What should have been an incredible business aid and financial tool has turned into a bit of a joke for us. So far we have put about $6000 on the card and have begun the process of updating our vendors, and payees with the new card information.

I went to Costco to buy an iPod and the card was declined. Thinking it was a Costco issue I headed over to Best Buy. Again the card was declined (it had worked the day before). This was disappointing but I assumed there was some kind of misunderstanding that I could get resolved the following day. I had my wife call American Express and they told her that I would have to call back myself. “Why did we spend an hour on the phone with you two days ago setting me up as another primary card member?” Despite the fact that she was listed as such they would not talk to her.

Today was my turn. I got in touch with a rep at American Express and was informed that I had unofficially reached my limit. “My limit?” I asked in surprise. The rep then told me that she had to go through my purchase history and authorize some of the charges that were pending. Our conversation went something like this:

“There is a charge from Apple Computer. What was that for?”
“A Laptop.”
“Okay, I can authorize that.” (“What the hell is this?” I thought)
“And there was charge from Best Buy. What is that?”
“Computer software?”
“Okay, we’ll let that go through.”
“And there is a charge from Moteng. What is Moteng?”
“It’s a company we get products from.”
“What products are those?”
“Items to resell. Knives. We buy them to resell them.”
“Okay, we can authorize that. Well, things look okay, but if you want to put anything else on your card you’ll have to go through our credit department to have each additional purchase approved.”
“Ah… well…” I was somewhat perplexed at this point and very perturbed. “We can just pay off the balance and then keep using the card, right?”
“No sir, I’m sorry. You can only pay off the balance at the end of a billing cycle.”
“So there’s no way to pay it off now?”
“I’m sorry, but we have to keep you limited since we have no buying history available from you. Again, if you need an increase you can petition the credit department of American Express.”

 I’m not sure what kind of retail business has a cash flow of $6000 a month, but it’s certainly not mine. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood something somewhere, or perhaps the representative I talked to was misinformed. I was under the impression that the Plum Card could help our company but with restrictions and conditions like those mentioned above I may need to look elsewhere.