Thank God for American Express!

This is like something out of an actual American Express commercial! I fly into Tokyo, go to withdraw some money from my ATM machine and the card doesn't work. Go to another, it doesn't take any of the US networks (like Plus), and go to another - and it doesn't work again. So I call Wachovia, the bank that issues my ATM card and they are completely ineffective in telling me what's wrong. They can see the transactions are being attempted but can't figure out why they aren't going through. They think its the magnetic stripe, but then suggest that I go get a cash advance from a bank. Sigh.

Just then I realize that American Express has gotten me out of jams before so I give them a ring and they connect me to the group that handles their "fee-free" ATM group! Didn't even know they had it. Was wondering why I saw the Amex logo on some of those ATM machines. Within 5 minutes they set me up with a temporary one-time-use PIN number and I can withdraw some emergency cash. Since I will be paying for most things with the credit cards I should be okay. The biggest problem is that getting around via Taxi in Tokyo is incredibly expensive and I can't charge the rail line.

At the end of the day Wachovia screwed up and cost me many precious hours screwing around with their ATM machine fiasco, but American Express came to the rescue and solved my problem in less time than I was on hold with Wachovia before they started to triage the problem (14 minutes). Between the retards at bank of America who locked my business card, the "bang up programming job" by Wachovia and their support people who can't debug their own transaction system (I can see the transaction, but it must be the magnetic stripe... the ATM machine can't read the card...), the geniuses in card services who assumed that all phones have letters on them (uh - how does one dial 800-WACHOVIA with no letters on the phone) and then didn't provide an international collect number like AMEX I'm starting to wonder how international companies even use Visa.

technorati tags:tokyo, american, express, visa, amex, atm, plus

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