Consumer complaint received 2018-07-19
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: AZ
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account information incorrect

Complaint:
To whom it may concern, For context, earlier this year, American Express apparently purchased the XXXXXXXX XXXX branded credit card portfolio from XXXX. I have had a XXXX XXXX XXXX card since XXXX. The account had a spending limit of {$18000.00}. Ive always maintained a low to zero balance on that card, enrolled the card into auto-pay immediately upon receipt, and have never been delinquent in making a payment. 

I have had American Express cards, first as a co-applicant, and subsequently as primary card owner since XXXX. I average {$3000.00} to {$7000.00} spending across those accounts monthly. I enrolled the card into auto-pay immediately upon receipt, and have never been delinquent in making a payment. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I called American Express customer support to check my available authorized spending limit. I was considering using my American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card to pay my tax bill ( approximately {$100000.00} ). I spent approximately 45 minutes on hold as I was bounced from department to department, the entire time I was told that they were looking into the request. 

Finally, I arrived at what seemed to be a collections department. They told me that I had an outstanding balance that needed to be reconciled before they could answer my original question. This obviously came as a huge surprise to me. They explained that it was related to the XXXX account that they just acquired, that my auto-pay from XXXX didnt transfer with the account and that the auto-pay for all of my other accounts didnt cover this account. Not thinking anything of the matter, I explained that the account was not visible to me within the dashboard and instructed the representative to pay the entire amount outstanding - {$110.00}. 

I asked when the account would become visible to me and received no useful information on the matter. I was told that with the payment of the amount due, I would indeed be able to pay my tax bill using my Gold Premier Card. I ended the call with the assumption that soon the card would show up in my normal American Express dashboard, with my other accounts. It never did. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I checked my credit health status using XXXX XXXX. I saw that my credit score had recently plummeted. The reason given was that American Express was reporting a payment delinquency of 30+ days in the amount of {$1.00}. I immediately called American Express to understand what was going on. Again, I was placed on hold for over a half an hour as I was transferred from department to department in an attempt to find someone who could help me. Again, I ended up with a representative focused on collecting the outstanding amount - of {$1.00}. 

I was told that an error was made by the representative that I spoke to in XXXX and that once the outstanding balance was paid, I would be put in touch with someone who would be able to correct the issue with my credit report. I paid my outstanding {$1.00} and was placed on hold again while someone who would help me was searched for. Eventually, someone picked up - it was the last customer service rep that Id spoken to. I was told that my call was routed back to her and she was going to place me on hold. At this point, the entire call time was nearing one hour. I asked if they could simply call me back later in the day. The customer service representative confirmed my number and asked me for a good time that they could call me. We agreed on XXXX that XXXX. I never received a call. 

I called back the next morning - now quite frustrated. I explained the issue again. I was again put on hold for a significant amount of time while they searched, once again, for someone to help me. Finally, I told the representative to simply cancel the card and fix the credit report. I was told that I would again have to be transferred to another department and to hold, please. I told her that was unacceptable and asked to speak to a supervisor. She told me that she would connect me to a supervisor, but instead transferred me to the other department. 

When the receiving department picked up the phone after many more minutes on hold, they finally canceled the card for me. The representative then told me that he apologized for the mistake, but there was nothing that they could do. He offered to give me the credit bureau phone numbers to initiate a dispute. We spoke for several more minutes after I told him this was unacceptable and that I expected the report to be corrected without further action on my behalf. He said that he could put me on hold and look into it. At that point, I simply hung up. 

Ive now had to open disputes with the three bureaus as well as defer the purchase of a much needed new vehicle for my wife as my credit score has gone from excellent to good status and any new credit  accounts opened until this is corrected will cost my family thousands of dollars in additional interest fees. Additionally, the closure of an account with almost a {$20000.00} credit limit will factor into my overall score, causing future pain. 

American Express does not seem to care about proactively righting their wrong no matter the damage that it has caused me. I have invested many hours of my own time now - on the phone, filing disputes, writing this letter - in an attempt to clean up their mess. The inconvenience and stress caused to my family by their mishandling of this situation is unacceptable.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief