Amex Serve instead of Paypal - anyone tried it?
- Thread starter geomark
- Start date
I haven't yet but I absolutely love American Express, by far the best credit card company in the United States. Every time I call them they're on their shit. I remember they called me once and asked if I was in a Target in some random place in the Southern US and I said no. They said okay, that my CC had been stolen, not to worry, and I'd get a new CC in a couple days. I did and I'm assuming they caught the idiot using it. 
So tits. I'll have an account and use it as a payment option for my clients.
So tits. I'll have an account and use it as a payment option for my clients.
This.
I've gotten the same calls and from Amex many times, occasionally when I was the one using my card. Better safe than sorry I guess. I guess I vote with my dollars, I choose to pay my annual fee, if I can't get it waived, when there are many other free options out there.
Re: Serve: Just signed up. Fees are competition to PayPal, so who knows, competition is a good thing.
I just signed up, too. Apparently they don't have an up to date zip code db - flags my zip as invalid for my state. That's pretty gay. So I have to sign up using my old zip code which became obsolete 5 years go.
Once you get past that it looks like what you would expect of a online payment UI, although there's something interesting called "Negotiation Option" described as "The Negotiations Option allows you to negotiate transactions directly with another user so both parties can quickly reach an agreement on a final transaction amount."
Once you get past that it looks like what you would expect of a online payment UI, although there's something interesting called "Negotiation Option" described as "The Negotiations Option allows you to negotiate transactions directly with another user so both parties can quickly reach an agreement on a final transaction amount."
Yup. I hope this takes off, AMEX is beyond reputable and could do work if they get enough of a backing. Just a matter of convincing people to at least offer to receive and send payments via Serve instead of the already ingrained, popular, and known worldwide Paypal.
Just signed up. Too bad they don't have any incentives for referring friends. I guess they are that confident in their superiority over PayPal.
Amex is badass. They are the only financial institution that I don't regret having to call. Plus they allow a lot of things that other banks haven't yet implemented like unlimited online payments (BofA only allows 3 a month, Citi only 4) and the ability to activate and do other functions that usually require a lengthy phone call with other banks. I'm all for em to compete with Paypal. However, I doubt that they will make a sizeable dent.
Edit: However, I hear merchant side Amex is pretty terrible. They charge a lot more than Visa/Mastercard per transaction and a lot of joints in my area don't even accept Amex.
Edit: However, I hear merchant side Amex is pretty terrible. They charge a lot more than Visa/Mastercard per transaction and a lot of joints in my area don't even accept Amex.
Its about time someone else brings it to paypal.. It should be interested to track their progess over the long haul.
That's because they don't charge interest on purchases like Visa/MC/Discover. They're a charge card, not a credit card. Although I know they are starting to offer revolving balance cards now so maybe those cards won't have the heavy merchant fees.
Not likely.
I absolutely hate Amex merchant account service. It's a complete waste of money and a pain in the ass to close.
Moneybookers is also cooking something up to compete with gaypal, but I can't even get my damn account started since they never mailed the bloody auth code thinga majig. It's just about impossible to get a hold of someone to get the damn thing sent to me.
There is a ton of money waiting for a decent company to walk in take away the gaypal monopoly.
2nd the Amex merchant account service being a bitch. Not all the impressed with it. Good luck with the Serve solutions though. Anything to knock down Paypal I will stand behind.
