Consumer complaint received 2018-10-19
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: NC
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:
I have spoken to both American Express ( American Express Blue Preferred Card ), and XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. I processed a payment on XX/XX/18 through the AmEx mobile app. This payment should have been deducted from a XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX account, however it was attempted to be deducted from a XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX account. That account didn't have sufficient funds for the {$1500.00} payment, and returned with NSF charge of {$35.00}. American Express then attempted two ( 2 ) more times to deduct funds from this account WITHOUT my consent. Leading to two ( 2 ) additional NSF charges from XXXX XXXX. This led to a total of {$100.00} of NSF fees for one attempted payment. I attempted to contact XXXX XXXX about this, and they refused to refund me any charges, and after much complaint, they agreed to refund a single {$35.00} NSF charge. They told me that they would require a letter from American Express on letterhead from a supervisor or manager. I called American Express and spent 81 minutes ( 1 hour and 21 minutes! ) on the phone with them explaining my problem and attempting to get help, I was transferred and spoke to either seven ( 7 ) or eight ( 8 ) different representatives. Each time I was transferred, It became more difficult for them to hear me. I find this to be either a common issue when dealing with these institutions and the phones they use. This tactic essentially allowed them to disconnect my call as they could " no longer hear me '' I stated very clearly that a ) I needed a letter sent to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, stating that I did not authorize these multiple charges, that it must be on letterhead, and that it must be signed by a manager or supervisor and b ) it could be faxed to XXXX at ( XXXX ) XXXX. One agent at AmEx was even kind enough to go onto a three-way call with XXXX to explain the situation, and was told that there is nothing they can do to help without the form. 
American Express told me it was standard procedure to make multiple attempts to charge someone for an attempted payment. I explained clearly that I did NOT AUTHORIZE them to charge my account multiple times, and that if notified, I could have informed them they were charging the incorrect account, in fact, I turned around and made the charge on XX/XX/18 a second time, because it never appeared as deducted from my XXXX account and never showed as payed on the AmEx website. 
Meanwhile XXXX XXXX is making {$100.00} off of NSF fees that I never authorized in the first place. I believe that these tactics by both institutions, to make things so difficult on consumers, by a ) requiring forms that no one seems to be able to produce and b ) transferring people so deep into a companies organization, creating massive amounts of time lost and making the call extremely difficult, by making it hard to hear, AND by making a consumer repeat there complaint 5+ times to various people along the way amounts to some form of organized theft of personal funds to increase profits.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation