Consumer complaint received 2023-01-20
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: VA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Other transaction problem

Complaint:
My wife and I have a joint checking account at XXXX XXXX XXXX Some years ago, my wife decided that she would pay the monthly bills, and to assist her in that effort, she enrolled in XXXX to pay bills out of our joint checking account. In recent years, I have taken over this responsibility. On XX/XX/XXXX, I logged onto our account using my wife 's username and password to access the XXXX function. One of the bills I attempted to pay that day was a {$8000.00} balance owing on our XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX by XXXX. The balance was due by XX/XX/XXXX. XXXX informed me that the money would transfer on XX/XX/XXXX, in time to avoid a late payment fee and interest charges. On the morning of XX/XX/XXXX, at XXXX, we were awakened by a robocall from XXXX XXXX us that our payment for the past billing period was overdue. I researched the history of the XX/XX/XXXX payment on XXXX and learned, to my dismay, that I had entered the payment on the line for our old XXXX XXXX, issued by American Express, and not on the line for the XXXX XXXX issued by XXXX. I immediately contacted American Express to have the erroneous payment returned. The customer service representative I spoke to informed me that because the XXXX accounts had been sold to XXXX, the money would have already transferred to that bank. I accessed the transaction history for our XXXX XXXX XXXX and did not find any evidence that the money paid in error to American Express had been transferred to XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, I contacted XXXX to see if the funds had been transferred. The Supervisory Customer Service representative at XXXX I spoke to informed me that they had not. This supervisor then took it upon himself to contact, with me on the phone, a supervisor at American Express. The American Express supervisor stated that in a situation involving an erroneous payment such as this, the funds should revert back to the paying bank within 15 days. Shortly after this, my wife and I traveled to Florida to visit my wife 's sister, who had just been released from the hospital. Regrettably, my sister-in-law passed away during our visit. We returned to Florida last week for the funeral. When i finally got home on XX/XX/XXXX, I contacted XXXX XXXX customer service to see if they had received the erroneously paid funds back from American Express. They informed me that they had not. The XXXX XXXX customer service representative, with me on the phone, contacted customer service at American Express to look into the matter. We apparently were connected with a call center in XXXX. The American Express representative we spoke to informed us, in broken XXXX, that it can take up to sixty days for American Express to investigate a payment made in error and that we could not do anything about it until that time had passed. I informed the representative that six weeks or 42 days had already passed since I first contacted American Express concerning this matter. The XXXX XXXX representative furnished the American Express representative with a credit trace id number for the transaction showing that the funds had been transferred from XXXX XXXX to American Express. Noting that American Express was holding {$8000.00} of my wife 's and my money, and that the 60-day investigation period far exceeded the 10 business days allowed to rectify an erroneous transfer under Regulation E, the XXXX XXXX representative asked that we be transferred to a supervisor. After insisting that she had no supervisor, the American Express representative ultimately transferred us to one. The American Express supervisor informed us that he would refer the matter, in his words, to " the back office, '' and that the back office should send my wife an email informing us of what they will do in an indeterminate time. We are now out over {$8000.00}. American Express is holding that money illegitimately. They have been furnished evidence of the transfer by XXXX XXXX. To force us to wait 60 days for an investigation that has never been formally begun to be completed in unconscionable.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief