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I'm thinking of trimming the number of my credit cards down to six or seven.

Silly, isn't it? Theoretically, nobody needs more than two credit cards — one to charge stuff we buy and one to force open locked doors. But theory doesn't dig us out of the deep mud of phony charges, erroneous charges, and careless charges into which any unwitting cardholder can sink.

So for many of us, the criterion of a useful card is the dependability we can count on if — no, make that when — we legitimately want to challenge a charge.

I assume you've heard, “Sorry, we don't accept the American Express card.” My current riposte if it's a Web transaction is, “Sorry, I don't accept offers from vendors who don't have an AmEx connection, even if I don't plan to use the AmEx card.”

Unquestionably that statement is quickly generating a huge cadre of “How dare he” enemies and detractors. So understand, please: I'm just sharing experiences that have given me a profound respect for the American Express card.

Understand too: I'm not suggesting preference “as a card.” Rather, it's because invariably when a transaction goes sour and leaves us saying to our mirrors, “Barnum was right,” that deal has been with a vendor that doesn't accept AmEx. Every one of those negative experiences involved use of another card. (Oops, correction that validates correctness: AmEx stood firmly at my shoulder when a charge I regarded as unauthorized appeared on my statement.) Result? While I'll continue to use other cards, unless I'm in extremis I won't be a customer of any online vendor that doesn't accept AmEx. It's a leavening agent.

Maybe you've had this experience too: An Internet marketer somehow gets hold of your online name. Was it because you signed up for a newsletter or another freebie? Was it because your finger on the mouse wandered on its own to…no, it couldn't be that, because you were just experimenting and you deleted the cookies. Well, whatever it was, here's an offer and it seems to be a good one, except that you never heard of the company. Well, so what…at some point in their history nobody ever heard of Tiffany or Verizon or Walgreens or MGM (Morrie's Grocery Market).

OK, we like what they have — a knockoff of a Rolex watch, and it's just $100. Oh, sorry, $99.95. Off to checkout.

Now here's the moment of truth. If this vendor says it accepts Visa and MasterCard but not American Express, proceed with caution. No, no, you don't have to demand AmEx; it's just a safety valve, assuring you this isn't a Nigerian scheme to deprive you of your $99.95 life savings, money you had planned to invest in either a Rolex knockoff or the Amsterdam Lottery.

Don't interpret this to be an encomium to American Express. Even though I've had that card for longer than most readers of this publication have been alive, with card color drifting from green to gold to platinum to black, I don't quarrel with the contention that the company is arrogant and heavy on charges. But in a dispute, AmEx tends to side with the cardholder, a position the others find dicey.

(Traveling overseas, I use a debit card from my bank. That eliminates all the nasty surcharges usually piled onto the currency conversion rate.)

The Web has brought negative-option offers to full flower. DVDs, vitamins, supplements, subscriptions to newsletters and both Web and print publications, memberships, tickets to events — all these are grist for the negative-option mill. The unwary can sign up for a negative option without realizing it, because wording — generated by the wiliest of our direct response tribe — slurs over the dark side of reality.

I used to have a card with “Batman Über Alles” neatly printed onto the plastic. I'd hand it to a waiter or a clerk. A couple of times, they'd actually try it and return asking, “Sir, do you have another card?”

Those golden times are history, because so many vanity cards exist it's not unlikely one of them may have an alliance with Batman. I should have kept that card, because maybe I could shift my balance transfer to Robin. He's in Nigeria or Amsterdam, I forget which.

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HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS (www.herschellgordonlewis.com), principal of Lewis Enterprises in Fort Lauderdale, FL, consults with and writes direct response copy for clients worldwide. Among his 30 books are “Hot Appeals or Burnt Offerings,” the curmudgeonly titled “Asinine Advertising,” and “On the Art of Writing Copy” (third edition).