American Express Traveller Cheques

NataleS

hope you can help as AMEX have been completely condescending and rude to me via the telephone.

My son Benjamin is a 21 year old Medical Student, backpacking Thailand and Vietnam for two weeks. He arrived in Bangok on Saturday 25th August 2009, that same afternoon he telephoned me distraught, because he had lost/or they had been stolen his AMEX Travellers Cheques.

I have today been trying get some help from them only to be told that my son will not receive a refund as he had not signed the cheques. He told them this in honesty as he had made a genuine mistake and has always been taught honesty is the best policy. Amex have said that this 'violates his contract'. I am at the end of my tether, as I have explained to AMEX Claims Review Unit, my son is in a foreign country, alone with no funds. They have refused to help and told me he should find his travellers cheques or that I should 'wire' hime some money. If I were in a position to I would do so, however, I am a kidney dialysis patient unable to work and so haven't the funds.

How can AMEX treat people like this, surely a young kid on his own in a foreign country would be helped by them ????

Please can you help :mad:

dzug1

Where did he buy the TCs? If it was over the counter then he shouldn't have been allowed to walk away without signing them. If by mail then he should have signed them on receipt.

Are you sure he hasn't signed them at all? Or is he actually saying he hasn't signed them a second time - which would be normal and correct.

If he really hasn't signed them at all he hasn't a leg to stand on. It's the equivalent of inadvertently throwing cash out of the window - a mistake perhaps, but an irretrievable one. There isn't really anything that can be done to help.

lfc321

Sorry, but dzug 1 is right. If he hasn't signed the cheques at all then whoever has found/stolen them will be able to cash them and your son won't be able to get his money back.

No excuse for Amex being rude, but what they're saying is correct.

dzug1

I have to admit that if I worked for Amex it would be straining my capabilities not to be rude and condescending in a case like this. I hope I would manage it but it would be a close thing.

stephb34

Who actually bought the travellers cheques because if he did in a shop, then he would have signed them once infront of the cashier, then they are insured by amex, if a 3rd party ie you bought them for him then he should have signed them when you gave them him, he most definitely shouldnt have started on his travels with no signature on them at all and the buyer would definitely been tol at time of purchase to get them signed asap. If you think he is a young kid at 21 then you really shouldnt have let him go on his own sorry.

luci

As others have said, it's a condition of purchasing TC's to sign them immediately on receipt. If he didn't do this then yes he has violated his contract.

Perhaps, as has also been suggested, he misunderstood and did sign them on receipt and thought they meant signing for a second time. It that case you should get back onto Amex and explain.

Backbiter

NataleS - I have had the exact same experience as your son. I had my AMEX cheques couriered to me at work They were accepted by the secretary and collected by me as I was on my way out of the door for an immediate departure, literally straight from work. I had no time to sign them and put them in a zipped pocket, intending to sign them. I never did and somehow they went missing a day or two into the trip.
Like your son I decided honesty was the best policy and said they were unsigned. (I don't think claiming I'd signed them would have been wise as my signature would not have been on them, and the person who found them would have been able to provide matching signatures). I was told I had invalidated my contract with them by failing to sign them and stood only a remote chance of them ever being refunded i.e. only if the person who found them had returned them uncashed to AMEX. I had to submit lengthy forms and contact them within a few months, only to be told that they had been cashed in the meantime.
It was a painful and costly experience. I know this isn't any great help, but you do at least know that they aren't treating you and your son any differently to anyone else.