How to Make Visa Obey Your Every Desire: The Credit Card Concierge Experiment

You know, honestly these requests weren't all that outrageous...<p>I've recently become rather disheartened at just how little "extra" it takes to impress American's these days. Many societies around the world take it for granted that services is a part of...well..."service". For example, when I was in Turkey with my wife, we were a just your average cafe. We really like the little tea spoons that they had, and wanted some for home. We asked the waiter if the cafe had any extra they would mind selling us. He told us that the ones they had were all dinged and used, and wouldn't it be better to have some brand new spoons? We agreed, and he sent one of the other boys working in the back down to the local store to buy some for us while we sat and sipped our tea.<p>Ordinary little cafe...nothing really that out of the ordinary...so why is this so foreign in America?

I have the Schwab 2% cash back Signature card.<p>I've used the concierge service for some awesome things:<p>1. I knew I was going to propose to my GF in St. Augustine on a long weekend but I'd never been there. So I asked for a complete scouting report. Lists of good restaurants (plus reservations), good places to ask her, etc. They came through in awesome style.<p>2. We were shopping in Chicago and she fell in love with, but didn't buy, a Coach purse. Her birthday was a month later so, back home, a thousand miles away, I went to buy that purse. Sold out. They checked near by stores: Sold Out. I check websites: Sold Out.<p>I called my Concierge. They contacted Coach for me. They verified that every single Coach store was sold out of this purse, when the next shipment was coming in, which stores would get the purses from that very next shippment, and how much shipping would cost if I ordered from the closest one and had it delivered.<p>3. When a Generic prescription drug became suddenly unavailable, I asked about "why". They refused to help because of the questions Medical nature. Even when I told them it was just personal FYI and I wasn't actually taking the medicine (a lie, but i thought it might work)

<i>"But that’s a lot of work, so I’m hoping you guys can do it for me. Just call and give me a daily affirmation."</i><p><i>"You want us to call and tell you you’re a good person?"</i><p><i>"That’s right."</i><p>So, was this the inspiration for Awesomeness Reminders? <a href="http://www.awesomenessreminders.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.awesomenessreminders.com/</a>

Main problem I see with this sort of thing:<p>The money to do this comes from <i>somewhere</i>. My location guesses: increased interest rates, and increased POS charges. All of which ultimately means less money for you, and less for everywhere you buy things.<p>Another interesting thing I've read somewhere, and would be interested in a link if someone knows of it: all/many of these higher-perk cards charge the merchants more when they're used. It's best for businesses if you use the most basic cards, or <i>far</i> better if you use cash.<p>But I just dislike credit card companies. And their "rating" systems. I must be cranky right now or something, because I feel like spreading the dislike :\

Bloomberg have somewhat offered this service.<p>One lucky enough to have a Bloomberg terminal (providing financial news and information services) have access to a helpdesk built into the software via the messaging system (to query data, news, etc). This helpdesk has had huge appeal in other areas - booking restaurants, book recommendations, ideas for things to do on holiday - for many many years.<p>When paying at least $15k/year for such a terminal (often much more), and a client often having hundreds installed, if not thousands, it is a beautiful example of going a little extra for a lot of goodwill.

I wonder if you could harness this for serious information research. The grey area is interesting on <i>5. We cannot research your school paper, or do your job for you</i><p>examples: Find out if [your] anonymously uploaded website X violates anything in patent Y? What is the contact information for CEO in some big company Z? I could easily think of lots of others!<p>Might be worth a try at least and see how far they can really go :)

I've done security assessments of outsourcers providing this service before. One was mostly aligned with credit card companies, one was an company that offered this in conjunction with travel insurance. Interestingly, all agents in both cases were in the US. (It's possible some call QA was offshored, I don't recall in these instances but that's very common.)<p>In my review, the providers had little familiarity with the data security controls of the credit card industry (aka PCI). One was PCI certified, one was not but 'working on it'. The one that had been certified had somehow convinced their QSA (the PCI auditor) to not review the systems their agents used, only the core infrastructure.<p>The provider with home-based agents let their agents use their own computers to service callers, and it was quiet possible that the agent had never met anyone from the hiring company face-to-face.<p>Now, as a matter of course, probably only 1-3% of the calls actually required the agent take a credit card number (to order something for the customer). Most of the time the agents were just answering questions. Most of the agents would never see the caller's credit card number from the issuing bank.<p>From a information security point-of-view I wouldn't have any problem using the providers I reviewed (although, even as a frequent traveller, I've <i>never</i> had an occasion where it seemed like it would be useful), but I'd stop short of giving them my credit card number.

I was excited to try this service out after reading the article. I called them up, and after a couple minutes on hold, was connected to Michael. I didn't need to enter my account number, but it's possible they used my phone number to know that I have a credit card.<p>I asked him if there were any local stores that sold caffeine-free Diet Mountain Dew. He put me on hold for a couple minutes and came back, asking if I had tried Wal-Mart or grocery stores. I told him I hadn't seen it there. He said that he found some Facebook page talking about caffeine-free Mountain Dew, but he was unable to access it because Facebook was blocked from his location. He suggested I search on google for it myself. He apologized for being unable to help me.<p>So I searched and the second hit pointed me to <a href="http://www.pepsiproductfacts.com/storelocator/index600.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.pepsiproductfacts.com/storelocator/index600.html</a> and there is a store 19 miles from me that sells the "extremely limited" caffeine-free Diet Mountain Dew.<p>I'm not impressed.

This 4HWW blog post was submitted here about 6 months ago here: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1321730" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1321730</a><p>In the comments section, user feb basically asked HN if our users could verify this is legit, but he didn't get a response then. Anyone?

I've had a Diners Club card with concierge service for a couple of years now, and have used the service only once. Based on talking to people who work in a concierge company they can in most cases only do the things you could've done with a little Googling yourself.<p>It is nice to have somebody look for flights, hotels or restaurants for you, but in general by doing it yourself you get it done a lot more quickly. 5 minutes to findband book a hotel using the phone browser, vs. about the same time on the phone, and waiting them 12 hours to get it done...

Is it just me or does that sound like a fun job, to answer stranger's strange requests?

I'm disappointed. I was hoping that they would explain how to efficiently use this.<p>I use the Amex Platinum concierge when I travel. "I need reservations at good restaurants for these three nights." They lock in the reservations and email me a schedule. Then I go back and try to use open table and/or trip advisor to find better stuff and cancel/replace as necessary.<p>I often get the feeling I am Doing It Wrong, and wish people would share the right way.

As I was reading this article, I was thinking, "Really? You can ask that and they do it for you?". It just never occurred to me that I would need a personal assistant to help me find a tub of nachos (or help me with a crossword or any other chores). I just find it..weird.<p>On the other hand, this article pretty much sold me into determining if I need a Visa Signature card.

I wonder how they'd scale up this service if suddenly everyone wanted it. It seems pretty awesome though, especially if you're the type of person who deals with lots of small problems daily.

Any idea how much these cost, or how much it would cost to get this service without the card?<p>Will they order and buy stuff for you (e.g. from Amazon), or just tell you where it is?

<i>“Money is no object,” I said, “but I am on a budget.”</i>