4 ms·
American Express is not commonly supported outside the USA.
by rmc 12y ago
American Express is not commonly supported outside the USA.
- t0mas88 12y agoTrue, although in the Netherlands this seems to be changing in the last few years. A lot of restaurants and stores for clothes/shoes etc are now accepting them. Grocery stores over here almost never accept credit cards. If Apple sings some kind of exclusive deal for iPhone payments with the credit card companies I expect that half of Europe will start accepting credit cards because people willing to pay for a 600 euro phone are an interesting market segment.
- rmc 12y agoIME from Ireland and UK, plenty of shops here accept credit cards. Visa or Mastercard.
- Oletros 12y agoSince when European countries did not accept credit or debit cards?
- t0mas88 12y agoI meant American Express. Acceptance of Mastercard and Visa is fine here, but American Express used to be far behind and is now playing catch-up. And for groceries in Amsterdam for example you're going to be searching for quite some time for a supermarket that accepts credit cards. They only accept debit, which is what 99% of the population has as their primary card. Of course everybody has a credit card as well, but that's mostly used for online shopping and things like restaurants, not supermarkets. So totally different from the US where any supermarket accepts credit-cards.
- pilsetnieks 12y agoDespite the name, it actually is. Not so much as Visa and MasterCard but it's still quite widespread. On the other hand, when I see an American tourist trying to pay with a Diners Club, I feel sorry for them.
- Moto7451 12y agoHow prevelant is Discover? Diners Club cards can use that network as well.
- rmc 12y agoIME of Ireland & UK: Visa or Mastercard
- mrweasel 12y agoDiscover is non-existing in at least northern Europe. American Express is a bad choice for many parts of Europe because companies are use to very low processing fees, and AMEX (and Diners Club) are very expensive credit card to process.
- mseebach 12y agoThe Discover brand is non-existing, but Diners Club (which is owned by Discover) is somewhat popular.
- prawn 12y agoMost places in Australia, if they support American Express, charge extra to cover fees.
- Theodores 12y agoSeems some people beg to differ. However AMEX costs more for the retailer, therefore, with everyone already with Visa/MC, why, as a retailer allow people to pay with AMEX? If you want to double your transaction costs, eat into your profit margin, have more admin for the book-keeper, then why not!!! Part of the point of AMEX is that everyone is insured against scammers that bit more, hence the higher price/charges, however, in Europe where we have C+P nobody really wants AMEX - their business case just is not heard.
- saryant 12y agoChip and PIN has nothing to do with Amex's consumer-friendly chargeback policies. C+P tries to prevent fraudulent transactions, charebacks give consumers over misbehaving merchants.
- Crito 12y agoCC fraud in America, contrary to popular European belief, is not a problem for American consumers. American consumers are not liable for fraudulent charges made with their card; resolving them is a simple matter of telling your CC company that the charge was fraudulent (the majority of the time, the CC company has already figured that out themselves). Chip and Pin buys American consumers fuck-all; it is merchants and CC companies that benefit. European consumers seem to want American consumers to have chip and pin more than American consumers want it for themselves. It is truly bizarre. Are you guys getting a "refer your friends" commission or something?
- rmc 12y agoThere are countless USA tourists who go to Europe with their non-chip-and-pin cards and then wonder why it doesn't work. And that must suck for your holidays. So let's try to reduce that.