Consumer complaint received 2019-12-22
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: AZ
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem when making payments
Sub-issue: Problem during payment process

Complaint:
On XX/XX/2019 I reviewed my XXXX - XXXX XXXX American Express Credit Card Statement. I noticed that my payments where not applied per the XXXX American Express Cardmember Agreement ( " AMEXCA '' ) dated XXXX which was provided to me by the first Amex Rep I spoke with by chat. The AMEXCA " About Your Payments '' " How we apply payments and credits '' States the following. Your Account may have balances with different interest rates. For example, purchases may have a lower interest rate than cash advances. Your Account may also have plan balances which are assessed plan fees. If your Account has balances with different interest rates, plan balances, or plan fees, here is how we generally apply payments in a billing period : We apply your payments, up to the Minimum Payment Due, first to any plan amounts included in your Minimum Payment Due, then to the balance subject to the lowest interest rate, and then to balances subject to higher interest rates. 
After the Minimum Payment Due has been paid, we apply your payments to the balance subject to the highest interest rate, then to balances subject to lower interest rates, and then to any plan balances. 
In most cases, we apply a credit to the same balance as the related charge. For example, we apply a credit for a purchase to the purchase balance. We may apply payments and credits within balances, and among balances with the same interest rate, in any order we choose. If you receive a merchant credit for a purchase placed into a plan, you must call us at the number on the back of your card to have the credit applied to the plan balance. 

I spoke with XXXX  customer service. 1st XXXX  - Payment Department. He looked at statement with me, he was familiar with the AMEXCA and payment hierarchy. He saw that my payment wasn't credited in that manner. He had to transfer me to the Plan Dept. 2nd. XXXX - Plan Dept. Quoted a different hierarchy that says, that any overpayment goes to the Plan amount. This is contradictory to the cardmember agreement. Asked for an escalation. She transferred me to a Supervisor 3rd XXXX XXXX was no aware of the AMEXCA Payment Hierarchy but repeated how it works and I agreed that my statement the payment was applied that way. 

So Amex is going to refund me the overpayment, and no while I have a plan out there I don't have the ability to prepay any purchases. Which is outside of the agreement. 

When I pointed out to the Amex Representatives that their Hierarchy is different than what the AMEXCA no one cared. These Reps were offshore, but still, I expect the company to have their Payment Hierarchy per the Cardmember Agreement or the ability to correct without having the customer participate in the accounting of a company the size of American Express. 

I think someone should contact AMEX to tell them how they are offering a poor Customer Experience with a payment hierarchy that is different than they disclose to the cardmember. Thank You.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief