American Express sets the gold-standard for customer service, contractibility, and clarifying examples. You will have to take my word on the first two items but the latter will be illustrated in this space. I knew that I owed about seven hundred USD after using my Amex credit card to purchase an Amex giftcard of the same value, which I was going to use to purchase pre-paid electrical/heating credit. When I was to enter the amount though, I was confused as to what the proper notation should be. I called my friend David Villa and asked for advice. He didn’t who I was, so he hung up. Luckily the figure I owed did not have any three’s - as you know that I struggle with that number – so I just decided to brave it and put in ‘111’ as my desired payment amount. This is a number that I like because each digit represents the number of brains I have, number of cars I drive at once and number of training manuals that I have written, respectively.
ERROR. F*, that is not a valid amount, per Amex. Other websites, vendors and forums may often times identify the errors for you, but where they fall short is in suggesting resolutions for said issue. This is where Amex becomes a beacon of light shining into the dark abyss of numerical semantics and bureaucracy.
‘111’ being incorrect, I was offered the following examples to lead me down the path to making a logical entry.
1) 1234.56
“Oh, I need to have four digits in the lead”
2) 413.00
“Theory one disproved, six sig-figs needed”
3) 1,236.78
“Theory wrong once again, I need four digits in the lead, with a comma if necessary.”
4) 345,678.00
“Theory three disproved, as was theory one disproved earlier by example item two.”
In the end, I correctly settled on paying 777.77 because each number represents my favorite number of olives to hold in my hand, respectively. This however created a credit entry greater than 10% of my last balance, so the transaction was forwarded to the anit-money-laundering/fraud department. They were understanding and polite, though they passed on my invite to join my Amway upline.
Fun Factor: 4/10
Safety: 9/10
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