Consumer complaint received 2020-06-15
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: FL
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Credit card debt
Issue: False statements or representation
Sub-issue: Attempted to collect wrong amount

Complaint:
Below I will explain how American Express has continually misrepresented minimum payments due, in order to charge in excess and obtain funds which they otherwise were never entitled too ( an example of this is, additional fees and charges declined/rejected and unauthorized in advance ) ; Amex does this so they can periodically ( sometimes annual, and otherwise ) collect additional amounts on top of the allowed minimum payments, which auto-billing was established only for the purpose of having automatic bill-payments debited each month, that consisted of " pay over time charges '' ( aka, paying off the account balance ) plus the interest on that balance, and nothing more. 

My account ( s ) are not past due, however, American Express is treating my accounts as they are and taking adverse actions against me and this is affecting my credit rating/standing with them and other accounts unrelated, as well as potentially if not having already reported me the major credit bureaus and damaging my credit further on top of harassing calls that I have asked them to stop making and only make contact with me in writing, email or regular mail and they will not honor, same as they did not honor and removed annual fees each year without my permission. This is an attempt to stop them and report this so that others will not feel as though they stand alone and together we can undoing wrong-doing and numerous violations of perpetrated fraud, which should not be tolerated, but instead met with having legal ramifications and stiff penalties imposed for violators who need to be investigated for larger public occurances : In XXXX of XXXX prior to a study abroad trip, I applied for and obtained an American Express XXXX XXXX. Following my return ( less than a month later ), I determined that future travel for the moment would not justify the annual membership fee charged by Amex and that I would need to cancel my membership, attempt to get a refund, or at least prorated amount back from the {$450.00} charged I was initially billed, which American Express XXXX was contacted within less than a month of billing me that charge. 

I made it clear that the types of travel ( mostly as a XXXX  student ) and for the foreseeable future, would not be beneficial or enough to justify that high a cost. I was told a refund was essentially out of the question, they couldn't/would n't prorate the charge and that was the fee for this first year ( much of which I learned, wasn't entirely true, and some of the annual membership could have been adjusted, of not refunded, but fine ; plus I also had some discrepancies, I would later learn in billing and filed disputes for them ) more on that later. 

At this point, I made it very clear, I would not have used for this card, my travels would not be as extensive as I thought, at least not for the time being, but maybe in the future, I did not want to be charged again for this fee, and I then rejected any future charges, even if that meant canceling the XXXX XXXX membership, which I had already asked to do any. In no uncertain terms, was I to be ever charged again for another annual fee XXXX PERIOD ) this was not authorized. 

I continued to pursue disputing the claims for things like belongings that were damaged by a hotel in XXXX, XXXX, and a few other charges where I was billed for meals when I had a meal plan included with the hotel stay, etc ... I provided substantial documentation and thought it was settled, even re-filed with additional documentation, and in the end, was billed back for charges that legitimately I did not owe and American Express never secured my money back ; so, so much for even earning that first year 's {$450.00} annual membership charge. 

Unbeknownst to me XXXX until just recently XXXX, American Express XXXX card ignored my rejection of continuing to bill me each year an annual membership fee. Furthermore, the fee had also increased from the first year 's {$450.00} to now {$550.00}, and I had not to travel or used any of their premium travel services ; again, it was my request/explicit instructions that I am never to be charged another annual fee ever again, and that the card is canceled before any fee would be due again. Yet, to my newly acquired knowledge, Amex had been billing me more than just the expected " pay over time '' charges which were what my automatic payments were established for ( SOLEY ). Instead, what American Express XXXX XXXX was doing, was on every year anniversary of the first membership fee charged, they would raise my minimum payment to included that current year 's annual fee charge and they would bill and debit that from my automatic payments, without my knowledge and authorization, and they successfully did this in XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, and XX/XX/XXXX, with exception to the XX/XX/XXXX billing statement end date ... .prior to that automatic minimum payment due to be processed, which only should have been just {$35.00}, that minimum payment was fraudulently reflecting instead the {$35.00}, plus {$550.00}, for a grand total of {$580.00}. When I saw that, I went into the auto-billing payments for American Express and changed the autopayment coming out for XX/XX/XXXX, to the regular {$35.00}, without the reject additional {$550.00} which had been disputed, cancelled, unauthorized and rejected from XX/XX/XXXX. 

American Express XXXX XXXX has since retaliated against me by, accelerating the normal ( " pay over time '' XXXX minimum payments per month XXXX normally {$35.00} XXXX by instead demanding {$12000.00} or more due now as the next upcoming minimum payment. This in fact, even with the {$550.00} fraudulently billed error ( which has been the trigger for reporting me as paying late, etc ... ) is not even what is stated on the most recent billing cycle end date of XX/XX/XXXX. Amex has also charged me a {$29.00} late charge, assigned me penalty interest, suspended an entirely separate American Express card, entirely unrelated to the Platinum Card ( ending # XXXX ), where there are no issues on this is my XXXX XXXX XXXX Card ending in # XXXX ; yet as part of the American Express penalization for not having their XXXX annual membership fee-funded/extracted directly from my checking account, which again was only established for minimum payment consisting of only the interest on the " pay over-time charges '' and nothing more. 

Coming up on close to a month now, since realizing American Express has been fraudulently billing me and collected excessive sums of money each year from my checking account via this method, and finally ending their cycle with the fixed auto-debit/automatic bill pay, again, their retaliation not including the aforementioned, accelerated payments, penalty interest, late charges, reduced credit limit on my separate no annual fee American Express XXXX XXXX XXXX card ending # XXXX, early credit bureau reporting, and what I am sure will be an attempt to report me further following 30-days of not paying their {$550.00} which again was not authorized and should not have ever been billed in the first place, which is the cause of all of these issues and more. 

Despite the fact that I have also sought advocacy with this matter from within the American Express XXXX, and gotten nowhere so far, the calls just keep coming Auto-dialer calls, from American Express about " An Important Business Matter, etc. '' and no matter how many times I advised in writing ; " American Express, you do not have permission to call me '' / " American Express, do not call me/you do not have permission to call. If you have anything to say to me please do it in writing ( email or mail ), American Express still ignores me and calls on a daily basis, same and different numbers /cities/locations, all American Express XXXX The only difference is they have gone from leaving so many messages that clogged up my voicemail to the point where my mailbox was too full to accept any new messages. ( All of this I have saved and documented and will contact an attorney on this and other matters should I not get a remedy for all of this harassment, which in the end boils down to American Express does not take or follow specific legal directions, such as i.e., do not bill me, you do not have authorization and cancel my card before the next annual fee because I have rejected any further charges ; and, direct " Do Not Call '' statements even emailed to top-ranking officials within their organization, who have also been explained the same situation going on. 

To be more specific, I have written ( emailed to both ) MrXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX which was how Mr. XXXX contacted me, and also most recently, due to the never-ending calls, though I made myself clear, American Express was not authorized to call me/ Do not call, but write ( to reiterate from earlier ) also, Mr. XXXX XXXX XXXX Again, while the calls and voicemail messages have slowed down, they still have not ceased ... .just the same way, that I am now aware that Amex never ceased billing me each year for their annual membership, all along, after I had advised them their annual fee again was rejected and unauthorized and I wished to cancel because I would not have use for this level card or use for the travel benefits at this time ... 

The Executive Desk contact XXXX XXXX, continually claim to be doing some research, yet, in the interim, I somehow still get messages declining to refund the annual membership fees ( charges ) as if this is the first request, with a lecture on policies and how they also won't return the {$29.00} fee also, only to write again the most constant contact a Mr. XXXX XXXX of the American Express Executive Office, who's main response back is that he is continuing to research the matter and will get back to me ; he also never commented on that letter which posted to my secure account for me to open declining to fix any of the most current issues and least of all the past. Mr. XXXX still has not commented on why I got this other letter while he is " researching my case '', or why when I even made contact to their group concerning " Financial Hardship '' to be set up on their program to prevent any other late charges, credit past late charges and fees, I would only get transferred around and not get to participate in what could prevent further adverse action against me and my credit file. 

It appears that American Express 's biggest goal here, in addition, to continuing to pursue collecting on unauthorized, fraudulent, and/or ill-gotten fees which they are not due, is also to ruin my credit in the meantime and continue to paint this picture with false statements and representation that they are billing accordingly to their policy when they are not and leaving the biggest piece of the puzzle out here. American Express was never due {$550.00} for XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, or XX/XX/XXXX, which is a total of {$1600.00}, for which {$1100.00} of this they have already illegally/fraudulently gained by debiting my checking account in excessive amounts, over and above the regular minimum payments due for paying my balance overtime and interest. It is my belief that American Express should in fact not be entitled to any of the fees ever collected on this account, included the first for {$450.00}, because they could have in fact pro-rated this and canceled the account then and ended all of this at this time. I believe they did not honor my request that day, or thereafter because this was the intent in mind, to defraud me for as long as they could by taking without my authorization {$1600.00}, and altogether {$2100.00} over the course of this account. Plus chargebacks they made to me in excess of that first-year membership fee of {$450.00}, which is another reason why I feel the entire {$2100.00}, should be awarded back to me, and investigated also, to see how many other consumers have also had this same matter happened to them. This is plainly and simply, credit card fraud perpetrated by the financial institution itself and it should be stopped, and of all times, now when so many individuals such as myself and others around the country and world and suffering either directly, or indirectly from the effects of the novel coronavirus COVID-19.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation