Consumer complaint received 2017-04-19
Product: Prepaid card — General purpose card
Issue: Fraud or scam — 
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY (IL)

I regularly leave the country. Always before leaving I notify  American Express se rve. Each time I am told I do n't need to notify them as the card will work wherever  American Express  is accepted. Recently I left to  XXXX . I had a regular payroll direct deposit hit my account while away on   XXXX   XXXX   evening. Once this deposit hit, I made a charge at my hotel in  XXXX  for about {$250.00} and submitted a bill pay for {$50.00}. When I tried to use my card at the ATM it was declined. When I tried to use my card again at my  XXXX  hotel it was declined. I called  Amex a nd was told that ATM transactions were not allowed overseas. I inquired about the hotel charge I attempted and was declined and was told that my account was suspend. I assumed it was for suspicious activity so I offered to confirm my transactions and attempted transactions. I was also asked to confirm the amount of my most recent direct deposit which I did. I was given no recourse to have the account unlocked except that the process takes  24-28 h ours to resolve as it had to be escalated to a separate risk department that the representative nor their supervisor had access to except via email. I called back the next day to get a status and was told that I had violated the terms of the card and that my account was being closed and a check for the remaining {$800.00} or so dollars would be mailed to me. At this point I could no longer log in to my account to see any information. I spoke with a supervisor who then informed me that the prior information was n't true and that the account would be unlocked as soon as the thing that triggered the account suspension, a tax direct deposit was verified/confirmed. I informed them that I did not have any tax deposit coming into the account. I confirmed again that I only had a partial payroll deposit that deposits biweekly from the same company for the entire time I have had the card. I advised them to look at the account to see. The  manager says she look ed and saw that the deposit did come from payroll and was the same payroll deposit i regularly get but was still unable to unlock the account. I then asked her to verify the amount of the alleged tax deposit, She did, it was the exact same amount of the payroll deposit. She then said that their system must have read it as a tax return. they verified that there were no unauthorized charges and as is my regular practice I leave majority of my funds in my reserve account and transfer over what I need to use so as to avoid any unauthorized charges in the event of a lost or stolen card. I informed her of the urgency as I was out of the country and needed access to my funds. I have since called everyday to inquire about the status of the hold and each da y I am told they will escalate the inquiry and to wait an additional 3-5 business days on top of the days I have already been w aiting.I have called corporate in  XXXX , the  executive office and spoken with supervisors and managers, each time they are telling me there is nothing they can do and t hat I should wait an addition al 3-5 business days from the current day, not from the first day i call ed on   XXXX   XXXX  . Today I was told to wait until the   XXXX  , tomorrow. When the rep came back on the line, he said, wait another  3-5 b usiness days from today because this is going to take more time. I have currently been on hold for a  manager for  an hour. This has to stop, they can not hold my money  hostage a nd then tell me whatever they want at the time. There has been no fraud I have confirmed all of my information and transactions numerous times and no one has even responded back to me.     *A scan of my direct deposit payroll is attached*