Skip navigation.
Home

One more reason I love American Express

There are many reasons I love American Express. Here's one more. I was greeted with this email yesterday:
"At American Express, the security of your account is of the utmost importance. In an effort to protect and serve our Cardmembers, we consistently monitor accounts for possible fraudulent activity. Occasionally, we find it necessary to contact our customers to verify certain charges.
(Transaction amount and vendor name were listed)
In order to verify that these charges are legitimate, we ask that you please have your American Express Card available and call the American Express Account Security Group as soon as possible at 1-800-824-9289. Representatives are available 24 hours per day, 7 days a week to assist you.
You may also call the number on the back of your card and when prompted by our system, please enter your 15 digit American Express Card number. This will automatically transfer you to our Account Security Group."

Being the untrusting/paranoid person that I am, I called the number on the back of my card (I rarely trust anything I get like this through email or a phone call.) I called and verified that the transaction was indeed fraudulent. They are always nothing but professional on the phone. Upon verification, they canceled the card and I should be getting a new one in the next few days. Aside from getting Cash back (I have a Blue Cash card) they're on the lookout for the bad guys. Now, I'm curious about from where my credit card info leaked. I charge so many things to it that I'll probably never know.

I think you've been had,

I think you've been had, 800-824-9289 is a phishing service, I got a call also but my cell isn't on file with them. google 800-824-9289

I think you've not read the entire post.

I highly doubt 800-824-9289 is a phishing service since it's listed on their website (which I found through your suggested google search.) Even then I still wouldn't have called that number. As I mentioned in my post, "Being the untrusting/paranoid person that I am, I called the number on the back of my card..." Speaking with them on the phone, they (American Express) confirmed that they had flagged the transaction mentioned in the email as being fraudulent.

Never trust links or phone numbers you get in email (or callerID for that matter.) Always call a known good number or visit a known good website and before giving out personal information. Whenever I get an email from my bank, I don't click on the links. Instead I open up a browser and go to my bank's website (either by typing the URL in or through a saved bookmark.) If everyone did this, we would not see as rampant phishing as we do today.

Just so everyone knows, I

Just so everyone knows, I work in the American Express Account Security Group, and our direct phone number is 800-824-9289. So no, you have not been had. :)

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options