Consumer complaint received 2019-03-06
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: NY
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:
From : XXXX XXXX, XXXX Subject : Complaint American Express Objectives Resolve duplicate payment of hotel reservations because of a problem created by American Express. Disputes entered with American Express seem unable to be resolved. 

The Transactions and Issues - Three Hotel reservations made on XX/XX/XXXX via American Express Membership Rewards - 1- XXXX XXXX XXXX FL for XX/XX/XXXX to XXXX, XXXX 1 room 4 nights entries made to my account at that time for debit and credit of {$920.00} a wash. In addition, XXXX points were taken from my membership rewards account. Bottom line on this reservation everything was fine and my AmEx account received no charges. 
- 2- XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX , FL for XX/XX/XXXX to XXXX, XXXX 1 room 3 nights entries made to my account at that time for debit and credit of {$510.00} a wash. In addition, XXXX points were taken from my membership rewards account. On this stay however, my AmEx account was also charged on XX/XX/XXXX for {$440.00}. This is {$72.00} less than the original transaction for this stay. This is a duplicate charge that should be removed from my account. Dispute XXXX. 
- 3- XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX FL XXXX for XX/XX/XXXX to XXXX, XXXX XXXX room 1 night entries made to my account at that time for debit and credit of {$180.00} a wash. In addition, XXXX points were taken from my membership rewards account. On this stay however, my AmEx account was also charged on XX/XX/XXXX for {$210.00}. This is {$30.00} more than the original transaction for this stay. The actual charge for the room comes down to {$160.00} because there is a {$50.00} charge for dinner included in the total. This is a duplicate charge that should be removed from my account. Dispute XXXX. 
- Bottom line here my membership rewards account was charged XXXX points for the disputed hotel stays and also charged {$680.00} to my AmEx account. 
- The problem and resolution seems simple but far from the case. It has been one big frustrating disaster. 

More Details and Thoughts - I have been an American Express cardholder since XXXX and never had a problem before only good things to say until now. 
- Disputes for the 2 incorrect charges were attempted to be made on-line and # s assigned XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX - Unfortunately, I did not keep a diary on what took place. After very lengthy phone calls and gathering documentation, I have wasted 1-1/2 days of my life attempting to communicate the issue to AmEx with building frustration. Everyone has been pleasant, as have I the system is broken. 
- Turns out, on-line is not good enough. I get messages to call XXXX XXXX XXXX. According to emails, AmEx tried to call me numerous times ( how about once ). However, with all the garbage calls received from credit card companies it is possible. 
- When calling I listen to the lengthy introduction and ultimately get a human, which I believe was membership rewards. By the way, no one ever really read the disputes and I have to explain everything from scratch. How about the courtesy of doing some homework before you call and decide down how to resolve the dispute. Every one of these phone call marathons, about 3 of them at 1-1/2 hours, were like a big ping pong match. You start with membership rewards or customer service it does not matter you ultimately are bounced back to the other one for a variety of reasons. The bounced procedure happens numerous times during the phone marathon and nothing gets resolved you just keep explaining the problem. 
- While on hold, I hear repeatedly how easy it is to settle disputes on-line. Ha ha. 
- After one of phone marathons, an email request comes in for me to send information to the document center. I take 1-1/2 hours to put together a recap, gather emails that American Express already has, and send them on their way. Based on numerous phone calls I do not think anyone ever looked at these documents. 
- Every one of these calls makes it clear we are being recorded for training purposes ( maybe legal ). How about someone who is responsible, listening to the trail of phone calls related to this issue and fix the system? 
- Yesterday was the straw that broke the camels back definitely 1-1/2 hours wasted time. I learned that dispute XXXX was closed but no one knows why. A minimum of hour spent trying to find out. Never did find out and the dispute was opened again. 
- If seems that the XXXX XXXX was paid and no issue What happened between XXXX XXXX XXXX and AmEx, XXXX XXXX and AmEx is not my issue, correct the errors and work it out with them. 
- Why are the $ amounts for the room stays different? 
- Because of auto pay, the disputed charges were paid and should not have been. 
- I cant be the first AmEx cardholder this has happened to does every customer go through this frustrating experience to get issues resolved? 
Conclusion These disputes must be resolved without any more frustrating phone calls with membership rewards or customer service. I will not waste another minute of my time talking to anyone from American Express on the phone. Send me an email. Here are solution options. 
- Reinstate the points ( XXXX ) taken from my account I already paid the hotel bill. 
- Issue a credit ( {$600.00} ) to my American Express account. 
- Do both, Issue credits and restore membership reward points? If anyone cares this would show goodwill to a long-time good customer. 

Thanks for your help in resolving this frustrating experience. 

XXXX XXXX Attachments : A- Recap of original transactions on my AmEx account B- Transactions related to XXXX XXXX reservation. No charge correctly paid by membership rewards. 
C- Transactions related XXXX XXXX XXXX reservations {$440.00} in dispute. 
D- Transactions related to XXXX reservation- {$160.00} in dispute

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief