Consumer complaint received 2025-12-03 00:00:00
Product: Credit reporting or other personal consumer reports — Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report — Account status incorrect
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: MI

Complaint narrative:
The purpose of opening this case is to have late payments associated with an American Express Delta SkyMiles Gold Card completely removed from my credit report. 

In XXXX of XXXX, I signed up for the Delta SkyMiles Gold Card. I did not receive the card in the mail for a long time and came to think that perhaps I had dreamed the whole thing up. Eventually, when I called about the card, I was told it had already been delivered. I told Amex this was not the case and that they should re-send the card. The card was never re-sent. 

Despite never receiving the card, in XXXX of XXXX, I was told that there was a charge of around {$2.00} on it -- and the payment for the charge was late. I called Amex and asked how this happened. At this point, I had never received or activated the card ; I had never logged into any online Amex account because doing so required a card number, which I did not have ; I had never made any purchases with the card. In speaking with Amex 's customer service representatives, they informed me that the charges were just a fee from the card. Since I was not able to log on to my Amex account to either view or pay the fee, Amex asked that I mail them an envelope with {$2.00} enclosed to make the payment. Eventually, I was able to make the payment through a direct transfer from my bank account executed over the phone with an Amex representative. After completing this ordeal and never wanting to do business with Amex again, I requested that the card be closed. To my understanding at the time, the account was closed ; however, this closure depended on customer service agents executing on my request. 

To reiterate, I had no way to access the account because I did not have the card number, because I never received the card. Amex was unable to provide me with a workaround or a replacement card. This meant that every action I sought to take with the card was mediated through a customer service agent and hinged on their understanding of my request. The frequent transfers of Amex often meant that I was making the same request dozens of times. I have spent a very, very long time on the phone with Amex. 

So, even though I had requested the closure of the account and had understood that it had been closed, I noticed delinquent payments on my credit report from the Amex card in the Spring of XXXX. The total delinquency was for some {$190.00}. After many phone calls, Amex credited the payments to me and closed the account. I was also informed that the earlier {$2.00} I had paid to Amex was for one of these fraudulent charges, which was exceptionally disappointing to hear. I had previously grilled customer service representatives about how it was possible that a card I had never received, activated, or used could have a fee on it, to which they told me : it just does. In the end, it turns out there was no fee, it was fraud. In any case, after the credit had been made to me for all of the fraudulent charges, I expected the issue to be resolved and the delinquencies to be removed from my credit report. 

These phone calls that I made to Amex took many hours and were spread out over months of time. In order to gain traction on these issues, I often had to speak to teams that were only available during business hours, requiring that I take time off work in order to, most of the time, sit on hold so that someone could tell me that nothing could be done for my case. This was of course never true, I just had to get lucky and be assigned a customer service representative that both took seriously my case and had the knowledge necessary to resolve it. 

Despite the extended communication with Amex, the delinquent charges were not removed. So, I went through the process with Amex to ensure that every single charge to the card was documented as fraudulent. This process was completed sometime in the XXXX of XXXX -- a great deal of time had at this point passed. Oftentimes over the course of my dealings, I was told that I had to wait weeks or months in order for some internal process to complete or communication with the credit bureaus to take place. This delay on Amex 's side and the inconvenience such phone calls placed on myself combined to substantially delay a progress on the case. 

After the fraud cases were closed, I was told that the delinquent charges would be removed from the following month 's credit report. That has not happened. I called every few weeks to check with Amex, to which I was always informed that the fraud case was closed and the changes it would be reflected on the next month 's credit report. 

After several months of this, I called again today, on XX/XX/XXXX, and was more insistent that something is done. One of the customer service supervisors in the credit bureau department at Amex was able to remove some of the smaller delinquent charges and said this would be reflected in the credit report. However, she told me that the larger delinquent charges would need to be removed by the fraud team through a process called " re-aging. '' I had spoken with the fraud team prior to speaking with the supervisor from the credit bureau department, so this was my second time speaking to them. The fraud team eventually redirected me to the credit bureau department, again, claiming that they were the one 's responsible for re-aging. The credit bureau department then once again told me that fixing this was dependent on the fraud team and that their " back office team '' was on the case and to expect an email or letter from them within 3 to 7 business days. I have been told that dozens of times by Amex customer service representatives. I have always been informed that it is not possible for me to speak to them directly, either over the phone or email, and that they will contact me. 

To reiterate, I am trying to remove delinquent payments from my credit report associated with an Amex card that I never received, never activated, and never used. I requested that the account be closed over the phone twice, but the account was not closed after my first request. The fraudulent charges currently in dispute all occurred after that first request was made. An independent fraud investigation has now been completed for every single charge ever made on the account, and they were all found to be fraudulent. A supervisor has removed some of the smaller fraudulent charges but did not have the ability to remove the larger charges. Whoever has that ability, I need to be put in touch with them _in writing_ to ask that they remove these delinquent payments and then receive confirmation that it has been done.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief