Card tales part 2
It was supposed to be a simple short call. I had received an offer in the mail from American Express to upgrade my card from a no-fee offering to a paid offering that gave me 2% rewards on all my purchases. When I called the rep looked around and told me that the offer had expired on 31 Dec and that it was no longer available.
Can I switch this card without that additional points offer? The premium card certainly shows up on the website still. The answer was “No” and please apply for that card once more as a new application.
But I do not want a second AmEx card. And I want to keep this card number as I have had this since 2004. The answer was “No.”
Then, I asked to talk to a supervisor. The same questions. The same answers. Another cycle of no action. The suggested course of action was to apply for a new card, then cancel the old card after moving the credit limits to be added to the new card. Very customer-centric indeed, if you look at it with irony.
It was no use, so I cut the line.
The further irony was that after a week I received a mail from American Express on how to contact a Canadian Ombudsman on referring my grievances if I had any with American Express and its products and services - an elaborate problem escalation and resolution process. You are f$#%ing kidding me? Is this is the way you make a customer happy? What world do these guys live in?
Three weeks ago, I talked about the decaying experiences with my primary credit card from Capital One. This experience was no different. I was trying to move to Amex so that I could make this my primary card. And here was another American company giving “by the rule book” service - and especially one that is supposed to be the premium credit card provider compared to the generic Visa’s and Mastercard’s. No wonder these companies don’t have a future, not perhaps in the near term, but certainly this world of “credit cards” is going to change.
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PS: Finally, I decided to keep my 17-year-old card without changing it. But, asked my wife to apply for a new American Express card so that with additional supplementary cards it could be used as our primary card in order to rake up the 2% cashback on wherever AmEx was supported. I am sure there will be more tales from my credit card experiences.