Consumer complaint received 2018-05-30
Product: Credit card or prepaid card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest — Problem with fees
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY (PA)

It is with great frustration that I must file a complaint against American Express. I have consistently received less than stellar service whether it be with customer service or their voice response system. When my annual fee was assessed on XX/XX/XXXX, I planned to close my account by ensuring I paid the balance in full less the fee and all of my points earned with my last large transaction were transmitted to the partner XXXX. My balance was paid in full less the fee on XX/XX/XXXX. After speaking with XXXX, I learned that the star points earned for the prior year and a half on my AMEX were NOT posted to the accompanying XXXX account in my name. After an extensive call with the partner XXXX, they directed me back to AMEX to understand where they were mapping my @ XXXX points and it was confirmed that they were in fact transmitting MY points from a credit card account in MY name only to a XXXX account that does not bear my name. When I challenged XXXX to understand how those transmissions did not error due to the name mismatch, I was told they needed to investigate. This all transpired after 5+ calls to AMEX starting on XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX and finally on XX/XX/XXXX. I had a advisor initiate a conference call with XXXX, we were making progress but unfortunately the call dropped. I called back and got a different advisor who assured me he would remain on the line to resolve the issues, only to do a blind transfer to XXXX, leaving me to explain everything yet again to XXXX without an AMEX advisor on the line which left me yet again with no resolution. I was at my wits end and finally escalated to a supervisor XXXX who finally took ownership of the issue but needed to take a few days to research what transpired. On XX/XX/XXXX, he called back to indicate that he straightened things out and the @ XXXX points were finally appearing in the XXXX account in my name. As I hope you can understand, I was not going to close my account until all points were verified in my XXXX account and all issues were resolved. Over the course of the past few days, I have spoken with AMEX 4 times regarding my request to close my account but first waive the annual fee. It baffles me that even a supervisor ( of which I have talked with two on 3 different occasions ) do not have the empowerment to waive a {$95.00} annual fee. They continue to stand on the fact that I was disclosed the fee would be coming due and did not pay the fee within 30 days. ( it was assessed on XX/XX/XXXX and yesterday was XX/XX/XXXX ) Even though I lost over a week of that 30 days doing extensive legwork with VERY LITTLE assistance from AMEX until I connected with XXXX and they can evidence that on their system, all escalations regarding the fee waiver are falling on deaf ears. I could not wait to sever all ties with this company but needed to first get the points situation resolved. I should not be penalized because of their mishandling of my points transfer, horrible customer service and the extensive amount of my time and effort that I had to put forth to resolve the problem. I hope you can assist me in getting AMEX to acknowledge that the annual fee should be waived and any subsequent interest or fees while I have continued to work the issue on my own so that I can completely walk away from this company and close it with a XXXX balance with all points in the correct XXXX account.