Consumer complaint received 2021-08-27
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: FL
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
We were presented an offer by someone claiming to be an inside XXXX XXXX  Campaign Sales Support team member, who we had been introduced to. We signed a contract sent to us on XXXX Letterhead, the person involved had a XXXX Email address domain, We were sent XXXX Click Reports to " show '' the " effectiveness of our web site search-engine campaign '' for years and our business credit card was charged every month from XX/XX/XXXX through XX/XX/XXXX, over {$140000.00} before we discovered that the credit card merchant service acct that was billing us was registered to a personal home address, not XXXX. We then requested official XXXX Documentation of our account, and Customer ID Number, and these things could not be produced, We discovered that we had been the victim of fraud, we have never received the XXXX Ads that we were promised, nor that we were sent click reports to prove, nothing we were charged for was real or received, the " XXXX click reports '' we had been provided were a fraud, contract was not with XXXX, etc. We were relieved, after the initial shock and disbelief, that many of the charges had been charged to our Business American Express Card, because of the protections we have always been assured were in place on that card, however, when we notified Am Ex, told them, files a report, sent them documents to prove that we had never gotten any XXXX XXXX  or website promotion that we had supposedly been paying for, for our website, as we had been promised, and that the persons charging our card, was actually a person de-frauding us, Am Ex claimed it was not credit card fraud, because we had provided the fraudster our credit card to charge. Basically, they claimed we had given the permission to charge our card. However, we never authorized XXXX living in XXXX florida to charge us, we believed XXXX was charging us for services we had been contracted to receive! We have since learned, that the merchant service account that has been charging us is attached to a FL corporation that has been inactive since XXXX, and the fictitious name registration that appears on our Am Ex statements has been expired since XXXX, also, How can American Express not know that one of their " merchants '' charging our card is not even a legal entity? We were advised by Am Ex who the credit card processor was that was charging our card, yet when we contacted them to find out info on the merchant, the processor denied they had any knowledge of who this merchant was. It seems that every protocol that is in place for companies to maintain credit card processing accounts has been ignored, and nobody seems to know who this is, yet, when we disputed the charges with American Express, the Merchant who we now know to be a fraud, responded to the dispute within days, and although he presented a contract to Am Ex, that is not the same as we were sent with XXXX name all over, and not legitimately signed by us, Am Ex reversed the Disputed charges and put thousands of charges all back on our account, claiming it was not credit card Fraud. Now, when we initially disputed these charges, instead of the $ 100,000+ that has bee charged to our card AM Ex initially credited us approx {$12000.00} pending investigation, however no where near what we had had stolen from us.. Although we have received no goods or services for the over {$140000.00} this man has taken from our credit card charges, he won the dispute and the paltry XXXX that had been briefly creditied, was now thrown back on our charge card account for us to pay. We believe that Am Ex has gotten disputes in the past for this same merchant and same merchant service account is currently still charging other Am Ex card holders, yet Am Ex has done nothing to close down his accounts, nor do we believe they have notified the other Am Ex clients that are currently being charged each month, as we were for so long. We believe the credit card company has a responsibility to know who their vendors are that have accounts, even when they process through a " broker '' as we have been told this vendor is doing, because as a small business when we wanted to have an am ex account and accept Am Ex cards for our business, we were required to complete huge application, had to list bank accounts and corporate documentation, credit checks run on us, how are these people doing business without those same practices in place? Especially with a premier card as Am Ex? And due to the fact that although this went on 8 years before we caught this fraud, we have clearly received NOTHING in return for all the money charged to our credit card, and that we paid Am Ex, which we have proven! Why do we have none of the protections that are in place for credit card holders? And we believe Am Ex had a responsibility to know who their vendors are, and if the vendors do not have legal corporate entities that they are processing charges through, i.e. where is the annual 1099 going for all these funds paid if the corporation is inactive? 
Lastly, we have found that in XXXX XXXX themselves took these same fraudulent people to court to ask for a Cease & Desist for them using their XXXX name in their domain to defraud people. Am Ex has this information, same email they were using to contact and do business with us, yet No protection for us. Clearly both XXXX, who has not responded to us since finding out these fraudsters are doing, nor anyone else involved had made any attempt to alert the public that the use of their email domain was leading to businesses getting defrauded by these people. Please see attached court documents detailing the fraud.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation