Consumer complaint received 2024-03-03 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest — Unexpected increase in interest rate
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: NY

Complaint narrative:
I am writing to dispute being charged interest on ALL OF MY REGULAR PURCHASES on American Express-Green. 

I have used this card since XXXX, it is a personal card and NOT a business card. I chose this card because anything I charged, I had to pay in full at the end of the monthly billing period, unless I bought anything over {$100.00} which was not often. I was never late with a payment or paid less than billed. 

Since they began their app, I have used this to see my purchases and pay the bill. 

As of the XX/XX/XXXX billing ( see attached ), they apparently changed their way of doing business. As of XX/XX/XXXX, someone changed my account to pay over time. ( a diamond shows next to each purchase if it is a pay over time ). This does not show on their app. Also, all the alerts I set were removed ( this does not show on the app ). Since I paid with their app, I had no idea that AMEX arbitrarily made this change. Until it got out of hand in XXXX. 

To me, nothing was unusual until they notified by letter. that someone tried to break into my account. When I received a letter from AMEX informing me of this, I called as instructed. The Customer Service Department was unable to understand me and seemed to be reading a script ( even though I read their letter to them ), I could not understand them and after 45 minutes I was so frustrated I said thank you and hung up. It happened again where someone tried to break into my account and again, I went through the same thing. Never got an answer to what happened. This time, I looked at their website and, in my horror, all my payments were interest only! As of XX/XX/XXXX, all my purchases were being entered into their pay overtime account and the account was reaching upwards of {$17000.00}. Again, I called and could not get anywhere with their Customer Service Department. AMEX only has heavy-accented customers service representatives. They used to have an excellent customer service department. They were unrelenting with their answers to my questions and the facts. I had tried to get answers to no avail. This led me to the internet to find out what happened. Their website states, YOU CHOOSE WHETHER YOU WANT TO PUT ALL CHARGES INTO PAY OVERTIME. I went to their web page and changed it back to what it should be. 

They are charging me close to {$300.00} a month interest on what I thought was paying off each month and entering all my purchases into a pay over time account. I did not agree or choose this. I am more than willing to pay what I would owe without interest and apply all my payments to my account. My payment this month is {$470.00} on {$94.00} worth of charges. 

I went to Consumer Credit for help with this and AMEX would not listen to them also.

Consumer Credit and there is a class action lawsuit in California about AMEX and their interest practices.

This has damaged my credit ( ratio of used credit ), drains every bit of money I must live on, and I can no longer shop online for my necessities. I was never notified of someone or AMEX changing my account in any way, as I would have NEVER AGREED TO IT. I am unable to cancel the card as the hit to my credit record would be horrendous! Also, the time and effort I had to put into finding this problem. I also do not appreciate having to check their website every day for this problem arising again! 

Writing all of what I am going through, and my frustration is hard. I hope I have explained it all. 

PLEASE HELP! 


Sincerely, XXXX XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation