Consumer complaint received 2021-06-14
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: CA
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: Overcharged for something you did purchase with the card

Complaint:
From the communication I had with two of your phone operators I can safely conclude this matter would not be possible for a regular customer service agent to justify, it would be out of their league to justify unless technically and educationally qualified to interpret international finance. Regular customer service agents would fall back on the card 's terms and conditions to defend themselves without having no technical knowledge of what's actually going on. 

I made a purchase in XXXX dollars : XXXX  XXXX. After making the purchase right away, as in literally right away I logged in to my AMEX App and saw the transaction in my transaction list in US dollars : XXXX XXXX. As we understand, when a foreign transaction is made using US dollars, the credit card would convert the foreign transaction amount in to XXXX " at the time of the transaction, '' not 24 hrs or 48 hrs later. I made the payment of XXXX XXXX to bring my balance back to XXXX. 

Hours later, I see the US dollar transaction has changed from XXXX XXXX to USD XXXX leaving me with a remaining balance of XXXX XXXX. I call AMEX. 

First phone operator says the {$1100.00} I see in my transaction history is in XXXX. I knew right away I am talking to an un informed and mis informed operator and asked for a manager directly but the operator rather preferred to have an argument with me. So then this is how it went - I told the operator that a US credit card company would never show a transaction amount on its app screen in any other currencies other than in XXXX. The operator challenged that and asks me to convert the ( so called, according to him ) " XXXX '' XXXX in to XXXX and it would result in XXXX XXXX. I told him that is not possible because the converted amount here would be a much bigger difference. I told him to convert it in his computer to which he said he already has done so and that's what he is getting on his screen. Although I didn't need to follow his stupid instructions, I did went to XXXX and converted the XXXX to XXXX and came up with USD XXXX. He preferred to continue arguing. 

Manager comes on call and puts the blame on the merchant. This has nothing to do with the merchant. I have got the invoice from the merchant, I gave the merchant my credit card details and the merchant has charged me XXXX  XXXX. The merchant doesn't do all this conversion, it's AMEX who does the conversion. The merchant would not even know if my credit card is a XXXX credit card or a XXXX credit card or an XXXX credit card. The manager then says he would give me a {$8.00} credit. I asked the manager to convert the XXXX  XXXX and he also came up with USD XXXX amount. So where is the justification for the XXXX XXXX, the manager did not have an answer to that. 

So you see, {$8.00} credit does not solve the actual problem. Because the problem is I would be using this card again and again, and this would keep repeating again and again with no justification from Amex. I have made foreign currency transactions before using this same card and at all times the conversion to XXXX happens in REAL TIME at the time of the transaction and shows up in XXXX in Amex transaction list right away. If I spend {$100.00} in XXXX, the Amex statement would convert it in real time and show the equivalent USD, IN REAL TIME at the time of the transaction. And that USD amount would not suddenly change after 48 hours, what happened in this instance - {$1100.00} after 48 hours changed to {$1100.00}. This has nothing to do with the merchant because the merchant charged me XXXX XXXX what they were supposed to. 

The only time this could happen if AMEX is charging a foreign transaction fee after the transaction. But if you are not charging a FT fee, then how would you justify this amount shifting to {$1100.00} after 48 hours? 

Because if this non sense continues I won't be able to use this card no longer.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief