Consumer complaint received 2018-08-24
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: CA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose prepaid card
Issue: Unexpected or other fees

Complaint:
On XX/XX/2018, I received a text message from " american express serve '' prepaid card, whom I've had a account with for quite some time. It was a possible fraud alert, asking if I had charged XXXX $ to a target store in Florida. I replied immediately " 2 '' which was the selection for " no it was not me ''. At the time I was in XXXX XXXX, Ca, at my job. I tried to log into my account, but neither my password nor email was being recognized. So I called the number the text message had provided and had to answer a bunch of security questions, because they ended up somehow changing my email. After proving it was actually me. Also, at this time I found that altogether, they charged {$1000.00} 3 different times, and then another charge for {$200.00}. They didn't even send out the fraud alert until after those 4 charges where made when they tried to do a 5th charge of XXXX and it got denied at the store. 

On the phone, they told me I needed to wait until the charges changed from pending, to completed in order for the 7-10 day investigation to start, to which the phone representative " promised '' I would without a doubt get my funds back. The next day came, and the charges had completed, and I called back to have the investigation opened. I called to do that around XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX. At around XXXX I received a email saying that my dispute had been declined and that I won't be receiving my funds back because their investigation team " came to the conclusion that I had authorized the transactions ''. Immediately after that email, I received another email saying that they closed my account. 

I then proceeded to call, had to go home from work because of being on the phone for hours and hours, to them telling me the same thing over and over. They wouldn't give me any information whatsoever, hung up on me a few times after being on hold for an hour or so, or after talking with them for hours. They said if I want to know why they came to that conclusion I would have to write a letter to a specific address, and ask for why they made that decision. I did that, have proof of the letter, and of them receiving the letter, and it's been almost a month and a half and I haven't heard a thing. I've also filed a police report and have the case number : XXXX with the XXXX XXXX county sheriff. 

XXXX is pointing the finger at my financial institute, and my financial institute won't give me any information whatsoever. End up hanging up on me the majority of the time.So now I am out {$3200.00} and don't even know WHY it is that they won't give me my money. I've looked it up online, and found an overwhelming amount of people detailing pretty much the exact same scenario, and have the exact same results, being either hung up on, told nothing, and requesting for why they came to the decision and never hearing back. 

These charges took place in a state that's quite literally across the country from me, a state I've never been to, a state that I don't know anyone who lives in, and making charges to the amounts I've never even made. I've never even made a XXXX $ charge with my card, let alone a {$1000.00} charge. I keep getting hung up on, they never tried to contact target and get me my money back, made me wait until the charges cleared to even try to open a investigation, and the investigation which should've took 7-10 business days, took about 2 hours and they've been withholding the information even though I've taken all the necessary steps to receive that information.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief