Bug with Google Pay and Amex
It is impossible to contact large companies to report a bug in their software. So I'm reduced to writing snarky blog posts about it in the vague hope that a Social Media Manager will see the issue and raise it with the appropriate team. Welcome to 2017!
Google Pay now supports American Express cards in the UK. Hurrah! But if you try to ring Amex from within the app - a problem occurs. Can you spot what it is?
The country code should be +44
. For some reason, it's missing the +
.
It passes to the dialler correctly, but the call then fails because the number isn't recognised.
GSM requires an international call prefix when using country codes. If Amex wants customers to be able to call, it needs to change how it presents numbers to Google Pay.
Other providers get around this by using country specific dialling. The Halifax credit card uses an 0345
number which works perfectly.
Unless you're abroad. In which case, it will fail.
I know Google doesn't like testing things before they're released - but insisting that providers use properly formatted international dialling numbers seems like a sensible precaution.