Consumer complaint received 2022-12-14
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: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
I've had so many problems with AMEX lately that I had to cancel my account after having the account for about 20 years. It's absolutely unbelievable a customer experience could possibly be so harrowing. XXXX XXXX I spent over XXXX hours on the chat trying to get the customer service reps to change the dispute reason. The reason why I needed to change the dispute reason is that the customer service person who took the original dispute over the phone wrote the reason entirely incorrectly. I'm not even sure where she got the reasons from -- perhaps she dreamt it in her own mind because it was not anywhere remotely close to what I told her the reason was. I don't know off the top of my head the date of this call and with the countless hours I've spent online with customer service I don't have the time at that moment to search my records to find the date- it's been a complete nightmare with AMEX XXXX Pick the last date that I called because I learned from this experience that I should not talk to them over the phone and that I should chat instead so that they can see my words and copy and paste if they need and there is documentation of our conversation that we both have access to. Anyhow, on the chat that night, the customer service agents would drop off if I didn't respond in literally XXXX seconds. I would be in the middle of typing a simple response and the customer service person would log off. The next person would show up and I'd have to start the whole conversation all over again because this person would only read a line or so above and not go back and read the whole conversation. Of course, at some point, who would blame them, because who wants to go back and read over XXXX hours of chat text?!! Ultimately, by the end of the XXXX hours, the dispute reason STILL was not changed!! They wouldn't accept the first dispute reason I gave them which was AMEX wasn't authorized to allow this charge to go through in the first place because I had requested the merchant block. Then, when given the reason for the problem with the merchant they weren't able process the change of the dispute reason. So, I tried again another day. I lost count of how many hours that took but this time I believed, at the time, they did get the reason changed. At least that's what I was told. I come back days later, as the rep told me it would take XXXX hours to see the updated dispute reason, to find that indeed it was NOT changed. So, I go back to the chat again for several hours to get the reason changed. It appeared to be successfully changed. Days later I got an email that said I needed to upload documents to the dispute -- Never mind the fact that there are already XXXX documents uploaded in the dispute, some of them are multiples of each other because each time this dispute is reopened like this I am asked to upload documents, and I do. So, this time, when I go back to upload documents as requested, the dispute is closed AND the dispute reason has been reverted back to the original erroneous dispute reason! I notice this when I log in but I also notice an additional problem ( THERE ARE MULTIPLE PROBLEMS AT THIS POINT! ). I noticed that although I have closed my account they say that there are new charges in the amount of {$1000.00}. Upon looking at the statement line items, the disputed amount of {$990.00} appears along with some other small charges from merchants that were allowed to post after I closed the account ( that's the other problem I wrote in to the chat about on a previous date ). The disputed charge had been reposted and credited but I was charged interest on the full amount as if it wasn't credited. When I pointed this out to the customer service agent, he didn't believe me and he tried to tell me that the {$1000.00} was a rollover from the unpaid balance from last month. I told him that was simply not true because {$1000.00} is stated as a NEW CHARGE. So, here I go having to argue my point with a customer service person who is clearly wrong but doesn't want to admit it. If it were a rollover from last month, it would be in the Previous Balance section, I told him. Still, he doesn't admit that he is wrong, and I have to state that I will report this to the feds. This is the point at which the customer service person seemed to somehow now take into consideration that I may possibly be right ( which I am ) and said that he would open an investigation into it. An investigation should not be necessary, as he should have the competence to see the problem immediately, know how charges are applied to the card, and be able to rectify the problem himself instead of arguing with the customer when he is wrong. He then somehow brings up a point to say that I did not dispute this {$990.00} charge last month ... which of course is incorrect! It's been disputed for months with the wrong dispute reason attached to it. 

Another issue is that the account was closed in XXXX, yet charges were posted to it afterward. Not only that, the charges that were posted were not even from the card that was open before closing the account, it was from another card that I had already closed!!! It's completely unbelievable that the merchant was able to get past not XXXX, not XXXX, but XXXX blocks I have in place but still be paid by AMEX against my will. The first block was that I'd canceled the card that the merchant had on file. The second block was that with the new card that I had on the account, no merchant was supposed to be able to post any recurring charges on the account -- I had all recurring charges blocked on this new card! The merchant, XXXX, even called me to tell me that they were unable to get a payment from me. I gave them an entirely different bank card ( CHASE bank card ) to use, and they were satisfied. Yet STILL, the merchant was able to process a recurring charge on XXXX XXXX using the closed credit card on a closed account, even though they had called to say that they were not able to process it. When I asked them about it, they said it just went through and, they weren't sure why, and to contact AMEX. AMEX said they would put a block against the merchant but I told them there should have been a block on ALL recurring charges AND the account was closed. The AMEX agent then said that charges could still post to the account even though it was closed. And I told him that the person who closed my account said that no charges could post to a closed account. So which is the truth??? AMEX allowed this and other payments to process on a closed account and closed card, and a situation where the new card is supposed to block all recurring charges! And if you talk to these customer service people, one will say the recurring clock is on the account, the next will say that it is not, and the next will say that it is but it was in effect only after a certain date. I've heard it ALL. The fact of the matter is, I opened the new card with the request of absolutely no recurring charges being able to come through the card at all from any merchant. XXXX that conversation with the rep when this card was ordered and you will see that this is true. All of these problems point to incompetence and/or complete disregard for my requests in the customer service department , coupled with errors in the software. This is completely unimaginable. HOW can AMEX disregard XXXXXXXX XXXX I have in place to prevent charges to my account, yet they authorize charges anyhow? The trust had already been eroded months ago when they disregarded my request to block the merchant in XXXX to the tune of {$990.00} and again in XXXX for {$990.00}. 

This is corporate fraud. They are allocating charges to my account without my permission and against my explicitly stated will on multiple occasions. Furthermore, they are rebilling the disputed charges at their will and adding fees without refunding the fees. I have a suspicion that they are not actually taking the rebilled amount off the final balance each month as well because I have paid the amount due minus the disputed amount and closed the account. Yet, still they post that there is a balance due of over {$2900.00} when the only posted charges are the ones they've created on their own and apparently against my request ( the recurring charges that should have been blocked and the rebilling of the dispute that even they show credited but the credit actually not reflected in the balance ). There are some serious issues here and I look forward to resolution!

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief