Of course Amex is still around. I use it for everything as it has the best cash back available and other protections that MasterCard does not have. However, when I had my own Electrical Contractors business, I wouldn’t take Amex or Discover as they both charge the merchant a much larger fee for using both of these cards. The equipment for processing credit cards was also expensive then. Now with companies like “Square”, it’s much more affordable to let customer’s use credit cards.
I personally think ebay is already charging sellers enough money for selling items that they can afford to let sellers use Amex for their seller’s fees or manage options method. I pay my Amex off every month, and I also have a MasterCard , but it’s for instances where Amex is not available. So, I requested a $500.00 limit on the card. I see both sides of this situation, but eBay can afford to pay the percentage difference or take it out of the final purchase fee. I kept trying to figure out why I couldn’t update my Amex that was on file that had expired, so now I know. I guess I will not be selling as much on eBay as I originally planned because I have had several issues with people getting my MasterCard number and charging it up to the maximum amount. It use to have a $10,000.00 limit and someone hacked into the account and I lost about $8,500.00. That’s why I got the lowest limit I could get them to give me just in case I get in a bind and need to pay for something like gas or whatever else and I will reluctantly use my Mastercard. I’ve tried one through Chase Bank and Citi Bank and trying to actually talk with an individual, not some automated process, is nearly impossible. I had about six different credit cards at one time, all of which I payed off in full monthly, but I decided that I didn’t really need 6 cards and I kept two. I don’t have any revolving debt on any credit cards and that’s great right now as many people are using them to live on and it’s hard to get out of credit card debt. Been there in my early 20’s. I got a loan to pay off the debt as it kept growing and I was paying twice the monthly payment. Credit cards are not exactly transparent when your like 19yrs old about how hard it is to get them payed off. Miss one payment date and the interest rate automatically jumps to the highest level they can legally charge people.
Frankly, I love my Amex and I get a lot of cash back from them and they have taken care of any issues with products that I purchased online and never received or it was not exactly what they said the item was. Amex is great at protecting the customer from these shady seller’s and bait and switch items.
