American Express suspends its relationship with Curve Card, just 36 hours after launch

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• AndyGWP says:

  30 Jan30 January 23:52

  From Curves twitter at 5:30 today…

  Hang on in there! We’re silent, but working very hard. We’ll share an update with you as soon as we can.

  • Mr Dee says:

    31 Jan31 January 00:34

    What else could they say haha

  • TripRep says:

    31 Jan31 January 06:45

    Also a good reference to the analogy that Amex tie up with Paypal.

    ie you can pay with PayPal against your Amex on websites that don’t take Amex.

    • Shoestring says:

      31 Jan31 January 06:57

      …not all websites that take PayPal can be paid thru Amex as the underlying card

    • Matt says:

      31 Jan31 January 07:08

      I’ve never come across a website that takes PayPal but not the underlying Amex. Is this rare?

    • Genghis says:

      31 Jan31 January 07:11

      It happens occasionally. Farrow and Ball a good example.

    • Shoestring says:

      31 Jan31 January 07:29

      a lot of gambling sites

• ryo says:

  31 Jan31 January 05:40

  Has anybody had any success in downgrading from curve metal back to curve blue after this? Also has anybody had any luck getting a refund of the 150gbp or 14.99?

  • Rob says:

    31 Jan31 January 06:19

    Give the guys a break … let the dust settle first.

    Downgrades can be done in the app.

    • Roger says:

      31 Jan31 January 06:56

      Rob,

      An idea How soon can we expect a further update from you about metal / Amex break up?
      Curve twitter has gone quite.

      Hope we get a response before weekend,
      Presume anyone who has paid for Amex but haven’t relied the card/activated it should be able to ask fee to be refunded or Curve may allow extra months on current subscription until this is all sorted.

      • Roger says:

        31 Jan31 January 06:57

        Quiet*

      • Peter King says:

        31 Jan31 January 07:36

        To be fair. and i’m not in anyway supporting Curve, they said they would give a statement on the 31st, it seems reasonable to wait a few hours, maybe till midnight.

        Myself, I’d wait a week before the false outrage on social media.

    • Marcw says:

      31 Jan31 January 07:58

      Why? They promised a product which they cannot deliver.

      The CEO also promised some “news” yesterday afternoon… #stillwaiting

      • Strep says:

        31 Jan31 January 09:48

        Marcw, think your in the wrong place. This is the official Curve fan club page. 😉

      • Ian M says:

        31 Jan31 January 12:26

        Not only did they launch a product they cannot deliver, but we now know they launched it in full knowledge that Amex had given notification of termination of the contract. Rather naughty of Curve to launch knowing that.

        Regardless, I’m happy for Curve to keep my £150 if they give me the £1.4m spend limit they also advertised. But something tells me that is probably pie in the sky as well.

• TripRep says:

  31 Jan31 January 06:58

  Top tips for HfPers.

  When you next phone to cancel your AMEX be sure to tell them the removal from Curve was a factor.

  I will certainly be doing so, had considered holding into my Platinum, but will now be cancelling after my next trip.

  • Anna says:

    31 Jan31 January 07:20

    Indeed, we’ll be cancelling 3 cards in the next few weeks and Curve will be mentioned each time. I’m also a bit wary of Amex just now as two £50 wallet top ups to Curve have been stuck on my pending page since Monday (a slightly earlier top up cleared almost immediately). The payments have already gone from the Curve wallet so not sure what Amex is playing at here.

    • Peter King says:

      31 Jan31 January 07:30

      Why do you think they will care, Rob has said Curve was 3% of the headforpoints revenue last year

      I’d be surprised if Curve was 0.003% of Amex revenue in the uk, and its clear they didn’t want the business. All you are doing by mentioning it is confirming their decision.

      • Mr Dee says:

        31 Jan31 January 09:03

        Well Curve revenue would be next to nothing as they never really started

    • John says:

      31 Jan31 January 09:17

      My topups in November took 4-5 days to clear on Amex despite spending them on Curve immediately. I don’t think that means anything.

      Not sure what telling Amex will achieve because Cuve wasn’t the reason you applied for the Amexes. If the Amex agents were suitably empowered they could conceivably lead you to be blacklisted from Amex

  • Shoestring says:

    31 Jan31 January 07:31

    but you’re possibly blaming Amex for Curve’e failings

    eg we all know that Curve did not have proper procedures in place to stop a credit card balance being paid off with another credit card – why would Amex want to be asasociated with that?

