Consumer complaint received 2022-09-23
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: CA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems
Sub-issue: Add-on products and services

Complaint:
Amex is engaged in similar fraudulent activity as XXXX XXXX and someone needs to investigate their business practices. I am an Amex XXXX Card holder. In their card agreement, Amex auto activates a product which acts as a high interest loan to all new accounts. Amex doesn't allow the customer the ability to opt-out of this product at the time of signing up for the card. I signed up for my card in XX/XX/2022 and became aware of this product in XX/XX/2022. I contact Amex to de-activate this product in XX/XX/2022 on a recorded line, which they did. On XX/XX/2022 Amex auto-activated the loan with a 26 % interest rate on my card without my consent. I didn't become aware of this again until XX/XX/2022. Compounding this, Amex auto-populates transactions into their loan product in an attempt to collect 26 % interest on transactions the customer never intended to use for credit purposes. To fix this, it takes Amex days to untangle these auto-populated transactions and de-activate this feature on the card, all of which requires the customer to bring this to their attention and chase in order for it to be completed. Amex is not proactively resolving this without customer initiation. This product is called Pay-Over-Time which holds a specific credit limit. Amex has a separate product called XXXX which shares the same credit limit as their Pay-Over-Time. On XX/XX/2022 I created a loan for on transaction using PlanIt. Amex 's underwriting and back office doesn't process and activate that loan until 30 days after the loan was initiated, in this case the loan was in effect until XX/XX/2022. On XX/XX/2022 I overpaid my Amex card and Amex automatically took my overpayment and paid off this XXXX loan in it's entirety. However they failed to update their system to show this loan was paid instead it's remained in a paid status until now. I'm unclear if Amex reports all their loans to the XXXX credit bureaus but I assume they do which would be a violation of the FCRA. In both circumstances I have brought this to Amex attention and it has taken them days to fix. They make excuses and constantly extend the communicated timeline for each product when it will be fixed. One day it's 24-48 hours, the next time it's 7-10 days. The next time it's 30 days. As of to date, Amex has not fixed either of this on my account. It's still in " work in progress status ''. Even if Amex resolves this, neither of these scenarios should have occurred. Amex does not have the right to force a product on a customer when they've actively and successfully de-activated the product. They also have a responsibility to post payments correctly and within standard IRS and Account Laws, which they have failed to do for my XXXX loan. Per Amex, this is " their '' process and a " standard working practice '' in both circumstances. Therefore I do not feel I'm the only customer impacted by this. These challenges appear to be predatory, purposeful, and deliberate on Amex 's part and someone needs to hold them to account.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation