luvflyin
Touchdown! Greaser!
Ah. The car loan is only a year old and other then paying credit card bills in full each month I have no other ‘history’. No biggie, I got a good enough score I can ‘buy’ some money if I need to
American Express
- Thread starter Rushie
- Start date
Ah. The car loan is only a year old and other then paying credit card bills in full each month I have no other ‘history’. No biggie, I got a good enough score I can ‘buy’ some money if I need to
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
I'll never have anything from AMEX in my pocket again...Similar situation, but only one relatively small charge, and I was out the money. I found out later that the person investigating the fraud never got the documents I submitted, and was actually given false information by the people I talked to.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Yeah. One of mine has a pop up web page every six months or so asking what our household income is. I just ignore it.
luvflyin
Touchdown! Greaser!
Yeah. I get those to and ignore them. Now I get why it may be useful unless it’s going down
SoCal RV Flyer
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SoCal RV Flyer
Having a good credit score does have its perks. I recently bought a two-year-old Honda Fit from the dealership...they let me put $2500 on the Visa card, and I was prepared to go to a local bank branch and get a certified check for the rest. But the salesman said, "Nah, with that credit score you could buy the dealership!" They let me drive it away with the promise I'd deliver them the $13K balance with a personal check that evening (I'd left my checkbook at home).
Of course they could've charged the balance on the card if I had skipped out, but it's refreshing to see that kind of trust. That dealer (Weir Canyon Honda in Yorba Linda) has a customer for life.
Of course they could've charged the balance on the card if I had skipped out, but it's refreshing to see that kind of trust. That dealer (Weir Canyon Honda in Yorba Linda) has a customer for life.
tawood
En-Route
FTFY
If a business has a cash discount, I use cash...but most business like aviation fuel, grocery stores, etc, don't offer cash discounts. Around here gas stations offer cash discounts, but I'm one of the fortunate few that don't usually buy car gas (I get a car w/gas through my employment).
I do the same with my American Airlines card. You don't pay interest if you pay the balance every month. I have an AmEx as well. Guess what my interest rate is? Zero.
Length of history, average age of accounts, percentage of accounts that are revolving accounts, percentage of limit used on revolving accounts etc. are all going into the score. Once you hit 760 it doesn't really matter what score you have as it will typically give you the best available rate.
One way to avoid the ding from using a higher than average percentage of your credit card limit one month is to just make a payment that corresponds to the purchase the moment it posts. That way it never shows up as 'statement balance' on the reporting that goes to the agencies
luvflyin
Touchdown! Greaser!
I did something like that just recently. I’m getting a Mortgage. I paid all my card’s current balances off even though it was well before the due date on most of them. Didn’t really need to, I had already qualified, but I know they keep checking between then and closing to make sure you didn’t buy a Ferrari or something so figured why not just do it and take the mystery out of it. I did have a pretty big balance on one of them from something I had recently bought.
wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
Interesting. AmEx has always been very good when I ended up with identity theft (one was a hotel front desk person in NYC that stole not only the credit card number but also the info in my reservation to set up all kinds of accounts). AmEx also worked to chase his accomplice in Florida & I had to do some affidavits for the police. AmEx also got me a new card, same day, because I was leaving on a business trip the next AM.
NyNex/New York Telephone (now Verizon), on the other hand, didn't even try to contact me, sold it to some shady collection agency. I first found out from some slimy debt collector calling late at night. It took weeks, but I *finally* got that resolved, I thought, and that collection agency sold the account to another collection agency but didn't tell them it was verified fraud. Even though I had paper from the first collector that it was fraud & identity theft. It took the State's attorney to finally get that resolved. Verizon basically set up the account with no verification (even spelled my name wrong). They were completely unhelpful in resolving it. Yet another reason that Verizon is on my s*** list.
So my experiences with AmEx have been good.
It's funny how some car dealers get it and most don't.
In a way it doesn't matter what you do between qualifying and closing as long as you are just shuffling balances around. I also found that the mortgage company gets less excited if you tell them up front what you are doing rather than wait until they find out on their last check of your finances the day before closing. I bought a truck and paid off an equipment lease a week before a delayed closing on a house refi. I just kept the underwriter informed about the changes and they had no problems with it. They don't care whether you buy a Ferrari, they care whether your loan/income ratio remains within the limits set by their federal overlords for the 'bin' they are going to fit your loan into.
Verizon in all it's shapes and forms is an incarnation of the devil on earth.
luvflyin
Touchdown! Greaser!
Same thing happened to me. Didn’t put anything ‘down’ with a card but when I told them It’d take me a couple days to get a Cashiers check they said don’t worry, take the truck and bring it in when you get it. What they don’t want is you leaving without it. People are less likely to change their minds when they are ‘high’ on that new car smell
denverpilot
Tied Down
NyNex! LOL. Second worst only to US West/Qwest/CenturyLink. Maybe third to SBC on a good day. LOL!
I remember a day when multiple T1 circuits dropped mid-day to our NyNex stuff. Opened a trouble ticket and then I dialed the POP directly (somewhat of a no-no in telecom) because I bet someone was there (it was unmanned) jacking with something.
NyNex guy answers. I say “Hey, I’ve got a bunch of circuits down in that POP, anyone doing any work? Not going to say a word or anybody or get anyone in trouble, but if you guys could check you’re in the right circuits, I can give you the service ticket number and I don’t care if the “trouble came clear while testing”, I just need those circuits back up.”
Guy covers the mouthpiece for a sec and hollers to someone else, then tells me “I’m late for my Union coffee break. If you want to hold, I’ll set the phone down.” and drops the phone on the desk.
I hear him yelling at the other guy unintelligibly as he walks away.
This is code for, “I didn’t screw your circuits up, the other guy did, and I’m going to be clocked out while he fixes it.”
No kidding, 30 minutes later he picks the handset back up. The circuits are still down. I think he thought the other idiot knew to fix it while he was gone. I tell him the circuits are still down.
This time he forgets to cover the mouthpiece.
“What god-**** circuits are you plugged into over there on the patch panel with the test set?!”
One by one all my circuits go into Yellow Alarm and then Green, the normal recovery mode for a T1.
“They came up. Here’s the trouble ticket number, give it to him and tell him thanks and to close the ticket. Trouble Dispatch will think he’s a hero with how fast he fixed it.”
Dude at least chuckled a little at that one. Half an hour listening to POP fans and someone banging crap around (probably a ladder to get in the overhead trays at that site that attached our circuits to to 60 Hudson St, an infamous “telco hotel”) and he still didn’t realize he’d left the test plugs in the patch panel.
“Union coffee break...” LOL. Only worse telecom people about Union stuff were the AT&T techs. One looked at me over a newspaper through a window in a door once and wouldn’t let me into the work area because he was also on his Union coffee break, and the SME I was supposed to be working with wasn’t looking and was on the phone further away and he figured the SME was supposed to open the door for me. Hahaha.
strangebird
Pre-takeoff checklist
The joke on credit scores is they do not know how much you earn, that is not factored in , but buy something big and run up that low or 0% interest card, the credit scores will take a dive, even when you will pay it off each month.
EdFred
Taxi to Parking
I've taken almost a 100 point hit on my FICO this year because I bought an engine analyzer, avionics database update, airplane insurance, and a couple other bigger things on my credit card - even though they are paid off in full at the end of the month. Of course, "they" don't like that I haven't had a car payment since 2000, and paid off the mortgage in 2004. But everything from here on out will be paid for in cash, so it will probably keep getting lower. If I could get rid of all my cards I would, but no one wants to take a check anymore.
Exactly. There seems to be some misunderstanding on this thread about credit scores.
When credit scores are used for lending decisions (credit cards, loans, etc), what is generally used is the FICO score. Fair Isaac, the company behind the score, does not disclose exactly how they calculate the score. But it is based on what is reported to the credit agencies (e.g. lines of credit, age of lines, payment history, available credit, etc). It does not include what is not reported to the agencies (income, assets, bank account information, debit card transactions and other non-credit line bill payment history).
When you go online to look at your credit score to a site like credit karma, you are seeing a reverse engineered credit score (they are guessing at the algorithm, but its a pretty good guess).
Of course things change over time. There are competitors to FICO (but FICO is still the gold standard). There has been discussion about including other factors in your credit history/score (like utility bill payment history) but nothing has really taken off here.
Ventucky Red
Pattern Altitude
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Jon
Me too
Get a call from AX one day asking me where I physically was... told them, then they asked if I have my card with me, which I did. Told me to destroy it and they are sending me a new one.. no further conversation needed. I immediately get online to check my account and see a bunch of charges from Toronto... I am in California.... and the gas charge I made that morning.. The next day, the charges I didn't make disappeared..
Another time, I had a waiter in NYC give himself a $170 tip... AX told me to disregard the whole charge. Got a free meal out of it.
Most recently, had some other charges show up that I didn't make.. called them, transferred me to the fraud dept, they took a few questions, told me to destroy the card, and they sent me new one.. nothing more needed..
I do a lot of business travel and have had the balacne over $20K sometimes... One time I was late getting my expense report in and they couldn't reimburse me for a couple of week as "the books were closed" due to our fiscal year end.. The AX bill was due to the tune of $7K... called them, explained the situation, we went through it charge by charge, they told me to pay X-Y-Z and 1-2-3 when I got my expense reimbursement.. which I did with no additional fees... very easy to work with...
Much of the rest of the world does charge for cards. Seems fair.
wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
You apparently haven't dealt much with buildings and rooftops in NY. I recall taking some transmitter gear to the top of one building in the freight elevator from the basement. We had to pay for 3 elevator operators: one passenger operator (2 passengers), freight operator (because we had equipment), and (as I recall) one garage operator (we originated in the garage). We had to supply the equipment with line cord attached, but plug cut off, and pay an electrician to attach a plug to the cord and plug it in the wall.
Just the way it worked with the union contracts.
Anymouse
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Total Stud Bush Pilot
An interesting and possibly related tidbit...
American Express stock climbs on Supreme Court victory
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/american-express-stock-climbs-on-supreme-court-victory
The high court ruled in favor of American Express’ policy that prevents businesses from offering discounts or other incentives to consumers if they pay with cheaper credit cards. American Express tends to charge merchants higher “swipe fees” than other credit card companies, but now retailers won’t be able to ask customers to pay with other cards.
American Express stock climbs on Supreme Court victory
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/american-express-stock-climbs-on-supreme-court-victory
The high court ruled in favor of American Express’ policy that prevents businesses from offering discounts or other incentives to consumers if they pay with cheaper credit cards. American Express tends to charge merchants higher “swipe fees” than other credit card companies, but now retailers won’t be able to ask customers to pay with other cards.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Seems like that could backfire in their face.
Businesses that don’t like their fees will just say they don’t take the card and tell their customers why.
But I doubt it. Most will just pass it along in higher prices.
The on-the-fence businesses can still give a cash discount.
Van Johnston
Pattern Altitude
One of my other guilty pleasures, that I did not post in Denver Pilot's guilty pleasures thread a little while back, is reading Supreme Court opinions. You get the detail, without news media filtering or embellishment. Here is today's ruling. Good summary of the different business models of the big 4 credit card companies, how fees have evolved over the years (actually have gone down ~50% since the 50s) and how the majority came to their conclusion. Then you read the minority opinion, and their case makes sense too.
One nugget: visa and MC had similar provisions in their merchant agreements, and all three were sued at the same time. Visa and MC caved and took the provision out; only Amex stood their ground and battled for their position.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-1454_new_1a72.pdf
One of our businesses is a membership-based business. An AmEx sales rep tells us all the time that our members would like us to take AmEx. They don’t quite grasp the flaw in their logic - these people are already our customers...tell me again why we need to take AmEx?
luvflyin
Touchdown! Greaser!
To keep them?
luvflyin
Touchdown! Greaser!
Hmm. A corporation seeking government regulation. I thought they didn’t like that. Dude(your honor), those guys are like into encouraging free choice of method of payment. Make them use ours.
luvflyin
Touchdown! Greaser!
You work for AmEx?
(Never had a member leave because we didn’t take AmEx)
Yes, on commission. I got a buck for that post but now I gotta give it back because you didn’t fall for it.
wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
Not knowing your business....
but noted that a lot of membership organizations have members that get reimbursed by their companies. And many companies (because of expense-control systems and preferred vendor agreements) really make it tough for employees to get reimbursed if they use anything *other* than the company credit card for such expenses.
I've been with two now - one mandated use of corporate Mastercard and made it difficult to get reimbursed otherwise (small cash expenses like cab fares and tips were exempted) - while most merchants that take Visa or AmEx also take MC, it wasn't such a huge deal. The other mandated use of American Express for similar reasons - it was tied into the accounting and expense control systems. And it made it tough to get reimbursement (including specific justification for non-use of the corporate card) if one didn't use the corporate AmEx.
From the company perspective, each charge-card company breaks down the vendor and class of vendor when charges are made. That makes it much easier for the corporation to suck the data into the accounting system and saves a LOT of manual classification. Under certain agreements, the company can have the charge-card company decline purchases in certain categories (to reduce employee misuse, fraud, and personal use of the cards) - for example, an employee that was given a card for gas-station and hotel uses only might be restricted from purchasing at grocery stores.
AmEx has a LOT more categories available than does either MC or Visa, meaning that the ability to limit purchasing by employees can me more tightly tailored. At the same time, the addition categories can be used with companies that make finer accounting distinctions. There is a reason that some companies go with AmEx.
Not an AmEx employee, just a person that worked on group purchasing for a major company.
wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
Oh, plenty of corporations seek government regulations. In particular where it benefits them, or creates a barrier to their potential competitors. We've seen some of that with Taxi companies that seek to keep out the likes of Uber/Lyft....
I hear you! My old company’s card was a Diners Club which we affectionately called Decliners Club (before they joined the visa/mc network)
LoneAspen
Line Up and Wait
Back in the 90s, I used to work for a large tech company and did a fair amount of traveling. I always used my personal Amex, and paid for everything (even other peoples' hotel rooms, cars, etc) so I could earn points. Nobody cared, and I was getting reimbursed just fine.
Until typical corporate bureaucracy kicked in, and they said anybody doing company travel would have to do so using a corporate credit card (may have been Amex, I can't remember). So here's where the BS kicks into high gear. It's a corporate card only in the sense they guaranteed you'd get one. Otherwise, the bills came to me, and it would show up on my credit file. And, I wouldn't be able to earn points.
This was also around the same time they really started cracking down on travel. We used to be pretty flexible in arranging our own flights and hotels, but once the new policies kicked in, we were pretty much forced to use the cheapest options, no matter if the flight times were terrible, or how bad the hotel was (some were real fleabags).
I went to the travel people and told them if I was going to accept such ridiculous policies and be forced to take crappy flights and stay in crappy fleabag hotels, I was at least using my own personal Amex and earning points. I remember one lady telling me, nope, I wouldn't get reimbursed in that case. It was either use the corporate card AND submit to all the other stupid policies, or else.
So I quit traveling. Told my boss I wasn't going to do it anymore. And I didn't. I never made another business trip for them. My philosophy is that I'm putting my personal life on hold to go conduct business on behalf of the company. The least they can do is not treat me like crap with their stupid policies. So you're trying to save money? Fine, I'll help you save money. I won't travel for you anymore. Problem solved.
Things continued to go downhill from there anyway, and I ended up quitting six months later. I've never worked at a large company again since then, and haven't regretted it one bit.
Bill Watson
En-Route
I’m an Amex lifer. My first year of working at a ‘large tech company’ required a personal Amex or Diners. I went with Amex. One late night in Manhattan I had run out of money to get out of town and home. ATMs were new and rare. I called Amex, they directed me to a Travler’s Check dispenser on 42nd street. I bemoaned my lack of foresight in signing up for the program but they had it spit out $50 in checks to get me home.
I went thru the Corp card shuffle, Gold Cards, and whatever. But anytime I make a purchase, particularly from a new vendor, I try to use AMEX because they make it right. They are easier to deal with that any vendor on a problem charge. And there have been plenty over the last 40 years.
Using him as a credit card is crazy. That’s been clear from the very beginning based on rates and services.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
I went thru the Corp card shuffle, Gold Cards, and whatever. But anytime I make a purchase, particularly from a new vendor, I try to use AMEX because they make it right. They are easier to deal with that any vendor on a problem charge. And there have been plenty over the last 40 years.
Using him as a credit card is crazy. That’s been clear from the very beginning based on rates and services.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
I recall arriving in Paris (the one in France) one day and needed to get some cash. The French telecom workers had gone on strike and pulled down the data networks that ATMs & credit cards used.
Went to the local AmEx office, they were on their own network, walked out with the cash I needed. Since then, I've retained a small amount cash when I come home from a country that I'm likely to visit again.
Went to the local AmEx office, they were on their own network, walked out with the cash I needed. Since then, I've retained a small amount cash when I come home from a country that I'm likely to visit again.
Rushie
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Rushie
That irked the hell out of me too. Years ago when I first started working they handed me the company card, I used it when traveling on company business, they paid it, I never saw the bills and money never went through my personal budget. That changed when they went to reimbursement model.
At hubby's company there was a point he was racking up to $10,000 expenses every month (overseas travel) and all the bills were coming home to me to pay. Reimbursement would come several weeks later and I would either have to front the money or pay interest to wait for reimbursement. Annoyed the hell out of me. Not to mention the havoc on my budget to have $$$$$thousands a month that wasn't ours to flow in and out of our personal accounts, and who knows what flags that throws up to the Gub'ment looking for money laundering.
I can understand the odd lunch out for a day trip or even an overnight, don't mind covering that but expenses on that level really need to be handled in house not dumped on the wife at home when he was in China or Poland. That wasn't the only bad policy that company had; he no longer works there.
Jeff Oslick
Final Approach
Being "qualified" for a mortgage doesn't mean "approved". A dirty secret of the mortgage industry is that they use a proprietary credit score to justify giving you whatever interest rate they want. The consumer does not have access to check that propriety score, even through a paid service, nor are they provided any information on the formula used to determine that score. So, sure, the fine print on the advertisement will say "for customers with a 740 or higher credit score", or something like that, but that 740 number is NOT the FICO score that is widely reported.
wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
Agree. At least one financial management type told me that's done for 2 reasons: 1) it supposedly makes employees more responsible knowing they are on the hook (and makes them stay in cheaper places rather than ring up big bills), and 2) it lets the company play the float even more.
With one company I was with, the bills were paid directly as the expense reports were done (the bills went to both company and employee) - if the employee dragged their feet, the bill became overdue, and if expenses were disallowed, the employee had to pay directly. That is probably a compromise since they used an online expense system but employee had to scan receipts.
denverpilot
Tied Down
You described why I quit being a field engineer long long ago. Same crap. I told them if the card went against my credit, I’d choose the card. They said no, I applied for the inside job teaching field engineering people the next week. Not to mention they were slow to reimburse and I was always floating them a loan.
Ironically a later employer had sane card and reimbursement rules and were fine, until the CEO was caught buying his mistress major appliances with his company card. Later he was walked out of the company under threat that if he didn’t leave the Board would have him arrested. And the policy changed to the same BS as the one I stopped traveling for.
luvflyin
Touchdown! Greaser!
Why would he want a mistress who even knows how to use appliances
wsuffa
Touchdown! Greaser!
I smell blackmail.