Consumer complaint received 2024-01-12
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem when making payments — Problem during payment process
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY (NY)

I accidentally made an electronic payment from my XXXX checking account of {$750.00} to defunct payee credit card ( Amex XXXX Products on XX/XX/XXXX ). The money was transferred out of my account on XX/XX/XXXX, clearly accepted by some company instead of having the payment rejected due to the inactive account status. I called XXXX to have them dispute the charge, but their representative said as I authorized the electronic payment and it was already made she could not cancel or dispute the charge. I have been trying to get this resolved with AMEX and XXXX XXXX XXXX XX/XX/XXXX. After months of AMEX insisting it was a XXXX XXXX credit card account, XXXX XXXX opened a new case for me ( case # XXXX ) and said they would call or email me within 4 days to help me resolve this. They then promptly sent me a letter saying the claim was invalid because it is not a XXXX XXXX account. Around XXXX XXXX I finally got a second ( higher ) level Jet Blue representative XXXX the phone who got permission to call and get a second level AMEX representative XXXX the call, during which it was agreed that this was an AMEX, not Jet Blue, credit card account and the AMEX representative XXXX to open an investigation and get back to me in a few days. After a few days I called AMEX again and the ( new ) representative explained it XXXX take XXXX weeks. I called after XXXX weeks after which an AMEX representative said this might take months because it is no longer an active account ( or type of credit card ) and they were not sure what company manages those defunct accounts anymore. Ive tried periodically ( mostly monthly ) to call AMEX to see what the resolution is, and a few months ago ( Sept/Oct XXXX ) I got a representative called XXXX who XXXX did call me weekly for a few weeks to say there was still no resolution but that he would follow up. After a few weeks, I no longer received any calls from AMEX. I even finally emailed XXXX XXXX. I called AMEX again Wednesday, XX/XX/XXXX and got a representative who basically refused to connect me to a higher level representative and who said she is sorry but there is nothing they can do about the case. That is when I realized this is fraudulent retention of funds paid to AMEX and XXXX of reporting the situation to the FBI in the hopes of getting my money back. I have a stamped proof of payment from XXXX identifying the date, payee, account number, transfer number, amount, etc. I also have my Chase account information that I can print to pdf that shows the {$750.00} payment was made and not returned or credited to my active account AMEX credit card. My lawyer has suggested, in addition to filing the complaint with the FBI, that I write AMEX customer service, the Better Business Bureau and contact the police. As this is a case of fraud, I am unsure the police can help. The FBI website advised me to submit the complaint to consumerfinance.gov/ Thank you for looking into the matter, advising me, and hopefully obtaining the refund to me.