American Express

[JKSNIPER]

So I get told by my gym that I am in arrears to the tune of 3 months because my credit card ( American Express) has been declined.

Impossible I say because I know I have almost NO unpaid balance on the card and my limit is far beyond what they need to charge for the gym fee.

I call AE and they claim:

A. No one has tried to charge my card and been declined

B.My CC # has remained the same since I opened the account over 5 years ago. ( THe gym apparently had a totally different # on file for me)

C. The gym had changed their billing service in December so I assume that is the source of the problem but they insist they are using the # from the gyms file that they had successfully charged up until November.

Hmmmmm.........

I call the gym back and start to feel like I'm being scammed by them for $ because they are claiming that the card HAS been declined but only since December. The gym tells me that the old billing service may have been "able to push through the payment" even though the card was reported lost.

I almost throw the BS flag on that one but decide to call AE one more time to see what they say about this info.

I call AE back and get a different representative who tells me that:

A. My CC# DID change 3 years ago when I had lost my card and they issued me a new one. (WTF? the last rep told me my # hadn't changed since 5 years ago) and the claim from the gym owner was probably correct about "pushing through" the payment even though the card was lost and a new one with a new # was issued AE continued to pay on the old # because of a preexisting contract with the gym for 20 months.

When the new billing service took over in December there was no contract with THEM so AE declined payment on the OLD NUMBERS.

So when I called and asked the rep if anyone had been declined payment on the card I now have technically the lady who answered the phone was correct since it is the new(3 years old) card with new numbers and the decline was for the OLD card with old numbers and does not show up on their screen when they look up my current account.

I tell AE rep I'm not happy and do not think I should have to pay the late fees since this was a screw up by them.

The rep tries to pass it off as the billing service's screw up and says they should have updated their information.

I tell him BS that AE is going to eat this one because they were paying on a card # that had been reported lost in April 2011 until Dec 2012 and should have continued paying on it ( if thats their policy) because I was still "in contract" to the same gym....only the billing service had changed.

I then tell him I'd want to speak to a supervisor about this if AE is not going to make good on this...I get put on hold for a little while and then am given a # for the merchant to call to resolve this and I'm told I won't be liable for the late fees.

I call the gym owner back to apologize for my attitude before when I thought he was trying to scam me by telling me that the business could "push through" payment on a card # that had been reported lost/stolen.

He tells me this is why he cancelled his AE card and will as a policy no longer accept AE as payment. He told me he has at least 3 other people going through similar situations and the one thing in common is they all have the AE card.

This ate up most of yesterday trying to get through to people and then being put on hold etc....

Pain in the ass.

[EEH]

I got rid of my AE card long ago because a lot of bis.stopped taking them for slow payment on AE side..You pay your bill and the business has to wait,>>at least that was the story I was told..

[sperman]

Someone made some fraudulent charges on my credit card last year. Citibank caught the charges, changed my number and sent me a new card. I knew my renewal with Sirius was coming up, but I wasn't sure I wanted to renew, so I just let it slide. A couple of months later my account is charged to Sirius, who only has the old number. Once a card is cancelled, they shouldn't continue to pay bills on that card just becuase the merchant has a history with that credit card.

[shopgun]

I got rid of my AE card long ago because a lot of bis.stopped taking them for slow payment on AE side..You pay your bill and the business has to wait,>>at least that was the story I was told..

Actually, it's more likely the crazy rates AE charges merchants. I didn't accept them when i was in business since they charged 5% on sales and Visa,MC and Discover were at 1.65 % for me.

[EEH]

I got rid of my AE card long ago because a lot of bis.stopped taking them for slow payment on AE side..You pay your bill and the business has to wait,>>at least that was the story I was told..

Actually, it's more likely the crazy rates AE charges merchants. I didn't accept them when i was in business since they charged 5% on sales and Visa,MC and Discover were at 1.65 % for me.

wow someone older than me this ones for you shopgun