This post briefly explains Card Not Present and how to set up this alert with AMEX.

AMEX’s banking system is actually pretty solid. In theory, if you trigger the Fraud system, it will automatically notify you by email. To view the settings, go to Account Service → Account Alert → Fraud Alert. You’ll see that this notification cannot be turned off, while you can check the other options if you want.

So what is the second option, Card Not Present?

A card is not physically present when a customer makes a purchase

Card not Present
Notify me when Card is used to make online or phone purchase


As the name suggests, it refers to transactions where the physical card is not used, such as online shopping, mobile payments, or when a merchant manually enters your card number. Most people probably won’t enable this alert.

It may be more useful in the following two situations:

  • If you barely use the card anymore, still have the card in your possession, and don’t want to freeze it permanently (a sock-drawer card), then any fraud is more likely to be Card Not Present fraud. In that case, you may want to check this option.
  • Another use is tracking online and mobile-payment purchases made on authorized user cards—though of course your own transactions will also trigger alerts.

After that, any Card Not Present transaction will trigger a notification based on your settings (the screenshot below shows the author using email alerts). In most cases, this probably isn’t necessary, but it’s a useful little-known feature.