Consumer complaint received 2017-05-06
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: PA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Getting a credit card
Sub-issue: Card opened as result of identity theft or fraud

Complaint:
Here is the timeline of the events. I have a primary credit card with AMEX for almost 3 years. In XXXX, I received a letter from AMEX that due to a system issue they might have compromised sensitive information about many cardholders and one of them could be mine. I did n't notice any changes on my credit score so I thought there is no problem. Here is when all the problem started. ( Timelines are approximate to best of my memory ). late XXXX, XXXX - sent three requests to AMEX 1 . Applied for a secondary card for my wife 2. Application to update name on my account 3. Address change - only thing which was successfully done. Sometime around XXXX I Received a card for someone else named XXXX XXXX. I contacted Amex for the following- 1.talked about the card.. And asked them to close it as I do n't recognize this. I also asked why did they send this to me? 2. Checked on status for card application for my wife 3. asked for why Name was n't changed yet '' I got following responses- '' 1. Amex assured me that they will investigate why this happened but will immediately close the account 2. Amex said that the card was already sent for my wife to the new address!! But since I did not receive it they will send another one with expedited shipping ( There was n't anything on my account though except the card for " XXXX XXXX ( Not my wife ) '' 3. Name Change - Amex said that please resubmit the docs as earlier was n't readable (!! ... oh.. so they were waiting for me to check back ). I told them that the same proof was accepted by other credit card companies, why were n't you able to read?! The document submitted was clearly visible, anyways I submitted again '' Status after few days XXXX " 1. Never received the second card.. Had to Check again and this time they finally sent a card for my wife which I received through normal post! 2. Name Change status- Checked again.. AMEX Response- " Your name is more than 20 characters hence we ca n't change it in our system " ( Really?? ) I was surprised and asked ca n't you just use initials for first and middle name and use last name? AMEX Response- '' No, we have to use the name as per your SSN '' ( WOW!, but if you wo n't update, you are n't doing that anyways ) '' .. I gave up. " Meanwhile I kept getting pesky calls from AMEX fraud team from Unknown numbers, asking for sensitive details. I asked them to verify if they are really from AMEX fraud team and they were unable to do so. My credit score dropped more than XXXX points in a month and I was wondering why?! In XXXX XXXX. I could n't take this longer wanted to close all my AMEX accounts.. Get my rewards redeemed and close all relationship. When I contacted them through chat, I was informed that there are 2 cards on my name!! When I asked the agent to provide me the details as I do n't recognize the second card, He disconnected me out of chat.
2. I could sense something is wrong and kept trying, finally got connected and was confirmed that there are 2 accounts and At first AMEX refused to reveal the details of second account to me. When I insisted they added that account to my online page ( after few verification questions ) and ask me to review there. To my biggest surprise, The second account is used by " '' XXXX XXXX '' ''!!!?? I was shocked to know that I already informed AMEX about this fraud 2 months back and still AMEX did n't do anything about it, while they removed this account from my online account page, this account was still operating with some other card number. I asked the obvious question, why this account is still under my name??. Amex response- " you need to call our security team to let them know about this fraud. '' When I told it was done nearly 2 months ago, the agent connected me to supervisor.
AMEX never even informed me about this account on my page. The supervisor started asking vague questions. When I started asking tough questions, they first tried to provide vague answers then disconnected me again. When I contacted account security team on phone- the response could n't have been any better- " '' All our systems are down and we ca n't take any of your requests right now '' '' ''

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief