Curve card ‘pauses’ Amex functionality

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• NFH says:

  24 May24 May 19:12

  Instead of complaining about Curve and certainly instead of unjustifiably complaining about Raffles, we should all e-mail American Express at executive.customer.relations.uk@aexp.com and complain about Amex’s impending “pause” of its merchant services agreement with Curve. Please phone American Express customer services too. Make sure that this becomes a well-known complaint throughout Amex staff, not only in the Executive Office. Amex customer services have told me that it is definitely a “pause”, as they want Curve to improve their customer services standards.

  Everyone is a winner with the status quo – Curve, American Express and their customers. The only losers are the stubborn merchants who refuse to accept Amex. American Express should be doing everything possible to increase spending on its cards rather than cutting off a new and innovative source of revenue.

  We all need to push Amex to sort this out quickly instead of pathetically giving up and asking for a refund of £35. If everyone takes the weak approach, then Curve might fail. If we all continue supporting Curve, it will succeed.

  • Shayele says:

    24 May24 May 19:22

    !00% this is amex fault and maybe some of us who have been complaining ta Amex about this new start up. We should lay the fault at the door of Amex.

  • whiskerxx says:

    24 May24 May 19:24

    Ah – a sensible suggestion at last. I’ve sent mine! Hopefully others will follow suit.

    • harry says:

      24 May24 May 20:54

      Idiotic analysis – it is most certainly NOT Amex’s fault in any respect.

      • Brian W says:

        24 May24 May 22:10

        +1 (Nor Raffles fault).

        If curve didn’t take days on end to deal with the never ending transaction discrepancies nobody would have felt the need to contact Amex directly to sort the problems out and we wouldn’t be talking about this today. Curve have been slow to react and sort all the issues that have ultimately led to Amex being dragged into the ‘Beta’ problem sorting.

        I couldn’t help laugh at the two non-Amex Curve users on Twitter today trying to beat ‘big corporate giant’ Amex with a big stick, firmly laying the blame at their door whilst asking “why MC and Visa have no issues with Curve yet Amex do?”……………well………maybe its because 99.9% of Curve’s users are battering as much spend (that they would have previously channelled through MC / Visa) through their points earning Amex card’s as they can so MC and Visa simply haven’t noticed yet.

        I hope the Amex link comes back but I’m not too sure it will 🙁

        • Shayele says:

          24 May24 May 23:02

          Amex is behaving like a bully and putting its huge mass against this start up. Yes I agree Curve has its issue and shouldn’t have rolled out the beta, sorted out issues faster etc. All true. But I dont think that should be Amex’s problem rather let Curve sort themselves out. In the end of the day look how much agro Amex has caused by proxy.

        • Brian W says:

          24 May24 May 23:37

          At no point did I suggest Amex were right for acting like this although I do understand they have a very good customer service reputation to protect. They (Amex) certainly could have dealt with this differently IMO but I’m not sure its paramount to bullying. The fact Curve slipped up 6 weeks ago by revealing, via a sloppy change on their website home page, that the Amex deal was under threat, clearly shows they have had ample time to pull their socks up and show Amex they could deliver the service required.

          However annoyed you are at the current situation (myself included x 2 cards), Amex are not the reason this has come to a head. Curve hold that honour I’m afraid are Shayele.

          Something pointed out on FT earlier – Curve changed their YouTube video on their homepage this morning to a new version omitting all Amex references. It also fails to mention any reference to the £200 ATM withdrawal limits imposed by the Fair Use Policy implemented about a month ago, stating that they are unlimited. Funny that. Perhaps the cynics amongst us would suggest that this was produced many many weeks ago in the knowledge this decision was always going to happen?

          The jury is still out.

  • JamesWag says:

    25 May25 May 07:21

    Why would Amex want to restart the relationship when they could partner with a bigger, more reliable company to provide the same product ? Or even develop one themselves ?

• Rimas says:

  24 May24 May 19:19

  I want to BLAME Raffles for taking this card. And for taking Supercard, AMEX cards, etc. And lots of other ladies and gentlemen who advised me at HfP what are the best deals around.. With a few Avios in my account 2 years ago, now I travel Business and First from time to time, stay in luxury hotels for a percentage of the price and love it! I want to BLAME HfP the most for moving me from the economy only to upgrades and opportunities when travel.

