American Express Adds Web Messaging To Customer Services

American Express Co. today launched a secure messaging platform that card holders can use to send and receive confidential information about their credit-card accounts.

Customers receive a personal, password-protected mailbox on the American Express Web site. Customers use this account to query American Express customer representatives on such things as specific charges, account balances, balance transfers, and credit-line increases. Responses to queries, which can contain confidential account information, are sent to the mailbox rather than traversing the public Internet. When messages arrive in the American Express mailbox, an alert is automatically sent to the customer's standard E-mail address, so the customer does not have to check for American Express replies unnecessarily. The alert includes a URL that customers can click on to have their browsers directed to the American Express mailbox.

The service, which is based on based on Tumbleweed Communications Inc.'s Integrated Messaging Exchange platform is available immediately to American Express card holders.