I received my Delta Skymiles American Express card invoice which included an "important legal notice". Among the four pages of changes to the terms, I thought this one was most disturbing:
"We reserve the right to deny any request for authorization for a Charge, even if the Charge would not cause you to exceed your credit line or Cash Advance limit and even if your Account is current and not in default."
They also advised they were increasing my credit limit by 40%. Which is ironic, since they state above that they may or may not let me use that credit regardless of how timely I am with my payments.
Good to know that AmEx is claiming the rights to make you look like a freeloading loser at restaurants when the waiter returns your card to you with a solemn head shake. I imagine the warning only applies to nefarious card uses, such as online poker and The Twilight Sage: New Moon ticket purchases, but you never know.
Hey, AmExers, have you gotten a similar shot across the bow?
(Photo: frankieleon)
]]>Another possibility is that the automatic credit card system at the pump couldn't get through for authorization. The software for POS systems report a "no answer" as "refused" [probably so they can pass the blame to the credit card company.] I learned this after a gas station regularly refused one brand of card and not another. Each time I called the credit card company and found that there had been no authorization request. The clerk at the station admitted that they had a problem with that brand of card and all transactions were coming back as refused. The credit card manager at my Credit Union confirmed my "no answer"/"refused" theory.
]]>Oh well, I basically use this as only my gas and airline tickets card, and I pay it off immediately, so I expect to get cancelled for being a deadbeat in a few months anyway.
]]>yeah, that's happened to me before. the explanation i was given is that you can't use the same card in the store and then immediately go and pump gas because it might be seen as a duplicate charge. i waited a minute and it was fine.
]]>@amuro98:
If they swore they are in the United States, or if they say I'm in California and you think they're lying, ask them what their ZIP code is and watch them squirm.
]]>My card was declined once many years ago at a restaurant when I had never been late and had no balance.
Of course, this was the ONE time in my life that my server was a woman I used to work with at a nearby office. The server had to know me the one time my card was declined in error. Ugh!
]]>@Cant_stop_the_rock: Actually, it might. At one point, Amex decided they would require random manual audits of preauthorizations (not even actual charges!) my company sent to them. End result: requests were left to languish until they timed out (and returned "Deny"). There was absolutely no pattern to the ones they decided to audit.
]]>I meant good reason like I was maxed out, or tried to purchase with an old expiry date or incorrect extra-code-thingy. You know, actual valid reasons.
]]>WIN.
]]>At this point the conversation diverged from the refused charge to trying to explain that I was not making up words to tease the operators, and that yes, there really IS a game called Craps in the US - but "Bob" and "Steven" should have known that since they both swore to be in the US somewhere.
Meanwhile I tried the card again, and this time it worked. I never was able to find out why it was refused, or what could I do to prevent it from being refused in the future.
]]>The email could be a cya for those kinds of things.
]]>For starters, I'm guessing almost every credit card company has some sort of clause like that into their terms. It means what everyone else here says...if they suspect fraud they can deny the charge and you can't sue them if it wasn't fraud. Secondly, I somehow doubt you'd actually do this (have you done it with the credit cards you currently have (if any)?
I call BS.
]]>@pecan 3.14159265: I was thinking it sounded like a new Legend of Zelda game.
]]>In other words, if you'll only approve transactions if you feel like it, I'll only pay the damn bill if I feel like it.
]]>They've never before issued so many pages of changes all at once.
]]>@jik: Yeah, I don't see the issue - credit card companies can prevent a charge from going through for whatever reason they want.
When I was working a hotel front desk, Amex were the cards I hated the most. I got "Referral" or an outright decline probably 50% of the time. It would always involve having to call Amex and listen to the customer negotiate with the rep about allowing the charge.
]]>No ill intent, they're just providing full disclosure and giving themselves some legal cover.
]]>@Applekid:
As jlk said, it's a false positive issue. This term means that you can't say "you rejected my card because you thought it was fraud, but it wasn't fraud, so I'm suing you."
]]>Unless there was something more specific to his account that suggested they intended to randomly deny him, I doubt they will.
That being said, as someone who pays their bill off entirely every month (and actually prepays it so the bastards can't get me with delayed statements or when I've just been in surgery/had a baby/etc, gah), if they ever randomly denied me for no good reason, I'd stop using the card forever after that. Trust has to work both ways.
]]>"The Twilight Sage: New Moon" - damn hippies and their hippie movies.
]]>("YES" says the Lawyer in Lawyertown...)
]]>It's in their best interest to accept all legitimate charges (after all, charges are how they make money!), so they are motivated not to reject charges for no reason. But at the same time, they need to be able to protect themselves against fraud, and sometimes fraud prevention measures are going to result in false positives. That's life.
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