  • whiskerxx says:

    24 May24 May 19:26

    Yep, I BLAME Rob for much the same thing 🙂

• CV3V says:

  24 May24 May 19:25

  Just a reminder, the 35 pound fee is a one off, not an annual fee.

• harry says:

  24 May24 May 19:27

  I want to blame Raffles for making me an Avios millionaire.

  You absolute rotter.

  • Rimas says:

    24 May24 May 19:33

    +1

• LEE says:

  24 May24 May 19:32

  sent an email also ,

• LEE says:

  24 May24 May 19:37

  If its true that AMEX pulled the plug because of the lack of customer service on the card.
  They would be better to put some small fee on each transaction , like say 0.01% and put this into improving there service and having a dedicated phone line and scrap the ATM Withdrawals

• Carol says:

  24 May24 May 19:40

  It’s depressing to see so many people fretting about the price of a taxi ride. My sympathies lie with the entrepreneurs at Curve trying to bring something new to the market. Yes they’ve made mistakes but those seeking to exploit their naivety and/or encouraging others to so the same should be ashamed of themselves.

  Some people will be losing much more than £35 on this venture and I dare say many others, less well off than the average HFP reader, may even lose their jobs in due course.

  I shall be keeping my card in the hope that Curve can recover from this. Those of you cancelling with the intention re-joining later, why do you assume that Curve will want you back? Seems to me this is a good way of culling less desirable customers.

  • Nick says:

    24 May24 May 19:58

    No need to get shirty Carol.

    I can’t speak for others, but I decided to cancel not because of the removal of the Amex benefit, but because of the ongoing problems that they seem to be having – it looks like hard work to me. The fact that a major credit card company does not consider that Curve’s customer support is satisfactory is a pretty clear warning, especially when you consider Amex were one of the big winners from this product if it worked properly.

    To be honest had they delivered the card anywhere near the time they said they would, I would probably have kept it simply because faffing around with sending the wallet back wouldn’t have been worth the hassle.

    I think waiting to see if this business is viable is very sensible; on the face of it, dishing out commercial cards to people who will clearly use them (and have been using them) for personal expenditure is hardly a solid business plan. And if it does turn out to be viable, what makes you think that Curve would be so petty as to not welcome people back?

    • Carol says:

      24 May24 May 21:01

      Nick,
      It’s a beta. Teething problems should be expected. I’ve actually found the Curve to be more reliable than the Travelex Supercard.

      The Curve card was created with business users in mind – people who are too busy to be running to the ATM every day to generate a few points. People who are happy to adhere to the spirit of a fair use policy rather than seek loopholes in the small print. Hence, I expect Curve will be happy to shed HFP readers and replace them with confirmed business users who will use the card as intended – with Amex’s blessing.

      • JamesWag says:

        25 May25 May 07:26

        Let’s not forget that its main purpose is to enable the use of one card but switch between the card its charged to via an app.

        Amex was just a very significant bonus to those of us who seek to maximise rewards. Its primary purpose was not to enable people to use Amex where it wasn’t usually taken – that was a side benefit / unintended benefit that we all latched onto.

      • JonP says:

        25 May25 May 10:58

        I’m not so sure that Curve were ever intending to sell their product to “confirmed business users”. You only need to look at their videos and see their scenarios to realise this was never really about aiming the product at business users. Business owners don’t pay for a cappuccino and carrot cake from their business accounts, nor do they pay for meals at ITSU, or their Spotify subscription or noodles at PHO. These are all examples from their marketing videos on YouTube.

        None of this in my mind is anything to do with Rob or HfP. He simply told us about it and I made my own mind up about whether to buy the product or not. I’m really disappointed with Curve. They seemed to have promised the earth prior to signup and then realised they over promised and pulled back the offering. The problem is – you can’t do that and expect people who put money down to be sympathetic. Don’t offer it in the first place if you’re not sure you can deliver.

        My wife and I both took out Curve cards – I got the Blue and she got the Black. We’ll probably return both as I really don’t think AMEX are going to ever work with Curve again.

  • Worzel says:

    24 May24 May 21:31

    Carol,

    Good luck with your depression, and sympathies!

    It appears that “Curve’ have dragged people along into unknown territory.

    Those that did so, did it at their own risk.

    No sympathies either way!

• Captain Threestrands says:

  24 May24 May 19:50

  Because nobody got rich from revenge

  • harry says:

    24 May24 May 19:54

    Well, apart from Steve Jobs, I guess

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.