AMEX not accepted or surcharge

[Keith009]

Re: AMEX not accepted or surchage

This is an interesting one. The other half and I were shopping at International Designers' Clearance on Oxford St, Darlinghurst, but were told that they didn't accept AMEX when we were finalising our purchases. I then noticed that the AMEX sign was scrubbed out on their sign displaying the type of cards they did accept so this must be new. Upon enquiry, they mentioned that they had issues with fraud on AMEX cards; apparently "AMEX refuses to take responsibility for fraudulent transactions."

I didn't know what to make of it. But I wasn't about to decline the unique opportunity to save $600 (it'd been reduced to $285 from over $800) on a D&G top so I ended up paying with my VISA debit card.

 

[lovestotravel]

Re: AMEX not accepted or surchage

That's definitely a new excuse/reason!

I have received many emails back from Amex over the past 2 weeks in regards to card acceptance after submitting the online form.

So far 12 emails all saying "We have contacted the management at this establishment regarding acceptance of the American Express Card. Unfortunately at this time, they have currently declined to offer this service to their customers. We will remain in contact with their management regarding acceptance of the Card."

Very :evil::evil::evil: but I have also emailed and/or contacted the managers/owners of the stores to let them know that I will not be shopping there until they accept Amex.

As they are local chicken, fruit and other small shops they should be working hard to get people away from Woolworths/Coles.

For me and until the 1st of Feb I earn 4QFF points per $1 spent at Woolies

3 from the CBA AMex
1 from the Woolies QFF loyalty scheme.

Even with the higher Woolies prices for fruit/veg/meat/chicken the 4QFF points more than makes up for it.

 

[Mal]

Re: AMEX not accepted or surchage

I went past a restaurant in Hong Kong today which had a sign out the front:

"Payment with credit card less 15% discount"

They didn't have any banks (that I could see) nearby, so obviously want to encourage the use of cards rather than cash - which would cost them a lot to handle.

Very unusual in the scheme of things, but a good reference point for how companies in Australia are so wrong about the hidden cost of cash transactions.

 

[ChrisFlyer]

Re: AMEX not accepted or surchage

That's great!

There's one restaurant in Brisbane though that has a sign "15% discount for cash" (ie excluding EFTPOS debit as well as credit)... clearly if they're offering that kind of discount while still having a terminal, they don't want to pay the tax man his fair share...

Lol

 

[ChrisFlyer]

Well it seems that the issues on PayPal now appear to be resolved, with reports that others can now successfully add and use their cards, and those like myself who added their cards in the days before the problems started can now successfully use it for purchases

... think of all the websites that now accept Amex as a result (as well as every single seller on eBay Australia (as PayPal is compulsory))

Fantastic lol

 

[pointsjunkie]

Well it seems that the issues on PayPal now appear to be resolved, with reports that others can now successfully add and use their cards, and those like myself who added their cards in the days before the problems started can now successfully use it for purchases

... think of all the websites that now accept Amex as a result (as well as every single seller on eBay Australia (as PayPal is compulsory))

Fantastic lol

Woohoo! That's awesome, thanks for the update, I'll have to go back online and sort mine out now. Very happy PayPal finally accepts - good on you PayPal, about time!!

.

 

[straitman]

:evil: :evil: Neither of my AMEX cards work as yet :!: :evil:

 

[ChrisFlyer]

Ok well as an update to my last post - depending on what type of Amex you have, they will have either fixed ALL or NONE of the issues.

For those that have bank-issued Amex cards (eg. Westpac etc), they can now be successfully added and used on PayPal AU without any problems, and are being charged the correct amounts in Australian dollars

For Amex cards issued directly by Amex, there are still the same issues with adding and using them... But hey, it's much better than it was a week ago where no Amex card would work at all - obviously they're not going to ditch Amex after all (as another member suggested)

Hopefully for the rest of you who have Amex-Amex cards the issues will be sorted soon But for me, I'm happy as both my Amex cards now work on there

 

[SOPOOR]

ive just got my amex card from CBA which has 4:1 ratio for 2 months only,

can people suggest the best way to get as MANY points as possible,

ive tried paying most utilities on Amex, only 1 was accepted,
I purchased my christmas alcohol supply
I was thinking about buying $2000 worth of gift cards from the supermarket based on a $250 per week spend
Am going to buy public transport tickets (6 month supply)

any other even extreme ways to get points,

I even was thinking of buying stuff and selling on ebay, but that will result in too much of a loss.

