divemistressofthedark

Massive fail. About three weeks ago I thought someone had stolen my wallet (it turned out to be lost in a friend's house, luckily)… Had purchased Amex Lost Wallet Protector for the past couple of years and maintained the database, so thought my bases were covered.

Long story short: LWP was only able to cancel/replace two of the eight cards I reported stolen. The only ones I got back within a couple of days were my Platinum and Gold cards - I could have achieved this by simply calling the Platinum dedicated line. I still had to spend several hours on the phone with other card providers giving my address, phone, social security, mother's maiden, birthday… and I don't have all the cards back three weeks later. Amex called me back within a couple of hours of the initial call to give me a list of the card companies that "wouldn't accept their call" and that I had to call myself. They did claim to have had some success with a couple others.

At least one card LWP told me would be cancelled and replaced was not - found it out today when I called to inquire as to the status and first was told I had not declared it stolen (I had). Then they came back and admitted I had declared it stolen but somehow they had not reissued it. This was a Dillards department store Amex co-branded card, mind you.

Guess I get to miss out on a Dillards.com massive sale today for cardholders since I know I won't be able to get anyone to give me a new number/code over the phone.

Thanks for nothing, Amex. Partly why I pony up for a Platinum card plus extra services is to avoid hijinks like calling all over the place, being stuck in an autoresponse loop that won't let me talk to a person, and being put on hold forever. Had to make at least five calls just today to get to the bottom of it all.

Heaven help me if this had happened when I was out of the country (although admittedly I would have been carrying far fewer cards had that been the case). It's only my relatively high credit score I guard with my life at stake, right?