Thanks Soooo much Breeze and Hope... That makes me feemuch better..!!!! Breeze... I have so much respect for you. I can only hope that I am as good of a daughter to my mother as you are to yours My mother doesn't want me helping her b/c I am pregnant (high risk)! But.. once I have the baby I plan on rotating with my sister to make sure she is well taken care of...!!!!!!
Breeze, I find that incident really disturbing. What good is an AmEx card if it takes such a long time to approve a purchase? This nonsense about "no preset spending limit" is almost guaranteed to leave you stranded when one extra variable makes a transaction too complex for them to handle.
Re: Cards like American Express Of course there are. NextCard and Net1st and FUSA. Fully secured. How do you beat that? Great security but the fringe benefits ain't much. LOL
Re: Cards like American Express Absolutely. especially for grocery store use, hehe, any old card that has a grace period and no balance will do. I got the AmEx for the prestige (yep, you heard right) and the travel services, but it's not like I can't live without it.
Re: Cards like American Express Just kidding, Breeze. Like I said, there are alternatives to Amex just like there are alternatives to Creditwrench. NextCard and Net1st and FUSA are all alternatives to Amex, Discover, Diner's club in about the same sense as fighting with credit bureaus, judgments and garnishments are alternatives to Creditwrench. Creditwrench is like Hallmark. If you want to send your bill collectors the very best then send them CREDITWRENCH. LOL
Re: Cards like American Express quite true, Breeze. After all, how many people have lived and died without credit cards? Billions You got born without them, didn't you??? LOL
Re: Cards like American Express AMEX calls themselves looking out for you and ensuring that your card has not been stolen. Oddly enough, most idiotic theives use cards at gas stations and grocery stores (beer, cigarettes, etc,). LOL! Keep in mind that the amounts are usually small and usage is sporadic...One time I had a guy upgrade to PLAT from GOLD..(kept the GOLD), paid 25K for an owners suite on a cruise and they blocked him as he was going out to dinner in LA with a GOLD card...I rallied for him..I told card how embarrassing, I did the company a favor by getting more money (annual fee) out of this guy...getting ridiculous commission from a preferred vendor and you treat him like this...They ended up unblocking the card, gave him a ridiculous amount of Membership miles, sent him a wonderful gift, and me a $100 gift cheque as an employee saving the day! Their rules bite their own a$$, but this is what we call "Blue Box Values" folks.
Re: Cards like American Express I believe AmEx is an "Open" account in credit reporting agency language (compared to "installment" and "revolving"). http://www.ulofa.com/ULACreditReports/creditreportsample.htm What are the other "open" account type companies?
Re: Cards like American Express Exactly, Kitt! You would think that they would be able to see this from their customer's point of view and handle it some other way.
the most likley reason: i own a few business's. the pos systems and/or the credit card systems now work a number of ways. they transmit your sell information either by: phone line , (land line or cell) and satalite. if the sat.link is down or the processor is down or either busy and can't get thru than it will ask to call for authorization. it happens all the time. it most likley had nothing to do with you. i find the problem mostly on the weekends because the technitions are sread pretty thin to handle problems. i have ATM machines also. this is a real problem with them because the # of atms is growing but the processors are not adding enough lines. have you used a atm and gotten a "SYSTEM UNAVAILABLE" MESSAGE.
I think the problem with AmEx is that this is also how they handle some security issues with a transaction also. I have had the message pop up "check signature" and "check ID" and I have had a CCC call my home to verify a transaction, but AmEx is the only one that I have experienced that will stop a person at the POS. So there is no way to know if it is technical or if it is seciruty. The night this happened, I had shopped two previous nights using my AmEx card, and the last few transactions, they had had to check my ID and signature at the POS. (again, I don't mind - they should be doing that anyway). Perhaps I should call them each time I go shopping, and tell them where I am going, and how much I am going to spend, I could even read them my grocery list over the phone, LOL. Think that would work?
I think the other "open" accounts would include Diners Club and some of the gas cards like Diamond Shamrock, Union 76, possibly Conoco or Phillips 66... In other words, any account that requires payment in full each month...
I believe the new "privacy" laws and computer anti-virus systems have caused a lot of programming errors in all heavily used systems.One of the simplest methods of avoiding hassles is to segregate your cc's.If you don't want to use a debit card for grocery store and everyday household purchases,then pick your lowest limit card,that you pay in full each month, and only use that one.
