Consumer complaint received 2018-04-26
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: WI
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:
American Express refuses to handle the final {$940.00} worth of chargebacks that were on my account. They refused to dispute it anymore and forced me to pay it. They sent me a link for arbitration that was completely broken. The chargebacks I'm dealing with were also done on a XXXX  credit card and my local bank 's debit card during the same time period and all are dealing with the same charges from the same merchant. Both have handled it satisfactorily with less information than American Express has requested up to this point with no resolution on the last few charges. I will point out that American Express has settled many of the charges in my favor already and these aren't any different. I can find no sensible reason why the remaining charges against my credit card are any different than the ones that were settled in my favor several months ago. I have been told over the phone by American Express employees more than a dozen times in no uncertain terms that the entirety of the chargebacks were settled in my favor and the matter was done only to have it come back every single month with varying amounts still charged to my account. American express is now refusing to reopen the dispute and is forcing me into arbitration which they won't even send me a working link for even though they've assured me several times in the past that the matter was entirely settled. 

I've been having issues with chargebacks from a merchant intentionally selling defective and dangerous goods that American Express has been back and forth on several times due to mismanagement of my account. The company I bought goods from has lied about me in several ways to American Express and even to my local police department. They've stated that I told them I was returning because of low margin. My margins were in fact great and I was returning because I had to do a full recall because the goods were dangerous to my customers and nearly resulted in my death while testing a new shipment of their product. They've stated that I refused to take calls or emails with them. The opposite is true so much that they never answered their phone and when they called me back it was a blocked number and spoke to me in a very adversarial maner not wanting to resolve this at all. The merchant lied to the police in my town in order to get them to intimidate and harass me by saying that I had the chargebacks open while refusing to return the goods. The police showed up at my garage to question me which was extremely stressful and all my neighbors saw it. The truth was they kept fighting the disputes by repeatedly giving intentionally false information to American express and did not tell me where to return the goods. They went from XXXX all the way into XXXX until they finally had me send the goods which I returned in full on XX/XX/2017. They have tried to scam me after the goods were returned by saying that their accounting couldn't handle chargebacks and and that I needed to cancel chargebacks and they would issue a refund. My local bank strongly advised that I was being scammed when I showed them that email. They drug their feet through the whole process and repeatedly tricked the disputes department by making them think it was an unauthorized charge case and not a defective merchandise case. I have submitted signed documents from a licensed gun smith who I showed the ammunition to American Express proving the merchandise was dangerous and they refused to acknowledge it. The merchant lied to an online sales site I was doing business with and got me suspended temporarily because of the chargebacks until I emailed the customer service department and straightened out the blatant lies against me. 

Through this process from XXXX up until this point I have talked to well over 100 people at American Express, been transferred scores of times, been promised this was completely resolved at least a half dozen times with no resolution. 

American Express has repeatedly messed up their own chargeback processes and caused unnecessary delay to where they're directly responsible for being outside of the window of time that their dispute department can handle this case. When it was finally investigated after several months of back and forth and them saying they couldn't help it was determined that they had the wrong number of charges and credits on several of the items. They are not refusing to continue the chargeback dispute process even though I've followed it properly because of the amount of time it has taken due to errors on their part. They're only allowing me to go to arbitration at this point and have so far only send me links filled with errors so I can not even start that process. 

My credit rating is very good and I'd like it to remain that way. American Express has time and again seemed to side in my favor only to then keep this matter unresolved. There is no way an unscrupulous vendor selling dangerous products is entitled to anything. 

Your assistance in resolving this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief