Costco parts ways with Amex

The wholesale retailer’s new credit card partnership is off to a poor start. New Citigroup cards are causing a sea of consumer complaints and a headache for PR teams.

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After a 16-year partnership, Costco is no longer accepting American Express, and the brand’s transition to Visa has been less than smooth.

The Costco-branded American Express cards that many customers used for their purchases have been cut up, but customers have had issues in the transition to the Citigroup-issued Visa cards.

Some have had trouble activating their cards and others didn’t receive them. Others were wrongly billed for purchases they had already paid off.

The New York Times called it “a customer service fiasco.”

In-store systems have had no trouble processing payments, but the roughly 11 million credit card transitions outside of that has caused a significant PR problem for Costco. RELATED: Keep your cool in a crisis with these 13 tips.

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