    • Peter King says:

      31 Jan31 January 08:01

      Even discounting Amex the whole turning a points earning credit card into a card with a mastercard debit BIN which you can use to pay off a credit card, is at the least, something any responsibly lender should run a mile from.

    • Steve-B says:

      31 Jan31 January 08:27

      Agree, Curve is the outlier here… their customer service isn’t mature… lack of protection for wallet balances… playing fast and loose with usual financial procedures… etc. I suspect Curve will need to tighten up all of these areas. Right now, minimal impact to Amex.

• Thywillbedone says:

  31 Jan31 January 06:59

  On using Curve post this debacle, I am trying to use it for two purposes today:

  1. to pay into a tax-free childcare account…I am getting an error message saying card not recognised…is this a known problem paying for things online (I seem to recall there was an issue with BIN numbers some time ago but its been a while since I used the card for any reason)?

  2. to pay HMRC my self assessment tax. Does anyone know if I can part pay tax due by debit card (ie not the full amount)? Given it is last day to pay, is Curve not a realistic option to avoid a fine?

  3. Is there risk to me in making payments via Curve (which I have linked to my HSBC Premier Mastercard)? I note the discussion around deposits etc but this should not affect payments by the user I assume

  Thanks (and I promise to do my taxes earlier next year!)

  • Alan says:

    31 Jan31 January 07:02

    1. Had been mentioned lots of times in comments, known issue that it doesn’t work for childcare payments
    2. Don’t know
    3. Do you mean just usual day to day payments? I can’t see why there would be an issue? The only problem to date has been ATM withdrawals linked to Tesco or NatWest as far as I’ve heard.

  • James says:

    31 Jan31 January 07:25

    Yes absolutely you can pay HMRC in instalments. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been drip feeding in £3750 chunks (my daily max on Curve) linked to MBNA Horizon. Very happy with the couple of hundred or so quid casback I netted.

  • Dave says:

    31 Jan31 January 07:34

    Yes you can pay taxes in chunks. Just enter the amount you want to pay manually, repeat until you’ve paid the full amount. Did mine wuth Curve in fact, 2k a day.

  • Thywillbedone says:

    31 Jan31 January 08:24

    Thanks folks, very helpful. Word searched several pages of the comments but didn’t see the bit about childcare payment issue.

    • Rob Walker says:

      31 Jan31 January 08:57

      Revolut is your friend for childcare payments

      • Thywillbedone says:

        31 Jan31 January 09:20

        Thanks Rob – does anyone happen to know if payments into Revolut from HSBC credit cards count as purchases or cash advances? A google search seems to indicate it is considered a purchase but just wanted to check latest on this.

  • John says:

    31 Jan31 January 09:24

    What do you mean part pay tax? You can pay any amount you like from £1 (maybe even 1p), to the full amount due, to overpayments, but I think it starts to play up when you use more than 3 different cards per day

    You probably won’t get fined for being up to a week (??) late with the payments, but you will do if you are late with the return itself.

    People on PAYE paid taxes for the relevant period up to 21 months earlier

  • Alex W says:

    31 Jan31 January 09:50

    1. Gov childcare can be paid via Revolution
    2. I paid £2k to HMRC via Curve just 2 days ago.
    3. When purchasing goods it might be worth using credit card directly (not via curve) so you are covered by Section 75.

    • Alex W says:

      31 Jan31 January 09:50

      *revolut

    • Shoestring says:

      31 Jan31 January 09:57

      You’re covered by S75 if item is £100-£30000 and you pay at least £1 directly on credit card, so you could pay the rest however you see fit

• Chris Baker says:

  31 Jan31 January 07:08

  Curve are in breach of UK consumer law as the service (metal card) is not “as described” and anyone who has taken it out is therefore entitled to a full refund. Hopefully Curve will be emailing metal card holders soon and offering a full refund.
  This is in addition to the fact that the travel insurance does not cover for pre-exisitng conditions such as high blood pressure (30% of the population) and diabetis (10%) plus other conditions. At a rough guess considerably less than 50% of metal card holders will be able to travel on this insurance alone. The rest will have to buy separate insurance meaning the Curve insurance is worthless to them.

  • TripRep says:

    31 Jan31 January 07:20

    So the “travel insurance” is bit like Amex Plat, it does not cover pre-existing conditions

    • Rob says:

      31 Jan31 January 08:33

      If you price up such cover you’ll see why. Most people with pre-existing conditions seem to end up winging it in my experience.

