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[Plastiq] Pay any bill with credit card for 0%-2.85% fee

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Oct 19, 2007
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Has anyone paid Calgary City Property Tax with plastiq?
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Oct 22, 2014
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ValueHunter999 wrote: it was a legitimate payment ... NOT a manufactured one ... the merchant don't take any credit card ... so I have to either pay from my chequing account or use plastiq or something similar ...
I have no intention of poisoning the well for anyone ...

I contacted amex as instructed by plastiq so amex can fix the info given to plastiq ...


DO you know what a "manufactured spending" is?

as for the verification charge, it is not the amount the pissed me off ... it is that they charge in USD which they should have charge in CAD ... plus the charge was supposed to be a verification charge so it should not have been posted and billed ... which it did ...
I'm not sure. From what I understand paying these counts as MS. You can add what you know.

The main point I was getting at is the rule of thumb: "don't call AMEX" unless you are missing lots of points after 10 weeks. Otherwise you are just drawing attention to your one time Plastiq charge of $4K. The downside of getting AMEX alerted and having MR account frozen outweighs $20 dollars not saved at Plastiq.
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Jan 30, 2012
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ace604 wrote: Plastiq redirects you here: https://www.plastiq.com/cardholder_ui/s ... icle=92608 which says to call Amex # on back of card.

I say we flood Plastiq CSRs with complaints.

They told me their bank is BMO and the BIN list according to them is what they use... and yet I told them Amex says it's Canadian ... so BMO is wrong ... and Plastiq would need to ask BMO to fix it, not us or Amex.

Boooo
the rep with whom i chatted told me the info came from amex ... so ... there seems to be some discrpency ...
(i still have the chat log to prove it ... :) )
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Jan 30, 2012
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Elfwood wrote: I'm not sure. From what I understand paying these counts as MS. You can add what you know.

The main point I was getting at is the rule of thumb: "don't call AMEX" unless you are missing lots of points after 10 weeks. Otherwise you are just drawing attention to your one time Plastiq charge of $4K. The downside of getting AMEX alerted and having MR account frozen outweighs $20 dollars not saved at Plastiq.
why would they freeze my MR account for contacting them due to a 100% legit issue?

no fraud has been committed ...
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Oct 22, 2014
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ValueHunter999 wrote: why would they freeze my MR account for contacting them due to a 100% legit issue?

no fraud has been committed ...
Alright it's just my tinfoil hat I forgot to take off after reading that giant FT thread about AMEX US freezing plat accounts
Deal Fanatic
Oct 22, 2014
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I have to re iterate that you are all making a big fuss for what? A measly 0.5%? What is the max you can get right now taking advantage of it? $25 ($5K x 0.5%)? Is that really worth calling AMEX and showing them a one time Plastiq payment of $4000-5000 payment to alert them? Sure we are not committing any fraud but is any of us keeping the card after meeting the bonus spend? If not then this using Plastiq to meet $5K spending requirement is going to get noticed if you all make a fuss about a measly 0.5% and AMEX will crackdown and stop all future use of this Plastiq.

You are picking up pennies and stepping on and killing the golden goose
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Aug 8, 2012
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Elfwood wrote: I have to re iterate that you are all making a big fuss for what? A measly 0.5%? What is the max you can get right now taking advantage of it? $25 ($5K x 0.5%)? Is that really worth calling AMEX and showing them a one time Plastiq payment of $4000-5000 payment to alert them? Sure we are not committing any fraud but is any of us keeping the card after meeting the bonus spend? If not then this using Plastiq to meet $5K spending requirement is going to get noticed if you all make a fuss about a measly 0.5% and AMEX will crackdown and stop all future use of this Plastiq.

You are picking up pennies and stepping on and killing the golden goose
Plastiq is a "supplier" you can choose for Amex Business Gold. It is a legitimate service people use to pay bills that don't take credit cards. There's no goose connected here.

It's also the principle of the matter that Plastiq isn't correctly treating all our Canadian Amex cards as Canadian ... if they fix it now, it will get fixed for future promos. It might only be 0.5% now, but the next one might be 1%, and if it's every 6 months for the next N years ... how much is that?

This is RFD. We fuss over pennies!
POLL: How frequent is your RRSP-matching?
Plastiq: Pay any bill with credit card for 0-2.5% fee (help meet min spending and keep old cards active!)
Rewards program transfer times (e.g. SPG->Aeroplan, Marriott->SPG, Amex MR->SPG...)
Deal Guru
Jan 30, 2012
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Elfwood wrote: I have to re iterate that you are all making a big fuss for what? A measly 0.5%? What is the max you can get right now taking advantage of it? $25 ($5K x 0.5%)? Is that really worth calling AMEX and showing them a one time Plastiq payment of $4000-5000 payment to alert them? Sure we are not committing any fraud but is any of us keeping the card after meeting the bonus spend? If not then this using Plastiq to meet $5K spending requirement is going to get noticed if you all make a fuss about a measly 0.5% and AMEX will crackdown and stop all future use of this Plastiq.

You are picking up pennies and stepping on and killing the golden goose
do you really think amex will ban plastiq because amex get some enquiries? no ... i dont think so ...

my planned total charge on my amex simplycash prferred when all said and done before sept will be $8k ... so if i can save .5% ... that's a lot of big macs for me ...
and this is RFD so it is a big deal ...

but, that's not the main issue ...

the main issue is that the is a problem with the mismatch of information resulting in this mess ... and we as good customers are doing our part to help amex/plastiq/bmo fix it ...

so why would amex ban me from using plastiq?
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Oct 22, 2014
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ace604 wrote: Plastiq is a "supplier" you can choose for Amex Business Gold. It is a legitimate service people use to pay bills that don't take credit cards. There's no goose connected here.

It's also the principle of the matter that Plastiq isn't correctly treating all our Canadian Amex cards as Canadian ... if they fix it now, it will get fixed for future promos. It might only be 0.5% now, but the next one might be 1%, and if it's every 6 months for the next N years ... how much is that?

This is RFD. We fuss over pennies!
My comment is about what you preach ace: not calling AMEX, alerting AMEX or anything AMEX. No need to argue anything here.

As soon as I posted I knew you were going to say "this is RFD and we go after every penny", but RFD is about consumer education and loophole finding. We have to let go of some battles to win the war, right? (War being AMEX churn)

Also I noticed the Canadian AMEX MR cards are all 2% fine. That covers the most important (biggest welcome points) biz plat and gold plat. Why complain?
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Oct 22, 2014
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Richmond Hill
ValueHunter999 wrote: do you really think amex will ban plastiq because amex get some enquiries? no ... i dont think so ...

my planned total charge on my amex simplycash prferred when all said and done before sept will be $8k ... so if i can save .5% ... that's a lot of big macs for me ...
and this is RFD so it is a big deal ...

but, that's not the main issue ...

the main issue is that the is a problem with the mismatch of information resulting in this mess ... and we as good customers are doing our part to help amex/plastiq/bmo fix it ...

so why would amex ban me from using plastiq?
I not antagonizing you, just want to speak to everyone about not calling AMEX.

You are complaining about $4K you charged which is $20 lost over that 0.5%. This promo ends feb 28, so your $8K won't fit in this time frame.

AMEX won't ban you. Alerting them just raises the risk of them stopping Plastiq charges as satisfying min spending.

Call me tinfoil hat wearer or whatever. I'm speaking about it in the interest of your future AMEX MR card churns
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Aug 8, 2012
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Elfwood wrote: My comment is about what you preach ace: not calling AMEX, alerting AMEX or anything AMEX. No need to argue anything here.

As soon as I posted I knew you were going to say "this is RFD and we go after every penny", but RFD is about consumer education and loophole finding. We have to let go of some battles to win the war, right? (War being AMEX churn)

Also I noticed the Canadian AMEX MR cards are all 2% fine. That covers the most important (biggest welcome points) biz plat and gold plat. Why complain?
Calling specifically about something like self-referring yourself and not getting a bonus is just silly when you can instead wait it out and get a resolution in your favour after 10 weeks with no action on your part at all except for exercising patience.

Calling in GENERAL about a general issue that doesn't link back to you specifically at all ... that's a different story. There's a problem here with how Plastiq is handling certain cards (seems like SPG, SimplyCash, others?) and it's not right.

SPG has $1500 spend. I may refer my spouse and then have her refer me to the business version. I'd like to be able to use Plastiq at the advertised promo rates presently and in the future and not miss out just because of an error on their part. $3k x 0.5% is $15. 15 bucks is 15 bucks.

To not save that just because of an error ... not right. There's no risk here in calling Amex. I spoke with them earlier, got transferred around to a "specialist" and finally ended up getting someone who gave me a number for Plastiq to call and said they need to call them and get "re-educated" :)

I sent in a ticket with Plastiq as well telling them their "knowledge base" entry is bogus, and that the BIN database they claim BMO is using is incorrect. BMO probably sourced it from those same sources online they referred to which are probably crowd-sourced stale data. 3717** is a US Platinum Amex?! No, wrong. It's also a Canadian SPG Amex ... they need to be more specific in their entries than 4-digits prefix treating all 6-digit entries as equal.

Besides bonus spending ... I value SPG at about 3c ... so at 2.5% it's not worth too much hassle to redirect spending to Plastiq ... I just pay Hydro and natural gas from my bank account.
If it was 2% I'd reconsider on an ongoing basis.

Paying "0.5% extra for a non-Canadian card is bogus when the card *is* Canadian ...

"Non-Canadian Cards
.5% on top of promo or standard rate
"
https://www.plastiq.com/cardholder_ui/s ... icle=92608
POLL: How frequent is your RRSP-matching?
Plastiq: Pay any bill with credit card for 0-2.5% fee (help meet min spending and keep old cards active!)
Rewards program transfer times (e.g. SPG->Aeroplan, Marriott->SPG, Amex MR->SPG...)
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Sheesh, Elfwood... you have chronic churnitis. Seriously... if you churn Amex cards as often as it sounds like... you're doing far more to destroy Amex good will than letting them know of a screwup in their system.

And RFD is NOT about finding loopholes. It's about finding deals. Churning to the extent that some do it here is clearly what caused Amex to start clamping down.
I'd love to write history... in advance.
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Oct 2, 2015
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Outremont, QC
ValueHunter999 wrote: do you really think amex will ban plastiq because amex get some enquiries? no ... i dont think so ...

my planned total charge on my amex simplycash prferred when all said and done before sept will be $8k ... so if i can save .5% ... that's a lot of big macs for me ...
and this is RFD so it is a big deal ...

but, that's not the main issue ...

the main issue is that the is a problem with the mismatch of information resulting in this mess ... and we as good customers are doing our part to help amex/plastiq/bmo fix it ...

so why would amex ban me from using plastiq?
I think what Elfwood is saying is that if several RFDers contact Amex about how Amex cards are being miscoded by Plastiq as American, Amex may take notice that a lot of these people are spending just the minimum spend (via Plastiq) and then not using their account anymore. Amex management back in October mentioned they were planning on cutting out churners more aggressively. They mentioned they were looking at using automated means to "flag" churners. I think it is a valid concern that if Amex takes notice, they may begin writing code to flag people who only hit the minimum spend then move on so that those people cannot do so on another card. It isn't unrealistic -- more aggressive analytics to identify churners is done in the US by various banks.

Sometimes you need to pick your battles. If one person contacts Amex, that may just be negligible. If 200 churners read this thread and then call Amex, it might get the attention of a manager and make its way up the chain. The $5-20 difference for me isn't really worth calling, let alone risking the system that brings me much greater value. But it's your lives, just know that you could be going after pennies while stepping on the golden goose. IMHO, Elfwood raised a valid point.
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IMO ... LOL, because thousands of people hitting the min. spend and then never using their cards again is already SO easy to detect.

They don't need any trigger from 5 or 100 people calling in about Plastiq unrelated issue (miscategorized country) to kill any geese.

