right, they don't on most all their programs give you a fixed amount of charging limit, they simply use their whacked out formula to decline or approve.

I've seen people with Platinum cards get declined for 250 dollar purchases if it was outside their spending parameters they've mapped.

Damn those granola bars Sleazy ;)

Stop being an idiot. I was just mentionning that the pudding story was true. It was not a comparison between your granola bar story.

Now go eat a bucket of chicken or something.

God you are stupid :1orglaugh

It's not. All I needed was good credit, a tiny little bit of history with Amex, an Amex Platinum card and $150,000 spending on it in one year. By the 13th month of such high spending, I was able to get them to send me an invitation for the Centurion Card (the black one you refer to).