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One thing not discussed is the relationship between AmEx's big purchases and its fees. American Express puts a lot of effort into keeping its paying consumers h

One thing not discussed is the relationship between AmEx's big purchases and its fees. American Express puts a lot of effort into keeping its paying consumers happy because they are both American Express customers (because they pay fees) and because customers really want to use American Express cards at merchants (and so American Express can charge those merchants higher fees). I'll give you an example. Years ago, I bought a fancy sofa online. The merchant sent periodic "don't worry, we're just behind schedule" every week or so for months, and then sent one last email saying they had declared bankruptcy. I was way out of my chargeback window, but when I called American Express, they instantly refunded me my purchase anyway. That experience meant that, if I ever make another big purchase online, I will go out of my way to use an American Express card, including switching merchants if necessary. Keeping customers who make big purchases happy costs money, both in losses and in administrative overhead, but it pays out on both the customer and merchant side in the long run.

stbenjam 2y ago
AmEx was my first card, and I've stuck with them. Despite some decline, their customer service is still top-notch. I always put major purchases on there. Their Platinum travel insurance has been a lifesaver. When a volcano stranded us, AmEx covered our stay at the TWA hotel in JFK. Lost luggage? They reimbursed $400 in clothes, no questions asked. Disputes? I haven't had many but they were always resolved in my favor. I experimented with having a Chase card when they launched the Reserve. Europcar defrauded me, and Chase wouldn't even let me file a dispute. I eventually won by sending a written complaint (FCBA), but I ditched the card right after. Plenty of reports online suggest Chase discourages disputes heavily.
- singleshot_ 2y ago
  Here's a challenge for you, inspired by real life: contact Chase's legal department.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    Usually suing in small claims court will work, somewhat. Sometimes.
    - pizzalife 2y ago
      That’s a lot more work than calling customer service.
      - lmm 2y ago
        With how long you have to stay on hold these days, I'm honestly not sure it is. You can file small claims completely online with a simple text form (at least in my country) and any response will always be in writing.
        MobiusHorizons 2y ago
        Don’t most credit cards require arbitration these days?
        polski-g 2y ago
        Then they can spend the $400/hr on a lawyer to draft a response to the small claims court request that the consumer should refile with the AAA. Then the consumer could send a reply, and they another $400/hr lawyer will have to reply to the reply. And then...
        buffington 2y ago
        The lawyer is getting paid whether you file something or not. They're employees of the company. I think they care less about their cost to their employer and more about wasting their time on petty stuff (when they could be doing important stuff). It's a difference that doesn't change the outcome for the sort of thing you're responding to here, but certainly a difference that matters in other circumstances. For example, Disney will gladly spend far more fighting someone selling counterfeit Disney shirts out of the boot of his car than any profits from sales they'd lose to that counterfeiter. But if they don't fight him, they lose their trademark.
- Spooky23 2y ago
  Yeah Chase sucks for chargebacks. My wife passed away and made a recurring membership-type charge using my credit card. The merchant won't let me cancel without a court order, which is difficult because the estate is closed. Chase told me to go fuck off until they re-bill me, but won't prevent that from happening, and resolved my dispute in the merchants favor. I ended up using public shaming to get the desired outcome.
  - mshroyer 2y ago
    Sorry for your loss re: your wife
- xeromal 2y ago
  Tangent but this makes me feel sad at the customer service I lost when first republic went tits up. Ugh. They were just like this and the best customer service I've ever had with a bank
  - throwawaydummy 2y ago
    I’m not good at English where does the phrase tits up originate from? If that’s not rude to ask :)
    - ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
      https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/227589/what-is-origin-of-the-phrase-tits-up https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/227589/what-is-o...
      - qingcharles 2y ago
        As a Britisher I did not know the origin before, thank you. But, "pear-shaped" originated within my own lifetime? This has blown my mind as I cannot remember a time before this phrase existed and it seems eternal.
    - xeromal 2y ago
      I'm not sure where it comes from just that it's a mildly humorous way of saying something completely failed. Never think it's rude to ask though! :)
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  Hmm, nice story, but what is the total amount of annual fees that you have paid to AmEx? I guess much more than hotel and magical free 400 USD.
  - i80and 2y ago
    At least on the US platinum card, the various complimentary credits mostly cover the annual fee. If you're already paying for streaming services, the occasional Uber, etc. then the annual fee disappears.
- dleary 2y ago
  My experience with Chase chargebacks has been stellar. I have the sapphire preferred card, and the Amazon card. I use the sapphire preferred card for almost everything, it is my “daily driver”. I never touch my Amazon card, but I have it tied to my Amazon account, and it gives 5% off. Anyone who spends serious money at Amazon should have it just for that benefit alone. Anyway, a couple of years ago I noticed that it felt like I was paying more on my credit card, and had been for awhile. I wasn’t really paying very close attention to my finances unless something “felt off”. Well, something felt off, and when I investigated, I saw that there were hundreds of Amazon purchases that I hadn’t made, going back almost 2 years. Because all my Amazon purchases go through my Amazon chase card, and because I make so many purchases on Amazon, when I see AMAZON on my credit card statement my eye just skips over it. Well, I noticed a purchase that didn’t line up, and when I investigated, I saw that it was also on the wrong credit card, it was on my sapphire card and not the Amazon card. Using the tools to dump your entire purchase history to CSV, it was easy to find all of the fraudulent purchases, because they all used the wrong card. The purchases stretched back over 2 years, for a total price of almost $30,000. It was sort of a perfect storm of me ordering lots of stuff on Amazon, not really looking at Amazon fees on my credit card listings, and doing a couple of remodels during this time so funneling large amounts through Amazon and Home Depot were not out of the norm. I thought I was screwed when I saw that it had gone on for more than 2 years and 30k, but when I called up Chase they took care of it almost instantly. I was amazed. They definitely earned a loyal customer that day.
  - sam2426679 2y ago
    Zipcar charged me for getting a parking ticket. The ticket was given for returning/parking the car in the “only Zipcars can park here” reserved spot on the street. The problem was that Zipcar had not applied the Zipcar sticker to their own car, so it didn’t appear to be a Zipcar to the parking attendant. Yes, tl;dr Zipcar charged me for parking the car in the spot they directed me to return the car to. Chase decided the CSP chargeback in Zipcar’s favor.
- e40 2y ago
  My problem with Chase: they stopped integrating with bill pay so I couldn’t automatically pay off the balance. It was always manual. I talked to customer service and that was a unique experience. After about trying to blame me for 99% of the call, they finally admitted it was a feature.
tithe 2y ago
That practice of continually saying "Just a little longer..." is also illegal [0] unless they gave you the option to cancel the order and receive a refund...but not that you care about the FTC if you're circling the drain. [0] https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/business-guide-ftcs-mail-internet-or-telephone-order-merchandise-rule https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/business-gui... [1] https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2020/04/93-million-ftc-settlement-suggests-mail-order-rule-compliance-always-style https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2020/04/93-millio...
- qingcharles 2y ago
  Huh, I wish I'd known about this. I tried to chargeback something from a scam company I mistakenly ordered electronics from who never delivered. I'd paid using a CashApp debit card, and when I disputed it they permabanned me from CashApp.
  - edm0nd 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - r0ks0n 2y ago
      okay now what
      - edm0nd 2y ago
        The guy is just constantly lying on HN about he was "falsely" arrested and many other things lol It's pretty bizarre. I think its a case of mental illness tbqh. Just warning others.
        hollerith 2y ago
        It would get quite tedious if there were a conversation like this every time one of the many convicted sex offenders in the world posted a comment to HN. >The guy is just constantly lying on HN about he was "falsely" arrested Then maybe you could restrict your replies to those comments in which qingcharles lies (or complains) about the criminal justice system?
smfjaw 2y ago
Amex isn't very popular in my country but they meet a really good intersection between the old school white glove service and an easily usable hassle free modern service
eru 2y ago
What you describe works a lot like insurance from the customer's point of view. Normally for insurance the suggestion is that you should 'self-insure' smaller risks, and only purchase third-party insurance for catastrophic risks. The theory being that insurance has extra overheads and on average has to cost you more money than you get out. But that for catastrophic risks, you can't rely on averages. (Of course, that only applies in the absence of tax or regulatory arbitrage. Eg I hear in the US your employer can buy health insurance from pre-tax money, but you'd have to use post-tax money for paying out-of-pocket.) Similar for a company like AmEx you have to weigh whether the occasional wins you describe are worth the constant drain. Or whether you should just put the winnings in a piggy bank, and use a small part of that to finance the replacement for the never-arriving fancy new sofa.
- GrantMoyer 2y ago
  Credit cards let you externalize the cost, since merchants raise their prices to account for credit card fees, but raise their prices for everyone, not just credit card users. In other words, the cost of better consumer protections from credit cards is subsidised by those not using credit cards (and those who carry a CC balance and pay interest, but that's another matter). Alternatively, maybe practically everyone uses credit cards, so the "subsidy" is negligible, and everyone loses slightly on average. But then you'd lose even more if you didn't use a credit card and subsidised everyone else. It's basically a big version of the Prisoner's Dilemma.
  - philwelch 2y ago
    Merchants can give cash discounts; many do. And there are also expenses to handling cash that credit cards eliminate: for instance, such as the need to securely transport large amounts of cash to and from a bank, the need to count the cash, and the extra labor of cashiers making change—a skill that many cashiers are simply borderline incapable of these days anyway.
    - eru 2y ago
      Yes, but it's not a pure dilemma between American Express and cash. There are other ways to pay without cash and without American Express. I see a few explicit discounts (or surcharges) for different payment methods here and there, but mostly the system works by segregation: the cheaper suppliers with lower margins don't tend to accept the more expensive payment providers.
sc68cal 2y ago
I also have similar AmEx stories where they took care of me on purchases that didn't go as planned. It will have paid for the annual fee, for many decades.
simonjgreen 2y ago
I’m not sure how this works in US, however certainly in UK, and I know of comparable experiences in several other countries, credit card companies are legally required to do this. It’s not a perk of AmEx, it’s a perk of using a Credit Card. Specifically in UK, the credit card provider is jointly and severally liable for any breach of contract or misrepresentation by the vendor.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  When I was working for Microsoft China, we had cases where a Chinese restaurant in Bellevue would go after Chinese coworkers visiting the states because ICBC AmEx didn’t offer the same fraud protection as an American or European sourced AmEx (then they would use the numbers somewhere else and create bogus charges). Countries have different rules and protections, and China puts the burden on the cardholder proving fraud took place (rather than the merchant that fraud didn’t take place).
  - lukasb 2y ago
    I wonder if this helps explain WeChat’s popularity for payments
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      Credit cards in China never took off due to cost without the same safety guarantees. I did use UnionPay for most of my purchases back when I lived there, wepay didn’t support anyone without a Chinese identification card back then.
- lelanthran 2y ago
  >> I was way out of my chargeback window > I’m not sure how this works in US, however certainly in UK, and I know of comparable experiences in several other countries, credit card companies are legally required to do this. It’s not a perk of AmEx, it’s a perk of using a Credit Card. I'm pretty certain this is not how it works in the UK, or anywhere else. That's what the "chargeback window" is used for.
m463 2y ago
I had the exact opposite experience with them, and cancelled my card. I returned something, and the company didn't credit the return. I rarely return things, and this was the only return I had ever had with amex. Amex asked if I had contacted the company, and I did, but following up was slow and involved tracing the package and verifying the signature. In the end the company didn't resolve it. So then I contacted american express again and they did not process a chargeback. They said it took too long, even though I had done as they asked. I was really fed up with it, and disappointed because I thought they were different. So I could not in good conscience continue with them and cancelled my card. (I've actually had lots more positive results from visa before and since)
lxgr 2y ago
> I was way out of my chargeback window How many months, out of curiosity? The window for “goods and services not received” is surprisingly long (more than a year in some cases).

stbenjam 2y ago

AmEx was my first card, and I've stuck with them. Despite some decline, their customer service is still top-notch. I always put major purchases on there. Their Platinum travel insurance has been a lifesaver. When a volcano stranded us, AmEx covered our stay at the TWA hotel in JFK. Lost luggage? They reimbursed $400 in clothes, no questions asked. Disputes? I haven't had many but they were always resolved in my favor. I experimented with having a Chase card when they launched the Reserve. Europcar defrauded me, and Chase wouldn't even let me file a dispute. I eventually won by sending a written complaint (FCBA), but I ditched the card right after. Plenty of reports online suggest Chase discourages disputes heavily.

singleshot_ 2y ago
Here's a challenge for you, inspired by real life: contact Chase's legal department.
- bombcar 2y ago
  Usually suing in small claims court will work, somewhat. Sometimes.
  - pizzalife 2y ago
    That’s a lot more work than calling customer service.
    - lmm 2y ago
      With how long you have to stay on hold these days, I'm honestly not sure it is. You can file small claims completely online with a simple text form (at least in my country) and any response will always be in writing.
      - MobiusHorizons 2y ago
        Don’t most credit cards require arbitration these days?
        polski-g 2y ago
        Then they can spend the $400/hr on a lawyer to draft a response to the small claims court request that the consumer should refile with the AAA. Then the consumer could send a reply, and they another $400/hr lawyer will have to reply to the reply. And then...
        buffington 2y ago
        The lawyer is getting paid whether you file something or not. They're employees of the company. I think they care less about their cost to their employer and more about wasting their time on petty stuff (when they could be doing important stuff). It's a difference that doesn't change the outcome for the sort of thing you're responding to here, but certainly a difference that matters in other circumstances. For example, Disney will gladly spend far more fighting someone selling counterfeit Disney shirts out of the boot of his car than any profits from sales they'd lose to that counterfeiter. But if they don't fight him, they lose their trademark.
Spooky23 2y ago
Yeah Chase sucks for chargebacks. My wife passed away and made a recurring membership-type charge using my credit card. The merchant won't let me cancel without a court order, which is difficult because the estate is closed. Chase told me to go fuck off until they re-bill me, but won't prevent that from happening, and resolved my dispute in the merchants favor. I ended up using public shaming to get the desired outcome.
- mshroyer 2y ago
  Sorry for your loss re: your wife
xeromal 2y ago
Tangent but this makes me feel sad at the customer service I lost when first republic went tits up. Ugh. They were just like this and the best customer service I've ever had with a bank
- throwawaydummy 2y ago
  I’m not good at English where does the phrase tits up originate from? If that’s not rude to ask :)
  - ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
    https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/227589/what-is-origin-of-the-phrase-tits-up https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/227589/what-is-o...
    - qingcharles 2y ago
      As a Britisher I did not know the origin before, thank you. But, "pear-shaped" originated within my own lifetime? This has blown my mind as I cannot remember a time before this phrase existed and it seems eternal.
  - xeromal 2y ago
    I'm not sure where it comes from just that it's a mildly humorous way of saying something completely failed. Never think it's rude to ask though! :)
throwaway2037 2y ago
Hmm, nice story, but what is the total amount of annual fees that you have paid to AmEx? I guess much more than hotel and magical free 400 USD.
- i80and 2y ago
  At least on the US platinum card, the various complimentary credits mostly cover the annual fee. If you're already paying for streaming services, the occasional Uber, etc. then the annual fee disappears.
dleary 2y ago
My experience with Chase chargebacks has been stellar. I have the sapphire preferred card, and the Amazon card. I use the sapphire preferred card for almost everything, it is my “daily driver”. I never touch my Amazon card, but I have it tied to my Amazon account, and it gives 5% off. Anyone who spends serious money at Amazon should have it just for that benefit alone. Anyway, a couple of years ago I noticed that it felt like I was paying more on my credit card, and had been for awhile. I wasn’t really paying very close attention to my finances unless something “felt off”. Well, something felt off, and when I investigated, I saw that there were hundreds of Amazon purchases that I hadn’t made, going back almost 2 years. Because all my Amazon purchases go through my Amazon chase card, and because I make so many purchases on Amazon, when I see AMAZON on my credit card statement my eye just skips over it. Well, I noticed a purchase that didn’t line up, and when I investigated, I saw that it was also on the wrong credit card, it was on my sapphire card and not the Amazon card. Using the tools to dump your entire purchase history to CSV, it was easy to find all of the fraudulent purchases, because they all used the wrong card. The purchases stretched back over 2 years, for a total price of almost $30,000. It was sort of a perfect storm of me ordering lots of stuff on Amazon, not really looking at Amazon fees on my credit card listings, and doing a couple of remodels during this time so funneling large amounts through Amazon and Home Depot were not out of the norm. I thought I was screwed when I saw that it had gone on for more than 2 years and 30k, but when I called up Chase they took care of it almost instantly. I was amazed. They definitely earned a loyal customer that day.
- sam2426679 2y ago
  Zipcar charged me for getting a parking ticket. The ticket was given for returning/parking the car in the “only Zipcars can park here” reserved spot on the street. The problem was that Zipcar had not applied the Zipcar sticker to their own car, so it didn’t appear to be a Zipcar to the parking attendant. Yes, tl;dr Zipcar charged me for parking the car in the spot they directed me to return the car to. Chase decided the CSP chargeback in Zipcar’s favor.
e40 2y ago
My problem with Chase: they stopped integrating with bill pay so I couldn’t automatically pay off the balance. It was always manual. I talked to customer service and that was a unique experience. After about trying to blame me for 99% of the call, they finally admitted it was a feature.

tithe 2y ago

That practice of continually saying "Just a little longer..." is also illegal [0] unless they gave you the option to cancel the order and receive a refund...but not that you care about the FTC if you're circling the drain. [0] https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/business-guide-ftcs-mail-internet-or-telephone-order-merchandise-rule https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/business-gui... [1] https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2020/04/93-million-ftc-settlement-suggests-mail-order-rule-compliance-always-style https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2020/04/93-millio...

qingcharles 2y ago
Huh, I wish I'd known about this. I tried to chargeback something from a scam company I mistakenly ordered electronics from who never delivered. I'd paid using a CashApp debit card, and when I disputed it they permabanned me from CashApp.
- edm0nd 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - r0ks0n 2y ago
    okay now what
    - edm0nd 2y ago
      The guy is just constantly lying on HN about he was "falsely" arrested and many other things lol It's pretty bizarre. I think its a case of mental illness tbqh. Just warning others.
      - hollerith 2y ago
        It would get quite tedious if there were a conversation like this every time one of the many convicted sex offenders in the world posted a comment to HN. >The guy is just constantly lying on HN about he was "falsely" arrested Then maybe you could restrict your replies to those comments in which qingcharles lies (or complains) about the criminal justice system?

smfjaw 2y ago

Amex isn't very popular in my country but they meet a really good intersection between the old school white glove service and an easily usable hassle free modern service

eru 2y ago

What you describe works a lot like insurance from the customer's point of view. Normally for insurance the suggestion is that you should 'self-insure' smaller risks, and only purchase third-party insurance for catastrophic risks. The theory being that insurance has extra overheads and on average has to cost you more money than you get out. But that for catastrophic risks, you can't rely on averages. (Of course, that only applies in the absence of tax or regulatory arbitrage. Eg I hear in the US your employer can buy health insurance from pre-tax money, but you'd have to use post-tax money for paying out-of-pocket.) Similar for a company like AmEx you have to weigh whether the occasional wins you describe are worth the constant drain. Or whether you should just put the winnings in a piggy bank, and use a small part of that to finance the replacement for the never-arriving fancy new sofa.

GrantMoyer 2y ago
Credit cards let you externalize the cost, since merchants raise their prices to account for credit card fees, but raise their prices for everyone, not just credit card users. In other words, the cost of better consumer protections from credit cards is subsidised by those not using credit cards (and those who carry a CC balance and pay interest, but that's another matter). Alternatively, maybe practically everyone uses credit cards, so the "subsidy" is negligible, and everyone loses slightly on average. But then you'd lose even more if you didn't use a credit card and subsidised everyone else. It's basically a big version of the Prisoner's Dilemma.
- philwelch 2y ago
  Merchants can give cash discounts; many do. And there are also expenses to handling cash that credit cards eliminate: for instance, such as the need to securely transport large amounts of cash to and from a bank, the need to count the cash, and the extra labor of cashiers making change—a skill that many cashiers are simply borderline incapable of these days anyway.
  - eru 2y ago
    Yes, but it's not a pure dilemma between American Express and cash. There are other ways to pay without cash and without American Express. I see a few explicit discounts (or surcharges) for different payment methods here and there, but mostly the system works by segregation: the cheaper suppliers with lower margins don't tend to accept the more expensive payment providers.

sc68cal 2y ago

I also have similar AmEx stories where they took care of me on purchases that didn't go as planned. It will have paid for the annual fee, for many decades.

simonjgreen 2y ago

I’m not sure how this works in US, however certainly in UK, and I know of comparable experiences in several other countries, credit card companies are legally required to do this. It’s not a perk of AmEx, it’s a perk of using a Credit Card. Specifically in UK, the credit card provider is jointly and severally liable for any breach of contract or misrepresentation by the vendor.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
When I was working for Microsoft China, we had cases where a Chinese restaurant in Bellevue would go after Chinese coworkers visiting the states because ICBC AmEx didn’t offer the same fraud protection as an American or European sourced AmEx (then they would use the numbers somewhere else and create bogus charges). Countries have different rules and protections, and China puts the burden on the cardholder proving fraud took place (rather than the merchant that fraud didn’t take place).
- lukasb 2y ago
  I wonder if this helps explain WeChat’s popularity for payments
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    Credit cards in China never took off due to cost without the same safety guarantees. I did use UnionPay for most of my purchases back when I lived there, wepay didn’t support anyone without a Chinese identification card back then.
lelanthran 2y ago
>> I was way out of my chargeback window > I’m not sure how this works in US, however certainly in UK, and I know of comparable experiences in several other countries, credit card companies are legally required to do this. It’s not a perk of AmEx, it’s a perk of using a Credit Card. I'm pretty certain this is not how it works in the UK, or anywhere else. That's what the "chargeback window" is used for.

m463 2y ago

I had the exact opposite experience with them, and cancelled my card. I returned something, and the company didn't credit the return. I rarely return things, and this was the only return I had ever had with amex. Amex asked if I had contacted the company, and I did, but following up was slow and involved tracing the package and verifying the signature. In the end the company didn't resolve it. So then I contacted american express again and they did not process a chargeback. They said it took too long, even though I had done as they asked. I was really fed up with it, and disappointed because I thought they were different. So I could not in good conscience continue with them and cancelled my card. (I've actually had lots more positive results from visa before and since)

lxgr 2y ago

> I was way out of my chargeback window How many months, out of curiosity? The window for “goods and services not received” is surprisingly long (more than a year in some cases).