But I'm sure that as soon as one goose gets killed, someone will point a finger here.

They already said they are hunting geese ... but, did they load ammo in the gun, or are they just pretending? The truth is every churner who refers people generates new customers for them, and a certain percent of those customers become permanent customers who add to profitability.

We are essentially paid affiliate marketers. You think they want to shut down Jerry? No. His thread has cost them $x in 'losses' but made them much more than that in gains from people who end up sticking with Amex after one cycle.


Anyways ... I suggest Amex has nothing to do with this issue anyways ... and we should be bugging Plastiq to fix it. They are the ones with the problem here.
POLL: How frequent is your RRSP-matching?
Plastiq: Pay any bill with credit card for 0-2.5% fee (help meet min spending and keep old cards active!)
Rewards program transfer times (e.g. SPG->Aeroplan, Marriott->SPG, Amex MR->SPG...)
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Oct 2, 2015
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Outremont, QC
ace604 wrote: IMO ... LOL, because thousands of people hitting the min. spend and then never using their cards again is already SO easy to detect.

They don't need any trigger from 5 or 100 people calling in about Plastiq unrelated issue (miscategorized country) to kill any geese.

But I'm sure that as soon as one goose gets killed, someone will point a finger here.

They already said they are hunting geese ... but, did they load ammo in the gun, or are they just pretending? The truth is every churner who refers people generates new customers for them, and a certain percent of those customers become permanent customers who add to profitability.

We are essentially paid affiliate marketers. You think they want to shut down Jerry? No. His thread has cost them $x in 'losses' but made them much more than that in gains from people who end up sticking with Amex after one cycle.


Anyways ... I suggest Amex has nothing to do with this issue anyways ... and we should be bugging Plastiq to fix it. They are the ones with the problem here.
Have you worked for a large corporation that deals with scattered databases of large datasets?

It's actually not the easiest thing to retroactively "check". It's doable, but it requires time and money, and isn't something that a high-up would ask for without having considerable reason to do so. It's not as simple as running a simple search... you need to systematically query many databases (who knows how Amex structures their data) against thousands of accounts, each of which can contain 0 to thousands of transactions, and then perform data calculations (sum of transactions, # of vendors, etc) then structure the data somehow to see account trends by each customer. I'd wager the last part is difficult with how their data is structured given that it clearly isn't an easy solution for them to identify repeat accounts.

Again, it's very easy for someone without an IT background to say "it's super easy to do so, the fact they haven't means they don't care". Even if their data is well designed, it isn't a simple task. If their data is a mess, like most banks (as they tend to be conservative with IT upgrades on backends), then it's a multiday ordeal. It's a matter of they don't want to ask an engineer to work on that for one to several days (depending on how well their backend is designed) unless they have reason to believe it's actually a big deal. 100+ RFDers calling in the same week and agents noticing a trend among all those accounts that gets mentioned up the chain of command can then give them reason to do some analysis.

My only point is to be aware of the RFD effect. A lot of people read these posts, many more than actually comment, and things like this can raise flags where the community would be better off if they didn't.

Yes, threads like Jerry's bring customers. Yes, some will actually stay and use Amex. But Amex could move to block those who open their second account, etc, while protecting their bottom line. But let's not mention that here and give them ideas.

Let's get back to topic?
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Oct 22, 2014
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Nimbusplane wrote: My only point is to be aware of the RFD effect. A lot of people read these posts, many more than actually comment, and things like this can raise flags where the community would be better off if they didn't.
This point is very good.
atomiton wrote: Sheesh, Elfwood... you have chronic churnitis. Seriously... if you churn Amex cards as often as it sounds like... you're doing far more to destroy Amex good will than letting them know of a screwup in their system.

And RFD is NOT about finding loopholes. It's about finding deals. Churning to the extent that some do it here is clearly what caused Amex to start clamping down.
Don't start up fake rumors please. I started my AMEX journey in late 2016, and only have a few cards - all first time.
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Nimbusplane wrote: Have you worked for a large corporation that deals with scattered databases of large datasets?
Yes I have, but that's not a good question so the answer is irrelevant anyways. I could have been a janitor for said company or a programmer, but not working directly with those databases ... anyways ...
It's actually not the easiest thing to retroactively "check". It's doable, but it requires time and money, and isn't something that a high-up would ask for without having considerable reason to do so. It's not as simple as running a simple search... you need to systematically query many databases (who knows how Amex structures their data) against thousands of accounts, each of which can contain 0 to thousands of transactions, and then perform data calculations (sum of transactions, # of vendors, etc) then structure the data somehow to see account trends by each customer. I'd wager the last part is difficult with how their data is structured given that it clearly isn't an easy solution for them to identify repeat accounts.

Again, it's very easy for someone without an IT background to say "it's super easy to do so, the fact they haven't means they don't care". Even if their data is well designed, it isn't a simple task. If their data is a mess, like most banks (as they tend to be conservative with IT upgrades on backends), then it's a multiday ordeal. It's a matter of they don't want to ask an engineer to work on that for one to several days (depending on how well their backend is designed)
It is easy to say that, but that's not what I said (if that's what you are implying).

I said it's easy. I said they possibly don't actually care because churning generates referral leads as well. I didn't say they haven't done X, ergo "they don't care"

There are I guess a few different levels of "easy"
(and BTW, yes "easy" does not equal "free").

If their data's organized it can probably be done with a single SQL query. If it's not, then it's going to be a bit of code.

It's EASY for the code (once written) to identify these accounts that:
a) spend a total of > 100% of min. spend
b) spend a total of < 100% + X% of min. spend
c) close account before age is Y months

Say X is 5%, Y is 15 months.

Writing the query is also easy. Reorganizing databases is not. Writing a small program to query all the disparate DBs to achieve the desired result may take a bit of work ... but it's not rocket science. It's computer science :) (as you said, someone has to care to ask someone to spend the time on it ... people calling about Plastiq miscategorizing the country code isn't going to be that trigger nor the straw breaks the camel's back that makes him fall on the golden goose :))

Plastiq is the one telling people to call Amex on their FAQ ... so people should be complaining to Plastiq to stop using their broken "BIN DB" which is probably unreliably populated with crap data sourced online and not actually contributed to directly by Amex as Plastiq is likely misinforming their customers.

What I could envision as plausible is some clueless Plastiq employee contacted another clueless BMO employee who told them "we use a BIN DB. It's soooper good and 'private' and better than those online ones. We got our data from Amex. It's their fault" <click>

So anyways this whole debate is moot because us calling Amex won't help this issue. Call Plastiq and insist that you already spoke to Amex and Plastiq's bank's info is wrong and they need to fix it. :)

If the bank wants to make one call to Amex to sort it out they can do that.

Anyways, yes, we are slightly off topic, let's stick to complaining about Plastiq :-)
POLL: How frequent is your RRSP-matching?
Plastiq: Pay any bill with credit card for 0-2.5% fee (help meet min spending and keep old cards active!)
Rewards program transfer times (e.g. SPG->Aeroplan, Marriott->SPG, Amex MR->SPG...)
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Would someone mind helping me out with the CRA payee.

I try to add a recipient and I find the CRA:
Canada Revenue Agency 875 Heron Road, Ottawa, ON, Canada

This is the screen I get (I can't get the imgs to post directly here for some reason, they get broken)
Your text to link here...

Then this..
Your text to link here...

^I assume that is the right one, but it doesn't have the 1.75%. It shows a 2.50% fee.
Your text to link here...

Can anyone help me on this please?
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Jan 19, 2017
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jellytime wrote: Would someone mind helping me out with the CRA payee.

I try to add a recipient and I find the CRA:
Canada Revenue Agency 875 Heron Road, Ottawa, ON, Canada

This is the screen I get (I can't get the imgs to post directly here for some reason, they get broken)
Your text to link here...

Then this..
Your text to link here...

^I assume that is the right one, but it doesn't have the 1.75%. It shows a 2.50% fee.
Your text to link here...

Can anyone help me on this please?
1.75% for CRA was the old promotion for 2016 which had expired.

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