 

[opusman]

Pre-pay your income tax for the coming year - you'll not only get points for it but a nice big tax refund in July

 

[SOPOOR]

Pre-pay your income tax for the coming year - you'll not only get points for it but a nice big tax refund in July

hmmm....but there is a 1.8% odd surcharge isnt there?

 

[zzyss]

Get loads of your friends out for dinner, go dutch, but pay using your card.

Ask any of your friends if they have a big ticket purchase that they wouldn't mind you paying for (Plasma / LCD TVs, etc.)

Renting? Can pay by CC? See if you can pay a load in advance.

I'll post if I can think of more.

 

[serfty]

hmmm....but there is a 1.8% odd surcharge isnt there?

... it's actually 1.25% ...

 

[SOPOOR]

someone also suggested to prepay your public transport tickets, or to buy those supermarket gift vouchers for yourself, like $1000 for a couple months supply in advance which is good, and to do it for friends if they are willing to fork out the cash for you!

 

[Alanslegal]

I was thinking about buying $2000 worth of gift cards from the supermarket based on a $250 per week spend

Some gift cards have 12 month validity so you could effectively prepay 12 months worth of groceries. Also some gift cards such as Wish, can also be used for petrol purchases.

So that $250 in groceries plus $100 in petrol = $350 per week. x52 weeks = $18,200 . Multiplied by your 4x bonus = 72,800 points.

Of course you are pretty much holding / storing $18,200 worth of very liquid tender.

 

[albatross710]

Re: AMEX not accepted or surchage

So far 12 emails all saying "We have contacted the management at this establishment regarding acceptance of the American Express Card. Unfortunately at this time, they have currently declined to offer this service to their customers. We will remain in contact with their management regarding acceptance of the Card."

I actually had a call from Amex Merchant Service today as someone has logged as not accepting Amex. They said that we should offer our client 'parity' which sounded reasonable ie same surcharge for Visa & Amex. I said of course, when you give me parity on the merchant fee.

I think that everyone knows how the game works and most of us, me included, use Amex where ever we can to rack up FF points but do we want to pay for it? prefer not to, but when it is surcharge is tax deductible, we do the maths.

The Amex rep will 'come back to me' with a reduced rate. We'll keep billing our clients on Visa in the meantime.

 

[edman]

Re: AMEX not accepted or surchage

The Amex rep will 'come back to me' with a reduced rate. We'll keep billing our clients on Visa in the meantime.

Please let us know how you go, as I would love to be able to offer Amex to my clients. We don't for the same reason you don't. I may have to get someone to "report" me to Amex to get things rolling

 

[albatross710]

Re: AMEX not accepted or surchage

Please let us know how you go, as I would love to be able to offer Amex to my clients. We don't for the same reason you don't. I may have to get someone to "report" me to Amex to get things rolling

The offer for us is currently amex at 2.65%, if they reduce it the merchant fee to 2.15%, we have to agree not to surcharge. I don't think we'll go ahead on those terms as we will be out of pocket as no longer able to recover the surcharge.

 

[edman]

Re: AMEX not accepted or surchage

The offer for us is currently amex at 2.65%, if they reduce it the merchant fee to 2.15%, we have to agree not to surcharge. I don't think we'll go ahead on those terms as we will be out of pocket as no longer able to recover the surcharge.

Yeh I got something similar offered about 12 months ago, can't remember the numbers but nothing flash. Got a better offer for my restaurant than that (I need this for my accounting practice) but they weren't interested in matching.

 

[ChrisFlyer]

I was buying some software the other day from a US-based company (through their website), and they accept payment in multiple currencies, including $AUD. I got to their checkout page, typed in my Amex details, and it comes back with a message along the lines of "Unfortunately, we cannot charge this card type in Australian dollars. Please enter a Visa or MasterCard to complete this transaction in $AUD, or change the currency to $USD and try again."

I changed it to $USD and completed the order on Amex - and it just so happens that it worked out to be about 4% cheaper on the statement than it would have been if charging directly in $AUD, even after taking into account the currency conversion/international transaction fees etc...

So, in a way, a discount for paying by Amex (as I wouldn't have tried this otherwise) - I was very happy haha