Anybody remember Cobaltcard?

Here's a little blast of gas from the past...

The people who helped AmEx bring us the infamous Cobaltcard, the questionably-named "Zowi Corporation" -- have renamed their company with this new questionable name -- "SIZE technologies" (with the word SIZE in all caps and the "t" in technologies left uncapitalized). I suppose we're to be impressed with their SIZE, whatever that means. Ooooh, gosh, that company has SIZE. (I just typed something else as well, but I smartly employed the delete key.) You can still get to their website by going to http://www.cobaltcard.com

I also notice that Randall Chesler, who was CEO of the company before, remains CEO of the new company.

But wait, there's more... The Cobaltcard customer service number is still maintained at (888) 814-9097. You can get your automated balance by keying in your old account number. You can even still talk to a real human being at that same Philippines call center by pressing 0. Just because I'm wasting some time today (argh), I just called myself:

The Philippines woman: "Thank you for calling Cobaltcard, my name is Andrea, and how can I help you today?"

Me: "Hi, well, I guess you don't get many Cobaltcard customer service calls anymore, do you?"

Her: "Sir, we never receive any such calls because the program was discontinued in 2001."

Me: "Yeah, I know. Well, my question is, will American Express ever offer another similar program?"

Her: "Sir, we have still not received any word regarding whether American Express will offer the Cobaltcard again."

Me: "Uh, how about a similar program?"

Her: [She should be wondering if I have a life at about this point, and the sad answer is apparently I don't, but alas I digress.] "Sir, we have no information about that."

Me: "Thank you."

Her: "Thank you for calling Cobaltcard."

Just for fun, everybody should call that number and ask questions about Cobaltcard. Ask for Andrea. She won't know what the heck is going on. Ok, it's juvenile -- I think you can never completely rid yourself of your inner-adolescent, no matter what they tell you. Oh, and one more thing: remember, every time you call this number and speak with a real person, that company gets to bill American Express around three bucks for the trouble. Enjoy.

One little factoid I picked up along the way in case anybody here needs to employ a whole customer service call center on the cheap: The name of the Philippines-based company which AmEx used to handle Cobaltcard customer service calls is "eTelecare" and this is their website:

http://www.etelecare.com/abtfrm.html

Unfortunately, we Cobaltcard holders weren't good enough to be handled by the regular U.S.-based "world class" AmEx customer service reps.

Incidentally here's what eTelecare has to say about U.S. customer service (from their website, above link):
eTelecare's founders recognized that these challenges and the escalating costs and decreasing quality of US-based call center services provided a unique opportunity. By locating our call centers in the Philippines, eTelecare is able to do something most businesses dream of...increase quality and decrease costs.

Oof, maybe they're right, but that's still a kick in the face. I wonder how the regular AmEx cust svc team would feel about those comments. In any case, what they really mean is this:
eTelecare exploits its Philipino staffers by paying them squat, so we can afford to offer other companies a huge bargain. And if you don't need customer service, then maybe we can interest you in a line of clothing from our sweatshops staffed with 10 year olds who work 70 hours a week. (end of translation}

I'm still smarting over the loss of my Cobaltcard. Even though it had limited utility, it was the hottest looking card I'd ever seen, and it never, ever, ever failed to get a comment like this when presented: "Wow, what kind of special American Express card is that!? I've never seen one of these prestigious things before!" I doubt the AmEx Centurion Card gleaned as much admiration.

Doc

 

George, what the heck are you talking about? There were no annual fees, there were no monthly fees, and there were no per-transaction fees. Finally, if you loaded the card a certain way (and I forget now which way it was, but I did it myself), there were no load fees either.

Doc