Consumer complaint received 2024-09-12
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Closing your account — Company closed your account
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY (CA)

American Express cancelled all my credit cards due to XXXX returned payments, which I argue was accidental and not due to any financial hardship. 

I have been a customer with American Express since XXXX. I have never made a late payment in the history of my XXXX  year tenure there. Recently, this year I have been attempting to swap my checking accounts into more high interest accounts. This would affect American Express because it would change the payment accounts. American Express does not have a feature to easily link accounts together automatically. Additionally, they do not allow a user to copy and paste routing or account numbers so make adding new payment accounts less error prone. 

Around the month of XXXX I added a new account ( XXXX XXXX  ), which I intended to use to pay my American Express credit cards. Unfortunately due to my mistake, I had likely entered the wrong account number. I want to point out that this mistake would have been impossible if American Express had better technology and made the process simpler. 

Due to the wrong account number, XXXX my payments got returned. On every return payment, I immediately repaid with another working account. Below is a more detailed timeline : XX/XX/XXXX - I made a payment of {$16000.00}. 
XX/XX/XXXX - I got an email that my payment returned, I thought it was odd and I probably didn't use the correct account with balances. I made another payment from another account for XXXX {$6600.00}, which cleared XX/XX/XXXX - I made a payment of {$8500.00}. 
XX/XX/XXXX - I got another email that my payment returned. I confirmed that I had balance in my account and decided I would contact American Express to understand what the error was. 
XX/XX/XXXX - I spoke with American Express via chat, and they mentioned that perhaps I entered the wrong account number. I deleted the faulty account and added a new one with the correct account number. I made a {$1.00} payment to confirm it worked. 
XX/XX/XXXX - The {$1.00} payment cleared. So I made a {$8500.00} payment and it also cleared. 
XX/XX/XXXX - I made a XXXX payment, which cleared on the new working account. 
XX/XX/XXXX - Called American Express to inquire about promotions. They mentioned I was automatically transferred to the Financial Review team. They asked a series of questions about my gross annual income, and my business, which I provided. They put me on hold. They then came back and said they will " terminate our relationship '' because of returned payments I had. I had explained that this seemed to be an overreaction, and offered to supply any financial documents needed to prove I did not have financial hardship. They declined. They suspended all my credit cards and canceled XXXX of my personal credit cards immediately. 
XX/XX/XXXX - I emailed the CEO of American Express and presented my situation and asked for an appeal. I saw on the internet that American Express has on many occasions " ended relationships '' because of even XXXX returned payment. Something that I did not even realize before and did not understand the gravity of. 
XX/XX/XXXX - I got an email from the Executive Office saying they received my inquiry and would look into it. 
XX/XX/XXXX - I called and left a voicemail, and emailed back stating my situation and offered to provide any financial documentation that would aid me. 
XX/XX/XXXX - American Express called me back and said they would not re-instatement me. 
XX/XX/XXXX - I am writing a CFPB compliant