Do Your Due Diligence for Accepting Automatic Enrollment into Amex OptBlue
Do your due diligence when your bank or provider tries to automatically place your account on the American Express OptBlue program.
Automatic Enrollment
Automatic enrollment notices are common with all banks/providers initially offering OptBlue. However, not all banks/providers will offer OptBlue at a competitive rate when they automatically enroll your account.
I am a proponent of the OptBlue program and the program “should” lower the cost of accepting Amex for most small retail and ecommerce merchants “if” they are priced correctly.
However, I do know that some banks/providers have automatically enrolled businesses without passing through all of the savings the merchant should receive. Even worse, I have seen some businesses, end up paying more for Amex after being automatically enrolled.
Personally, I would not want any bank/provider to automatically enroll my business in any program without first making sure my business was being priced correctly. Secondly, understand that your bank/provider may make more revenue on your account as a result of this program. Therefore, it may be best to review your current cost of V/MC processing as well as Amex before committing to the OptBlue program.
Note – if you opt out of automatic enrollment it may take a couple months or so before they can place you on the program due how the program is setup.
Again, I like the OptBlue program. However, I believe merchants need to make sure they are being priced correctly before enrolling in it.
More Information
Please read the 3-part article I wrote on the OptBlue program if you are not familiar with the program.
