Braintree and... some LAST(!) thoughts on American Express cards

I'm about to sign a document that says:

You must not at any time:
(i) criticise or mischaracterise the Card or any of our services or programmes;

so... here's my last change to share some thoughts ;)

I know there was a Braintree themed thread today already (so I won't repeat myself and talk specifically about Braintree here), but I wanted to share a different matter, just so you guys are aware if you ever are on the same boat when accepting payments.

I recently launched www.stackdraft.io and already had 2 customers who wanted to pay using American Express cards (one was a high-rank representative from DigitalOcean, and messaged me he couldn't register cry). I currently accept payments in USD, but plan to enable EUR soon, too.

So the deal is, my Braintree merchant account supports charging VISA, MasterCard, American Express, etc, in EUR currency, but... all of those cards excluding American Express in USD currency o_O. (Initially I was like "American... USD... what's this about?")

I noticed the problem, because two users, who attempted to register with AmEx (currently card up-front [a thread on that another day...], 14 day trial + 30 day money back guarantee), couldn't register.

By the way, I'm in Poland, so USD is not my currency (nor is EUR, for that matter). I contacted Braintree and explained the situation. They were helpful and sent me instructions how I have to register with American Express. It was pretty complex, but considering I was loosing paying customers (I apologized to those two and just gave them free, insider accounts), I decided to go head.

Would you believe my surprise if I told you, that American Express sent me an Excel spreadsheet to fill out? I was like What year are we in... and wrote back:

Thank you for the attachments, I will review them and send over as soon as possible. Do you have some business uploads webpage more secure than e-mail
(Mostly worried about sending my Personal ID over unencrypted e-mail).

(By the way, there's a special business uploads section in Braintree when you're sending documents to them.)

In response, I got an e-mail with a link to https://encryptedexchange.americanexpress.com/ [...]

The URL was https, but Chrome said (gray lock) "Your connection to this site is not fully secure".

I was like uhhh... . The reply said (excerpt):

Unfortunately we don't have this facility yet, I've encrypted this email to see if your reply would be encrypted too.

:O ... (pause) What?!

Basically, there's a reply button at the bottom, and just like I had really no choice but to choose Braintree as my PSP, I have no choice but to send out my scanned ID on a possibly unsafe site to an American Express representative, who seems to have never accepted sensitive documents over secure means.

Guys, I really apologize for the rambling, but these guys are one of the biggest payment processors in the world, next to VISA and MasterCard, and this feels like I'm talking to a shady dude on the dark net (never been, so I don't know :P). Though he sounds professional, but the situation not much so.

My goal of describing this situation was to share what you may expect, when you register to accept USD payments from American Express cards. I know I don't understand this whole payment system and all the bank proxies and what not (it's complex, honestly), but it's weird to me I can accept EUR from AmEx no problem, by default, in Braintree, but not USD.

Is it same in Stripe? Or maybe this only affects Braintree customers outside of USA?

Once I sign the documents and register with AmEx, I'll forward the Service Establishment number to Braintree, and then they enable AmEx cards for USD transactions on your Braintree Merchant Account.

And... as mentioned at the beginning of this post, once I sign these papers (I'm just about to do it), I won't be able to share any further critique about AmEx. So long free speech :|

Oh, and there's a $200 flat annual fee + 2.91% rate per transaction (in my case). If he wouldn't immediately tell me "I can and have waived the first annual fee for you", I would probably prioritize subscriptions in Euro and wait till the income makes sense to cover $200/year just for accepting AmEx.

Hope this helps or gets someone ready for the same ride. Cheers.