  • Bonglim says:

    31 Jan31 January 07:36

    I think packaging insurance or financial services into a product is pretty crazy. Not just for curve but across the board. Once ppi claims have ended selling these insurances to people who didn’t need them will be on the hit list. Selling travel insurance when it is isn’t valid is mis-selling. Not being able to opt out for a lower fee is unfair. And some smart lawyers will convince the court that a £15 monthly fee includes selling the insurance for £5 per month.

    • Shoestring says:

      31 Jan31 January 07:43

      I don’t buy your logic. Looking at a very good product – the Barclays Travel Plus Pack, £16.50/ month, minumum 6 months, you get:
      1 6 lounge passes (Dragonpass)
      2 travel insurance, quite comprehensive incl people up to 80YO
      3 RAC breakdown cover in the UK and Europe

      Three good benefits for a reasonable cost. Nobody is being forced to opt in, it’s your choice. You can just enjoy a free (say) current a/c without the Travel Plus Pack benefits.

      What’s your beef with that?

      There are other offerings from different providers, posters who know may wish to add cost/ benefits?

      • Doug M says:

        31 Jan31 January 07:54

        But couldn’t you make the same argument for PPI? Plenty of people used the insurance and got benefit from it. Those that didn’t could have declined the product if it wasn’t sold without PPI. Since Amex won’t let me have a Platinum without useless to me Medical Cover am I not being midsold if I take it anyway? Personally I don’t think so, but I thought people paying PPI were dumb, but seemingly not in the long term.

      • Shoestring says:

        31 Jan31 January 08:02

        I thought they were dumb as well so always declined PPI.

        My bro got £6000 for sitting on his backside being dumb.

      • Lumma says:

        31 Jan31 January 08:17

        Wasn’t the issue with PPI that people were told things like they had to take it out on loans or they’d be rejected? Signing up to packaged current accounts they ask many questions to see if you need the cover these days

        • Rob says:

          31 Jan31 January 08:27

          Yes, basically. You had self employed people being sold PPI when the self employed were not eligible, for example.

          I did a 6 months University sandwich placement at Black Horse Financial Services (ie Lloyds) in Taunton in 1993 and general misselling was clearly rife then, even to a 23 year old.

      • Mr Dee says:

        31 Jan31 January 09:07

        Yes literally Lloyds would say you must have PPI or you can’t proceed and then just end the application if you decline

• SimonW says:

  31 Jan31 January 07:48

  Im trying to work out the mechanics of the cash moving around. If you load £1,000 on to your Curve via Amex, then spend it in a shop on your Cruve “debitcard”….. Are Curve funding that £1,000 until they get the funds from Amex – which I presume takes a few days or more?

  • John says:

    31 Jan31 January 09:33

    Just like you don’t pay your Amex bill until a month later, Curve doesn’t need to pay whoever straight away either. At the other end of the process, the shop doesn’t get paid by its acquring bank until a few days to a few weeks after the transaction (indeed this is why some shops don’t want to take Amex directly – because Amex sometimes takes up to 28 days to pay)

    • SimonW says:

      31 Jan31 January 09:38

      Yes thats what i thought. So Amex wont be paying Curve for up to 28 days….. But Curve might have a shorter period to pay the merchant I use my Curve card at – does that not mean they have a permanent funding gap – presumably of many millions…..

      • Alex W says:

        31 Jan31 January 09:53

        I’d say it’s more likely that Curve would have surplus funds sitting in people’s e wallets. But that’s a moot point now as no longer working.

      • SimonW says:

        31 Jan31 January 09:56

        But Amex wont pay Curve for 28 days. So the opposite is true…..

• Matthew says:

  31 Jan31 January 09:05

  I decided to let the dust settle this time with the Curve/Amex relationship relaunch, before diving in. Glad I did now! Hopefully the outcome will be suitable to all concerned. Would not want to be in charge of Curve customer service at this moment in time!

  • Mr Dee says:

    31 Jan31 January 09:23

    Agree but I see Amex’s point about Curve customer service whilst still waiting on my support queries from last week.

• Mark2 says:

  31 Jan31 January 09:15

  That sounds like a death wish to me. Hope it does not mean that the whole thing will die. Amex was a ‘nice to have’; this dispute may crash the whole thing.

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