NYBanker

While indeed American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (which is believe is our counterparty on BB) is an unrated subsidiary of American Express Company (itself split rated A+ Fitch, bbb+ s&p and A3 Moody's) and they did come close to the brink in 08/09, the likelihood of an overnight default by Amex is limited. In nearly all trouble scenarios, there would be rumblings in the market about a liquidity squeeze at Amex long before an event. I challenge anyone to point to a major financial that went down in the US where there wasn't pre-event rumbling.

Further, while not a guarantee of our bb amounts, it is worth noting that a) Amex is a bank holding company, giving it access to the Fed window and b) Berkshire Hathaway is their largest shareholder, with a 13% stake - while not a guarantee from Buffet, if things got a little choppy, I'd expect him to re-up with a GS/BAC-style preferred investment - something that consistently has soothed any market concerns.

Of all the risks we face, Amex counterparty risk is amongst the lowest. I'd worry about getting in a car accident on the way to cvs more than Amex filing.

NYBanker

For some random reason, I happened to be a the customer service desk at Walmart today.

It was a pretty sad sight to see and listen to the other customers in the queue. It was particularly alarming to see how some parents were speaking to their children.

Stoughton

As always, it's store by store

member7777

Don't make a habit of waiting in line at Walmart, your despair for the human race goes up exponentially

Marathon Man

Oh yes... sometimes I go there just to feel better about myself lol

drdrew450

I went into OD to buy some amex pp and the cashier said I would have to ring each one up as a seperate transaction. I said one would be fine cause I didn't know if several exact transactions back to back would raise a red flag with chase.

Hope this is not the new policy.

Also I have not seen any my vanilla visas in my local OD, they do have visa GCs.

saranyc

Agreed, hopefully Target hooks up with Chase for something similar.

ma91pmh

www.peopleofwalmart.com

member7777

I despair for the clerks at Target more than Walmart, loading target amex can be a challenge sometimes.

(Target/Walmart) is as (In-and-Out/McDonalds)

saranyc

I think Target is to Walmart as Per Se is to McDonalds. Buy maybe I just really hate Walmart.

Superorb

Why an Amex prepaid instead of a Visa prepaid? Amex has a higher load fee and Visas are accepted at more places.

My OD has a lot of the Vanilla Visa Gift Cards and the One Vanilla Cards. There are also MyVanilla Debit cards I think. Not sure what the difference is between all the Vanilla cards though, there are at least 4 kinds that I've seen.

SGJazz

This is too funny for words

Marathon Man

Maybe some people have better means of ATMing the PP over using a GC. I dunno

I think you get better service if you dress like some of those people

LivelyFL

They tried to do that to me at Office Max, except that it was not Amex PP, it was some restaurant cards. She wanted to ring up the office supplies separately, I told her no thanks and put the gift cards back.

Mrgolfer21

Finally went to a CVS that didn't allow GC's or debit cards to buy beans. Said they would only accept cash or credit. Showed them my amx gc and said it gets run through like a credit, she said she still couldn't accept it. No worries, i told her, i'll just pass for now. Went to two other CVS's in the area and used amx gc's just fine. That was a quick $5K gone this weekend, now, time to reorder the gc's.