Could any Gold Charge holders (personal or biz) pls confirm that your calls are still dealt with at Brighton, not Bangalore? I need to switch. Us untouchables with a Green Card were shunted to a call centre a few weeks ago and now have absolutely no recourse to decent customer service in the UK (try and you're promptly transferred to an "account manager" with a nom de call centre).
CS from Amex was, up until a few weeks ago, the best I've experienced and is half the point of having the card.
How often do you typically have to call your CC call centre?
I call mine perhaps once every 5 years? (and yes I do find the ones offshore extremelydifficult to deal with)
tim
Bitstring , from the wonderful person "tim (moved to sweden)" said
I actually had to call the Amex (blue) one twice in a week - they had failed to PROPERLY activate both my card, and my wife's. (I mean we'd gone through the activation procedure, the card just wasn't being accepted anywhere that actually bothered to check - which revealed that
75% of places apparently don't).Luckily I helped set up one of the first US software operations in Bangalore, (which came with the first private satellite earth station in India), so I'm fluent in pseudo-English. Besides, I deal with Amazon's 'help' desk a lot too - I'm sure it's the same people. 8>.
I use the card primarily to pay US suppliers (why I'm with Amex) and they will quite frequently put a hold on transactions (over 2K) for "security checks" -- which used to mean a 30 second call to CS to get it authorised, sometimes late in the evening due to the time difference (the Indian call centre will not be able to do this directly, they will have to defer to the UK, I am sure). I often need goods dispatched by the merchant the same day so expediency is important. UK service was always superb.
Last time I was put through to India the guy got fixated on his flowchart and tried to get me to register more contact numbers, he kept asking if the UK "01..." landline I finally provided was a mobile number, and he has probably messed up my billing details as I have one US number on the card specifically for US authorisations (tel number is checked like a post code in US). Sometimes the line is so weak you can't hear a word they are saying.
It is just a disappointment, I was always very impressed by their customer service. I have never dealt with a bank or credit card company that has a foreign call centre so for Amex, who seem very customer focused, to do this is surprising. Anyway, I think the green card is the only one to have been offshored? Is this correct?
Only way to know for sure is to enter your card number on the CS number and see where it leads. . .
Mines a centurion (black) and that certainly isn't offshore!
Mine is a Centurion too - but haven't you noticed recent changes to the way calls to the 0808 number are handled? It seems to me that they have some less experienced people at the front end now.
The other worry is that the chip on the card is causing me problems with retailers (HMV spring to mind) who insist it is a chip & pin card and now refuse to swipe it.
And what about the recent change to card registration/protection service? - the new service was so bad I moved to an alternative, rather than use their free service.
"Wireless Reader" wrote
What happens when they put it in the C+P terminal?
It can't read the card number from the chip - so the EPOS returns an invalid card error. HMV staff are now told to refuse to swipe cards which have a chip - so no readable chip - no sale. And no they wouldn't call Amex on the phone.
The card also refuses to work on some new car park terminals nearby - these apparently were upgraded to read the chip recently - although when using a Visa card they don't actually ask for a PIN.
The chip on an Amex Centurion card doesn't operate like a normal chip - it is more of a gimmick. When they first placed it on the card in the late 90's, it held data like exchange rates.
X-No-Archive: yes In message , Wireless Reader writes
I was a little concerned last week when I encountered these new machines at NCP's Gatwick long term car park. One was required to insert a credit card on entering the car park in order to raise the admission barrier. The instructions merely required one to use the same credit card when leaving the car park. The card was read and spat out leaving me with no documentary evidence at all. But all was well: on leaving a few days later, the machine swallowed my card for a worryingly long time and eventually ejected it together with an itemised VAT receipt.
No PIN or signature required. Possession of the card was enough.
The reappearance of "The Doctor" (Who) is indeed a sign that the Earth is in peril from a new breed of electronic sales equipment that sucks the brains from shop assistants. A recent item on "You & Yours" reconted "sales" staff in Dixons going into a zombie like state when the terminal told them that the item which they had just swiped the barcode for was "out of stock" - the manager came over to "sort things out" but was also zobified when the machine told him the same. the existence of the item in the shop could not overcome this strange power. I suspect that this may have something to do with Dixons low figures this week.
Unfortunatly the person involved did not think to just walk out of the shop with the item and tell the security man that he wasn't stealing it as "there are none in stock!"
I'm a bit late into this thread, my apologies. I've dealt with the Indian call centre once, every other time it was Brighton. Mind you, regardless of whomever I speak to or write to, it's like talking to a brick wall. Oh, and Amex in Brighton loves surfing the Internet searching for "amex sucks". Good to know they care isn't it?
I'm still using their products, but for how long I couldn't say. Regards,
Martyn
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