Convenience -- Brought to you by American Express

Credit cards are a truly wonderful concept. Forget the whole concept of credit. Just being able to use a piece of plastic rather than deal with change all the time really makes life easier. Not only that, you can get cash back from your credit cards. With the advent of the internet credit cards are even nicer -- you can track all of your purchases and if you're a Quicken-aholic (and Dauber's World is not, but certainly respects those of you who are) you can figure out what percent of your paycheck you spent on Starbucks.

As near as Dauber's World can tell there's only one downside to credit cards: they expire and you have to get a new one. Thankfully American Express has solved this problem. Regardless of whether you cancel your card they still keep it open! Just think, years after you cancel your card you can still make as many purchases as you like. Dauber's World found this out today when American Express called to say that a card canceled over four years ago is happily in use purchasing various items on the internet. The courtesy call from an Indian call center voiced concern that these charges were potentially fraudulent. Clearly American Express has a highly sophisticated algorithm developed by numerous PhDs running on thousands of computers to determine that something could be wrong when a card that was canceled four years ago is having charges billed to it. It's this kind of innovation and creativity that you get when you decide to use an American Express card.

To further add to the pleasure of Dauber's World American Express requested that Dauber's World submit a detailed explanation of why none of these charges are valid. Apparently "card canceled four years ago" is insufficient reason to dispute a charge.