Re: Is Amex accepted as widely as Visa and MC dome... - Page 5 - myFICO® Forums

ChargedUp · ‎06-07-2021

@SouthJamaica wrote:
@W261w261 wrote:
I have a smaller service business, in which a full-time customer is spending about 90k a year with me. I don't take Amex, because it costs me 2.65% whereas V/MC are about 2%. That extra .65% is a lot of money. Firstly, I strongly discourage customers from paying with a card at all, and in fact am largely successful. But it gets harder every year. I have been successful in saying "V/MC only," - so far, but the pressure is growing.

On the other side of the coin, in my 30,000 population town there are 2 independent shops that have the software, tools, and personnel to fix my Audi. One takes Amex. The one that doesn't I like slightly better, and I am about to go down for a $10k bill. I need the spend on my Amex Delta Res card, so I went to the owner and mentioned to him that 6/10 of 1% of $10k is $60, and that he should invest that to get an additional $10k in revenue. I mean, he could pad the bill and I'd never know it, and frankly wouldn't care.
No dice. "They charge too much," and that was that. It was an emotional thing I think. My $10k is walking around the corner.
Probably much of your potential business is "walking around the corner" too.

My personal philosophy is that it's penny wise and pound foolish to discourage people who like to pay by credit card.

I think more and more businesses are realizing this. ARCO is even taking credit cards now (at least here in CA) and they were long the stalwarts of being cash or debit card.

longtimelurker · ‎06-08-2021

@SouthJamaica wrote:
Probably much of your potential business is "walking around the corner" too.

My personal philosophy is that it's penny wise and pound foolish to discourage people who like to pay by credit card.

While that is often the case, it depends on the both the business and the competition. If margins are very very tight, taking a credit card might just not be cost effective, especially if there is no reasonable competition that does.

That said, while taking ccs in general is probably a good idea, my guess is that most people don't really care about which type of card is accepted. Obviously if your only card is an Amex, there is a problem, but I don't think that's all that common (for non business anyway). And working on a SUB isn't that much top-of-mind for people who don't frequent forums.

Credit_hawk · ‎06-08-2021

This is my first time poking my head in here after a few months. I was surprised to see fellow posters claim Amex now has parity with Visa & MC. It wasn't that long ago, within the past 5 years, that Discover was accepted more than Amex and both were nowhere near as accepted as Visa & MC. I know Amex overtook Discover in recent years but in my anecdotal experience they still don't have parity with Visa and MC and regarding oversees, you can forget it. It's still a great card. I have an Amex and use it often.

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jbestman007 · ‎06-08-2021

I believe a lot of people here are conflating "accepted as widely as..." with, accepted everywhere X is....

Credit cards are now accepted as widely as cash. But they are not accepted everywhere cash is.

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longtimelurker · ‎06-08-2021

@jbestman007 wrote:
I believe a lot of people here are conflating "accepted as widely as..." with, accepted everywhere X is....
Credit cards are now accepted as widely as cash. But they are not accepted everywhere cash is.

I'm not sure that there is such a conflation. If Amex was accepted as widely as V for example, for all the cases where V but not A is accepted, we should see an equal(ish) number of A but not V cases. But I am pretty sure we don't, accepting V/M but not A seems much more common than the reverse.

And I very much doubt that credit cards are accepted as widely as cash!

W261w261 · ‎06-09-2021

The only "A but not V" I can think of is Costco, back in the day. I wonder about the Amex cafeteria? Ha ha.

W261w261 · ‎06-09-2021

@SouthJamaica

I agree with the penny-wise pound foolish argument viz my Audi repair. I've never lost a customer because I don't take Amex. It's the nature of my business that if someone pushed me to do it, I'd make the phone call to set it up. I'm sure it will happen eventually, but right now, with gross revenues of almost 2 mill, I only have 2 customers who charge. At first, I resisted all cards, not for the 2%, but I was scared of the charge back potential.

staticvoidmain · ‎06-09-2021

A, V, and M.

okay.

DoogieBall · ‎06-10-2021

Here on the NJ Shore, I've only run into one place that doesn't accept Amex and it was this very popular Asian fusion place. I've noticed more local places not taking CCs at all and luckily they post it in a real obvious place.

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