Credit cards / Amex (excuse rant)

[AndiK]

This is very much QVC-related, so bear with me!

I don't know if many of you have an American Express card as I do. I only have mine because Barclaycard no longer issue MasterCards so they replaced that with a Barclaycard Amex some time ago. The good thing about the Amex card is I get cashback on my spend, which is nearly all on credit card - it's only 1% but many offer 0.5% or nothing at all - and over the year it really adds up, not least from my QVC spend. Not all shops and businesses accept American Express, which I gather is because they get charged more by American Express than they do by Mastercard and Visa for accepting it in payment (3% Amex vs 2% others?). I completely understand that for smaller shops where margins are tight (although having said that, many smaller independents do these days). Lidl also doesn't take Amex but I don't mind that because they are so cheap!

Anyway, the reason for my post here is that apparently my Amex card was compromised so it was cancelled. Today my new card arrived so I called QVC to give them the new card details as that's the card lodged with them, and guess what, QVC are no longer taking Amex* (see below)! THE MEAN BU99ERS!!! First they stopped the link-up with the cashback sites like Quidco and TopCashback, and then (to my utter disgust) with charity donation click-through sites like Easyfundraising, through whom I had shopped at QVC online and earned tens of £s for charity - well, we already know QVC's attitude to and reputation with charity fundraising, don't we? Now they are too damned penny-pinching to let people pay by Amex because it's more important they don't pay the extra 1% or so to American Express. I sincerely hope (but doubt) that a high percentage of their customers only have Amex cards so will stop shopping with them altogether - sad for the customers missing the odd bargain but probably good for them in the long run!

OK, if I can't afford not to get that 1p in the £ cashback I was getting for shopping at QVC using my Amex card, I shouldn't be shopping at all. But, to coin that old phrase, it's the principle. I can't believe how ****** mean they are, cutting corners and making sure they squeeze every last penny (literally) out of their customers. Only recently, they announced pre-tax profits were up 24%.

Sorry if I am acting like someone who has only just woken up (in my Cozee Home bedding) and smelt the QVC coffee. I am sure I will calm down eventually.

*If you already have an Amex card lodged with QVC for payment, you are fine ... well, for now. They are just not accepting new Amex details because apparently "the system will no longer let them add them".

 

[Rural lady]

I pay for anything I order from QVC (very little these days) by Amex.

It's ridiculous that QVC plans to eventually phase out this form of payment (which is what will happen by not accepting any new or updated cards).

Once my card expires that will be the end of me shopping with QVC. I use my Amex card as much as possible both for the financial benefits and the excellent customer service/fraud protection it provides.

Seems a very backward step in my opinion.

 

[Tarketta]

Wow, bit ironic to say the least that a US company is phasing out payment by an American card in the UK - madness?!?!

 

[donna255]

They stopped taking Electron long ago, the weird thing is loads now want the Electron card as you are not charged booking fees on it.

I remember people kept asking why but no answer. Same with Paypal, many asked why QVC don't take Paypal? Its simple and many prefer not to register their cards on sites like QVC.

 

[AndiK]

If they could force us only to pay by direct transfer from our banks (Faster Payments system), so it cost them zero to get their greedy mitts on our hard-earned, they would.

(Nope, still not over it 3 hours later!)

 

[AndiK]

I pay for anything I order from QVC (very little these days) by Amex.

It's ridiculous that QVC plans to eventually phase out this form of payment (which is what will happen by not accepting any new or updated cards).

Once my card expires that will be the end of me shopping with QVC. I use my Amex card as much as possible both for the financial benefits and the excellent customer service/fraud protection it provides.

Seems a very backward step in my opinion.

I'm thinking the same but I'm not sure I can resist some of the better TSVs. On the other hand, I would definitely not miss getting them if I just used up the stuff I have in store for the next couple of years.

I think I'll write to the CEO and waste another hour of my life!

 

[AndiK]

They stopped taking Electron long ago, the weird thing is loads now want the Electron card as you are not charged booking fees on it.

I remember people kept asking why but no answer. Same with Paypal, many asked why QVC don't take Paypal? Its simple and many prefer not to register their cards on sites like QVC.

Come to think of it, Barclaycard told me the card was compromised but didn't tell me exactly how. As it is likely that someone has hacked into a company's customer records and got personal details (so credit card companies close card accounts just in case), it could easily have been QVC - or would they warn us if they found out they'd been hacked???!

:thinking:

 

[Sussex Shopper]

I'm an Amex card user as well - it's my card of choice. If you let Amex know about acceptance problems, they'll generally have a word with the company if it's an account that makes them money. I'd imagine QVC are big enough to fall in that category. There's a way to report it on the Amex website- I'll report it tomorrow.

 

[AndiK]

I'm an Amex card user as well - it's my card of choice. If you let Amex know about acceptance problems, they'll generally have a word with the company if it's an account that makes them money. I'd imagine QVC are big enough to fall in that category. There's a way to report it on the Amex website- I'll report it tomorrow.

Thank you very much for this. I was thinking I might contact them about this, although I wonder if there has already been a "high level" conversation between Amex and QVC. Still, please let me know and I'll put my indignant report in.

 

[MrMarple]

The company I work for recently stopped accepting Amex as well. It just wasn't cost effective for us to continue with them unfortunately. Apparently they have much bigger fees than other card companies.

 

[shopperholic]

It's just like when they stopped accepting Postal Orders, they didn't care about the people who didn't have a debit/credit card, I know that's rare now but about twelve years ago when they stopped, there were many people who didn't have one, did they care about them? absolutely not.

 

[grovesy]

It must be very recent as I used mine with them in the last month! There are many stores that don't include big names! I don't get cash back on mine!

 

[donna255]

Come to think of it, Barclaycard told me the card was compromised but didn't tell me exactly how. As it is likely that someone has hacked into a company's customer records and got personal details (so credit card companies close card accounts just in case), it could easily have been QVC - or would they warn us if they found out they'd been hacked???!

:thinking:

Of course they will never tell you. A few big companies have been hacked and suddenly two years later its leaked they were and they had to admit it.


I remember the postal order/cheques both gave you breathing space to see what people thought of the products before sending. Now of course its the letter because people have to return as the product is crap! I had an Electron card for years and always had to use cheques to pay with QVC, 99% of online retailers accepted the Electron card. Then out of the blue when my card expired the bank sent me a Visa, even though I never asked for one.

 

[Lady Madonna]

The company I work for recently stopped accepting Amex as well. It just wasn't cost effective for us to continue with them unfortunately. Apparently they have much bigger fees than other card companies.

Before I retired I worked in a smallish accountants , we didn't take Amex due to cost. The bank used to charge a monthly fee for the machine and Amex charges were a lot but I believe Amex are a charge card and not a credit card.

 

[Sussex Shopper]

I phoned Amex customer services this morning and asked for my concerns to be raised to the Merchant Services group who handle accounts with retailers. I couldn't find the form I was thinking about, but the CS rep said to use the 'Contact Us' button from your account home page.

If enough of us complain to both Amex and QVC, we might just be noisy enough to get Amex reinstated. I've got a couple of years till my current card expires, so fingers crossed I don't loose it before then!

Thank you very much for this. I was thinking I might contact them about this, although I wonder if there has already been a "high level" conversation between Amex and QVC. Still, please let me know and I'll put my indignant report in.

 

[AndiK]

It must be very recent as I used mine with them in the last month! There are many stores that don't include big names! I don't get cash back on mine!

Yes, I gathered the same.

 

[Pick-a-Lily]

Just another reason I will not be spending with Q any more! I switched to a BA Amex to collect the avios.

 

[AndiK]

The company I work for recently stopped accepting Amex as well. It just wasn't cost effective for us to continue with them unfortunately. Apparently they have much bigger fees than other card companies.

Before I retired I worked in a smallish accountants , we didn't take Amex due to cost. The bank used to charge a monthly fee for the machine and Amex charges were a lot but I believe Amex are a charge card and not a credit card.

Yes, Amex are more expensive. I mentioned in my rambling post that apparently Amex charge around 3% as opposed to Visa's and Mastercard's 2%. Depending which way you look at it, that's 50% more than other card companies or 1p in the £ more. I am just very disappointed that QVC are acting like the poor, squeezed retailer selling small amounts of stock on low margins and so needing to force customers to pay by methods which are cheaper for them (QVC). Look at what they make from us in P&P alone.

 

[AndiK]

I phoned Amex customer services this morning and asked for my concerns to be raised to the Merchant Services group who handle accounts with retailers. I couldn't find the form I was thinking about, but the CS rep said to use the 'Contact Us' button from your account home page.

If enough of us complain to both Amex and QVC, we might just be noisy enough to get Amex reinstated. I've got a couple of years till my current card expires, so fingers crossed I don't loose it before then!

Thank you so much, SS. I am definitely going to contact Amex too.

 

[AndiK]

UPDATE

OK, I have an update and I am a bit red-faced because the reason for not accepting Amex cards from now on is not costs-related. I'm not sure what I learnt reflects very well on QVC either, though!

I decided to ring QVC to speak to a supervisor because I thought I might persuade them that if they are keeping a relationship with Amex for the customers like me who have already registered cards, they could bend the "new Amex card" rule for me and anyone else when they get a replacement card (a gesture of goodwill respecting customer loyalty). It turns out it's not that they have simply decided not to accept Amex payments any more, it's that they have a new (I assume) system for entering card numbers and the problem is "tokenization". If I've understood this right, when they enter the digits on their screens, random digits are generated so that if someone were to hack into it, they would be unable to work out what the actual 16 digits of the card are. Because Amex cards only have 15 digits, "computer says no". So they physically can't enter the number at all. (I don't know how other retailers get around this??) The guy I spoke to was very pleasant but it seems QVC just accept that anyone with an Amex card won't be able to use it to pay for goods in future if that card is not already on their system. There is no room for flexibility. I said I would just have to cancel all my auto deliveries, pay off my future easy pays by some other means, and close my account. He said, "Yes, obviously it's QVC who are missing out."

:headbang:

I do wish the CS girl yesterday had explained this, especially when I had a moan to her about QVC being too mean to pay the extra fee - she should have contradicted me about the reason but I can only assume she didn't know!

Easy to see why I and some of us here assumed the worst of QVC - that they were penny-pinching. But it's not great either that, once again, their systems are letting them down ... although I don't know if many other companies have the same problem??