AMEX not accepted or surcharge

[zzyss]

I have tried to pay my NRMA car insurance yesterday with Amex thru the phone and was knocked back.
They said they no longer accept Amex not even with a surcharge, only Visa/MC.

Were you going through their automated bill payment system, or were you talking to somebody? If the automated system doesn't take it, then that must be a very recent development, since I only just paid my wife's green slip last week!

 

[wxxnxs]

I am still yet to know of any Business that is paying the 6.15% that you have quoted, and still waiting for ANYONE else to say they are aware of charges this high.

Just because a business adds 5% to cover Amex doesn't mean they are paying 5% in merchant fees.

I am happy to pay up to 3% to pay via Amex as that is the maximum that they would be paying in merchant fees.

Generally Amex is around 1.1-3.5% surcharge. Now for some more facts, which I think are lacking on your behalf. http://www.rba.gov.au/PublicationsAndResearch/Bulletin/bu_aug05/bu_0805_2.pdf This is from a few years ago but 2.4% is the average. Since they time they have come down even further.

As for Amex being so generous with points, you do realise they have ALOT of credit cards out there now with people paying interest ? They do not need to rely on merchant fees only now to pay for points.

No matter the rate I quote here is 6% or 10%, the point I state this is more and more business are starting to charge extra fees on Amex payment in order to cover the cost which seems Amex is still charging too much compare with VISA & MASTER.

 

[Curious]

My AMEX experience,which reflects most posts, is here and in the UK, as such I always have an (ANZ) Visa handy. Can anyone tell me if this would be wise in the US, or is AMEX better accepted there?

 

[straitman]

My AMEX experience,which reflects most posts, is here and in the UK, as such I always have an (ANZ) Visa handy. Can anyone tell me if this would be wise in the US, or is AMEX better accepted there?

AMEX has much better acceptance in the USA though there are exceptions.

 

[lovestotravel]

Now that's just BS.

The average type of person who earns 100,000+ points per year is not a revolver. They pay off their card every month, then laugh at Amex when they count their points they earned that month...

Exactly what part of this is wrong ?

I said Amex do not ONLY have to rely on Merchant fees to make some $$$. Years ago they didn't have many credit cards out there, so there was no opportunity to get some revenue off interest.

I do agree that most people that put through large amount pay no interest EVER

EG, Me, for both my personal and business Amex cards Around 500,000 points per year and no interest EVER :mrgreen:

Keeping in mind that the national average is $3000 of credit card debt and Amex is around 18-20% interest on their credit cards I think ?

 

[lovestotravel]

No matter the rate I quote here is 6% or 10%, the point I state this is more and more business are starting to charge extra fees on Amex payment in order to cover the cost which seems Amex is still charging too much compare with VISA & MASTER.

You said "The main reason I got from my financial controller is because AMEX increases exaggerating merchant fee from 3.45% to 6.15% almost double of the charge, which causes our company can not afford those fees anymore."

I have never disputed that Amex charges more than VI/MC and that is to pay for their reward scheme, amongst other things

Amex as per the RBA's latest figures charge around 1.9% and that has come down from the 2.5% of a few years ago. At the same time VI/MC has come down from 1.4 to 0.8%

I value each dollar spent on my Amex at around 10%, and my limit for an Amex surcharge is 3% as that is more than most businesses will be paying.

 

[wxxnxs]

You said "The main reason I got from my financial controller is because AMEX increases exaggerating merchant fee from 3.45% to 6.15% almost double of the charge, which causes our company can not afford those fees anymore."

I have never disputed that Amex charges more than VI/MC and that is to pay for their reward scheme, amongst other things

Amex as per the RBA's latest figures charge around 1.9% and that has come down from the 2.5% of a few years ago. At the same time VI/MC has come down from 1.4 to 0.8%

I value each dollar spent on my Amex at around 10%, and my limit for an Amex surcharge is 3% as that is more than most businesses will be paying.

For you 3% may be acceptable but for most consumers here, they will not feel happy if they get surcharged, that's why and I believe most merchants would rather refuse to accept the card other than surcharge the guest. From both sides, they all lose business however the 2nd option obviously save more business than 1st one.

 

[lovestotravel]

For you 3% may be acceptable but for most consumers here, they will not feel happy if they get surcharged, that's why and I believe most merchants would rather refuse to accept the card other than surcharge the guest. From both sides, they all lose business however the 2nd option obviously save more business than 1st one.

Yes and trying to get staff to always surcharge is a big problem and it took the staff and Manager of the furniture shop I went to around 3 minutes to work out what 3% of my transaction account was... :shock:

As I have said many times, to the business owners who refuse to accept Amex I tell them that I refuse to shop there until they do and that I am happy to pay a surcharge.

 

[sparoy]

Were you going through their automated bill payment system, or were you talking to somebody? If the automated system doesn't take it, then that must be a very recent development, since I only just paid my wife's green slip last week!

I was talking to somebody then.
But I just tried again today thru their automated system as you suggested and it went thru with Amex this time

Either they haven't modified their automated system or they only refuse people using Amex when you actually speak to someone on the phone

 

[zzyss]

Either they haven't modified their automated system or they only refuse people using Amex when you actually speak to someone on the phone

Yeah, and no surcharge either! It could be because they still accept Amex for their roadside assistance membership (last I checked), and they share a common system. So they only put the recorded warning there to thwart the unknowing

 

[yo yo ma]

I just paid my home and contents insurance on-line and no surcharge for Amex.

I just tried to pay my CommInsure with the new CBA Amex. They said they are trying to bring it in but there is a delay with the computer software only accepting 16 digits at present.

 

[edman]

Just back from a week in HK and my relatives tell me a lot of merchants there now not accepting Amex either, due to fees. I found most were ok, though this was likely due more to the standard of hotel I was staying in and the shops that I was going to. When I did venture into a golf shop for a hybrid Ping for my business partner, they flat out refused, though they did discount the club by $700 HKD for me.

Having said that, a few shops did say they preferred visa/mastercard, but took the Amex reluctantly. The high end shops didn't care and would be used to it I guess.

 

[ChrisFlyer]

Not a high-end shop, but I've found my card to be working at Hungry Jack's again Some of their stores (mainly the airport ones) never stopped accepting the card, but some of the others were recently removed from the Amex directory and returned something like "Contact card issuer" when trying to use Amex...

On the weekend, I was able to use it in one of the stores that were removed from the directory - so I'm not sure if it's just this store that is accepting again, or all of the old Amex-accepting ones... but I was happy

 

[zzyss]

Grr... just discovered that Book Depository won't accept Amex when billing in Australian dollars, but it will for every other currency (USD, GBP, CAD). Bah.

 

[ChrisFlyer]

Grr... just discovered that Book Depository won't accept Amex when billing in Australian dollars, but it will for every other currency (USD, GBP, CAD). Bah.

Have you looked to see what the $USD amount converts to in $AUD?

This was the case on a website I purchased from recently - it actually worked out several % CHEAPER to use Amex and have it billed in $USD than to use MasterCard/Visa and be billed in $AUD (including taking the foreign currency fees into account).

Worth a look

 

[zzyss]

Have you looked to see what the $USD amount converts to in $AUD?

Yeah, for the amount that I was looking at, it was the difference between AU$19.55 and AU$19.57 - add another 3.5% or whatever for the bank's cut, and it's still < $20, so it's not worth crying over, just paid it in USD.

Just annoyed at the blatant stupidity of the situation. Makes me wonder what Amex are doing, to make things so difficult for themselves...

 

[ChrisFlyer]

Just annoyed at the blatant stupidity of the situation. Makes me wonder what Amex are doing, to make things so difficult for themselves...

They don't support dynamic currency conversion (ie. the merchant submitting multiple currencies to the one merchant account like you can do with Visa/MasterCard merchant accounts), so the merchant has to have a separate merchant account for each currency - and alas most can't be bothered to set this up (as they would probably end up paying a different % on each currency account - so they may view it as not worth the hassle when Amex users could just pay in $USD and still have their card accepted).

It would be a nice feature for Amex to develop though...

 

[lovestotravel]

My local coffee shop now accepts Amex!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spoke again to the owner about this, and he said that over the past few months many more customers have been asking to pay via Amex and were slightly annoyed about having to pay cash or VI/MC.

:mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:

 

[StevePER]

Grr... just discovered that Book Depository won't accept Amex when billing in Australian dollars, but it will for every other currency (USD, GBP, CAD). Bah.

Indeed, I just pay them with Amex via Paypal.

 

[Mal]

Sometimes you've gotta laugh at websites. This is what is displayed on an Australian e-commerce website:

So do they "accept" Amex cards or not?