Consumer complaint received 2015-09-04
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: NJ
Product: Credit card
Issue: Other

Complaint:
American Express engages in several deceptive, unfair and abusive billing practices that result in higher interest charges. Most, but not all, relate to the fact that its printed statements that are mailed to my house are different from information provided on its website under various tabs such as " Statements and Activity, '' and elsewhere, that are never kept current even at the end of a billing period. Additionally, PDFs of billing statements that are mailed are hard to find online, so that people who travel often, and who do not have time to but are forced to wade through all the in-your-face advertising and other extraneous junk on their cluttered website are steered towards web-based, alternative, but inaccurate versions of the account. Simultaneously, customers often have to wait a day or more to get earlier billing statements where an interest " charge '' allegedly first occurred. The XXXX or more sources of the statements ( the real XXXX and whatever ephemeral, ersatz version or versions one can find at any particular time on various areas of its website ) are not identical but contain conflicted and inconsistent information. As a result, it is almost impossible to know what is due for any particular billing period. During most months, this has resulted in me typically paying more than is actually due. On some occasions, however, American Express claims that I underpaid the total amount due. If so, it is due to several of AMEX 's " tricks and traps '' and I ask the CFPB to sanction it for them. 

In addition to the multiple and inconsistent versions of their " statements '', it also falsely advertises cash back rewards, then does not credit them to the account at all or in a timely manner. It falsely claims that it provides 5 % cash back for grocery store, gas station and drug store purchases. Yet it does not do so in any reasonable sense of the word. For example, it does not classify XXXX XXXX as a drug store on its bills and does not list several gas stations, including XXXX and XXXX in NJ, as well as others, as a gas station, although they clearly are. ( Some of these seem to be categorized as " fuel dispensing stations '' in distinction to gas stations. ) As a result of all of these intentional and actual deceptions by AMEX, it has been charging me interest, I only recently learned, since XXXX of this year while providing inaccurate and incomplete billing information online and pretending to provide cash back rewards to stimulate further usage of its card. 

The CFPB needs to monitor AMEX billing, online information, and cash back programs very closely. I should be issued credits for all interest and all advertised but uncredited cash back rewards, plus the same rate of interest on these new credits that it has charged me since I opened the account. Furthermore, AMEX should be forced to correct any derogatory or inaccurate information related to these deceptions that it reported to credit agencies about me and the other person on this account. Finally, AMEX should be fined and sanctioned for these activities and not permitted to repeat them at the risk of greater and steadily increasing penalties with each new offense.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation