Mostly Music Amex Deal

Serves you and them right. You had an opportunity to freely give $25 ($50 or more depending on how many amex cards you have) to tzeddaka organizations who were mamish begging for the money. You should be ashamed.

Uh, pardon my ignorance, but what is this AMEX deal?

WIY,

I disagree with you. There’s no difference between this $25 and any other money one chooses to spend on extras. Unless one believes in never spending money on any luxury item in their life, there no reason why this specific promotion needs to be applied to tzedakah.

I absolutely did NOT participate in this even though my kids Yeshivah asked us to. It is unscrupulous and borders on stealing. the whole point of the program was to spur small business and the economy. Instead yeshivas and Tzedakas classed themselves as small businesses so that they would qualify when you “purchased” and item from them.

Its clearly being done for the purposes stated above. NOT so tzedakahs can scam a few bucks out of the system. This was unacceptable in my eyes so I refused to participate. Last time I checked there is no requirement to lie to someone so you can get some free money to give to a tzedakah organization.Should I lie on my taxes so that I have more money for Tzedakah?

I have five Amex cards and so does my wife. Credit cards enterprises do not lose money. When they offered this promotion, we used all the cards at our disposal to help our einacle’s yeshiva. No one is pulling the wool over Amex’ eyes. Most banks and large businesses support charity programs and other programs that endear them to the community. Sh’koach American Express.

Unfortunately, because we live in challenging times, everybody is trying to make the most money they can. Everybody here has a point, i think the tzedaka’s claim that they were ‘small businesses’ might not pass tough muster, i think their heavy come on advertising saying,”this is an opportunity to support a tzedaka at no cost to you was deceptive”, it was at a cost,it was money the consumer could have spent on themselves,so it was just like they would take 25$ out of their pockets. On the other hand, the tzedakas were trying their best to maximize a program, and they spent effort, creativity, publicity, etc, to try to fundraise in a way that is painless to the public, which, considering their challenges in fundraising is certainly commendable. May Hashem help everybody have all they need b’ravchus and may we not sit in judgment on anybody else.

For all those wondering how a Yeshiva could be alllowed to misclassify itself as a small business, I found the following on their website.

What classifies a merchant as a small business?

Small businesses are defined as independently owned and operated businesses located in the USA. Franchises, government agencies and large or national chain stores are not eligible.

Technically, a yeshiva fits the bill so they are classified as a small business.

Macherish –

You could only use each card once for this deal so if you already used it for tzedakah, you wouldn’t have gotten the credit from Mostly Music anyway.

Sh’koach cherrybim!

I am completely serious.

I suspect American Express does this specifically because their merchant fees are higher than other cards, and this is the sort of thing that convinces small businesses to accept their cards. This logic really doesn’t apply to Yeshivas.

Maybe. That sounds pretty far-fetched though, that a one time deal will make businesses accept their card. It sounds even more far-fetched that you expect yeshivos to have to interpret that intent.

Even if that’s wrong, and we’re talking about a company, so there’s no reason to think that logic is any more wrong or right than any other, it’s really not for the Yeshiva to decide what American Express’ intention is.

I’m with you there. I don’t think anybody needs to care about what their intent in this was. We just need to follow the rules they set up.

This program was clearly meant to support small businesses. Yeshivas are not small businesses.

But you just said “it’s really not for the Yeshiva to decide what American Express’ intention is.”

See what I mean?

A yeshiva telling American Express that it is a small business is dishonest.

I don’t believe they told them they were small businesses. Nothing was hidden here. There was no hiding the ball- it was all out in the open.

American Express knows what each vendor is, and that is how they didn’t allow it to apply to chain stores. They apparently allowed it to apply to non-profits.

This thread is much ado about nothing.

wouldn’t yeshiva’s be classified as non profits which may have different rules than traditional small businesses (although most small businesses these days are non profits as well). For all of those concerned that the yeshivas did something wrong, just check with Amex if the promotion applied to non profits as well.

I suspect American Express does this specifically because their merchant fees are higher than other cards, and this is the sort of thing that convinces small businesses to accept their cards. This logic really doesn’t apply to Yeshivas.

Of course it does. There are yeshivos that don’t accept Amex because of their high fees. This sort of thing gets those yeshivos to reconsider. Why is this any different than a small business?

@ Macherish

If you still haven’t received your credit send a secure message through your amex account or call them and they will manually credit you. This problem was widely reported and unless you had a store branded or citi amex card, it was easily resolved.