We Don't Take American Express!!

Have you ever heard American Express' advertisements about how wonderful their card is, how universally accepted it is, and the pleasure of not having a preset spending limit? Well, there are two sides to every coin, and here is the flip side to theirs. It is the story of one merchant's adventures with them. It only goes to show why Visa is accepted in more places.

Thinking about American Express? For those of you who are considering taking American Express credit cards in your business, let me share with you my experience so that you don't get burned the way I have. As a small software vendor I wish to share my story with you and let you decide if American Express is the type of company that you should be doing business with.
Computer Tyme is my software company. I've been in business since January of 1984. I've taken several kinds of credit cards most of the time I was in business. Mostly, Master Card, Visa, and Discover. In 1989 I started taking American Express as well.

In my 12 year history, I have never had any problems with credit card companies. Not a single instance of a dispute with a customer over a credit card charge, and never had a chargeback. Perhaps I was just lucky, or perhaps it's the nature of the business I'm in. I sell network management software mostly to large corporations, who tend to pay their bills. I'm not a huge customer, but I do a few thousand bucks a month in credit card sales. I may not be Microsoft, but I think I'm big enough that they would want my business.

With such a clean history, who would have thought that one day, out of the blue, I would get the following letter:

As Paul Harvey says, click on the link below for the rest of the story......

We Don't Take American Express