If you are reading this, let me tell you at the outset, do NOT use AmEx for your gift card needs. There are much better gift service out there. I personally have used giftcards.com that allow you to get custom gift cards, VISA and others and I have been very satisfied with their service. Now, let me tell you about my experience with AmEx. First of all, they do not have a local US based customer service team(at least it seems so to me). So, I ordered a custom AmEx gift card on phone by calling the customer service.
The girl who took my order was Bella. Order #*. She seemed to have noted all my instructions very well but later when after the item having shipped on December 30, I had not received it even by January 7, I called them up to ask what was wrong and found out that the delivery was completely wrong and the package was being returned to American Express. So much for being careful, I think AmEx doesn’t train its representatives well enough. I had ordered this for a friend who was getting married and thanks to fault on the customer representative, I could not get it on time and I had to request to cancel the order.
Although it had kind of already spoiled the fun by destroying the timing of the gift, I decided to place a reorder. And I did place another order #* this time too on the phone(I don’t remember the representative’s name). He said he will just take another order with the same customization and he made completely sure that he got the right address this time. And guess what, a couple of days later, I get this email from AmEx saying that the order was cancelled - no reasons mentioned. And, it was exactly the same order and I had used the same credit card to pay! When I called AmEx, they told me that no reason was mentioned on the system and that they would place a request to know the reason from their seniors and asked me to call me back after four to five days.
By this time, I was completely furious. I told her that "I am not going to this over and over again and if you cannot provide me a simple solution, I am just going to get it from another company." But that did not bother her. She simply said that she cannot help. So without saying anything else, I hung up. Friends, after that I found giftcards.com that is far better than what AmEx offers. I was thinking why I didn’t find this before and save me the trouble. They allow you to design custom gift cards and also a greeting card along with it with the photos(you can upload from your computer), wording and graphics of your choice. Trust me, DON’T go to AmEx for your gift card needs. They simply don’t care! Save yourself the trouble!
I waited for more than that and when I called, guess what again, they still have no answer! The representative’s name was Tulsi and I still remember the way she handled my problem. Totally unprofessional and no eagerness at all to help me with a solution. I asked her about the refund to my first cancelled gift card. She told me to call them back when it is exactly 15 days and the tone she used was so demeaning. When I asked her to please be clear on why AmEx cancelled the order so that I could find out and place the order successfully this time, all she said was that the order was declined and there is nothing she could do to help except taking a new order.