I have two U.S. Amex cards (a Rewards Green and a Blue) and am generally satisfied with the level of customer service that comes with them.

However, it's become very irritating dealing with the telephone CSRs on my Blue account, who 9 times out of 10 are based in India. In most of my repeated calls to Blue's 1-800 number to resolve an issue that's really not all that difficult to look into (see below for details), several of the Indian reps I spoke to had little idea what I was talking about and answered with canned responses such as "well, there's nothing we can do; you'll have to contact the merchant." Not to mention the fact that there's a 1-2 second voice delay time on the international conversations. The Indian CSRs are fine for answering basic questions, but for anything more complicated I've had to ask specifically to be transferred a supervisor in the U.S.

Here's the issue: I try to balance my bank and credit card accounts as meticulously as I can, and noticed that my available credit didn't line up with the actual charges I had made. No one at AmEx could figure out what was wrong until tonight, when a knowledgeable account specialist in the Fort Lauderdale office finally explained things and found that a hotel I had stayed at more than a week ago was holding an $81 authorization on my card in addition to the actual $81 room charge, which had long since posted to my Blue account.

It's not the outsourcing itself that's the problem IMHO, but the Indian CSRs need to be better trained in resolving more than just the simple "what's my balance" or "when is my payment due?" questions.