Consumer complaint received 2024-12-09 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest — Problem with fees
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: MN

Complaint narrative:
I have an American Express XXXX XXXX XXXX that my wife and daughter are authorized card users on. My daughter used the card to make XXXX small purchases ( {$24.00}, {$29.00}, and {$40.00} ) which were processed on XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX. She then utilized the American Express XXXX XXXX with her linked bank account and the " Pay it Feature '' to make payments to American Express for the XXXX charges in question on XX/XX/XXXX. As a side note, my daughter has made payments like this in the past with her linked bank account for several years now. 

Somehow, the bank account was unable to be identified during the payment processing and the reason given was " unable to locate the account '' American express assessed me XXXX {$29.00} returned payment fees ( {$87.00} in total ) and XXXX ALL of my American express accounts. Upon trying to make a purchase on Friday XX/XX/XXXX, using a different American Express card, my card was declined. I called American Express and they informed me that they had XXXX all of my accounts due to the returned payment and that I was required to make a payment, Even through NO payments were due on any of my cards at this time and all of my accounts were in good standing. Further more, XXXX XXXX XXXX customer service representatives stated that they were unable to reverse the returned payments fees and would only reverse XXXX as a " goodwill gesture ''. Upon inquiring as to why American Express would assess a {$29.00} dollar fee for a returned payment when no payment was due and the reason for the returned payment was the bank account was not able to be located, an American Express supervisor informed me that the Bank assessed them a fee during this process. I promptly called the bank ( XXXX XXXX XXXX ) who informed me they DID NOT XXXX or charge American Express for these " Unable to Locate Account '' returned payments. Upon calling American Express again, they promptly credited my account the XXXX returned payment fees and would not give me any further explanation of their action. 

This incident was extremely frustrating and time consuming for me deal with and my primary issues are the following : XXXX. It does not seem right that American Express can inflict these costly fees of {$29.00} each ( {$87.00} in total ) when the returned payment reason was " Unable to Locate Account ''. For the record, if the reason was that I had insufficient funds in the account or a NSF fee etc. I could understand. 

XXXX. As my daughter has successfully used that account information that was stored in American Express system previously, I feel that the issue could be technical on their side, and they did nothing/ accepted no responsibility. I still do not understand the root cause of why she was able to process these payments successfully in the past yet was unable to now. 

XXXX. I felt deceived by American Express and the representative who told me that they would not reverse the fees because my bank ( XXXX XXXX XXXX ) charged them a fee for the " Unable to Locate Account '' returned payment. 

XXXX. I do not think it is right, that they XXXX ALL of my American Express cards, and required me to make a payment, WHEN NO PAYMENT WAS DUE, in order to allow me to make payments on my account again. Again, I could understand if a payment was due, or if I was late, but this was not the case. 

XXXX. I think their system, which allows card member to use a " pay it '' feature, at an individual transaction level will result in customers harm, similar to mine. There should be controls in place that that a customer is not assessed excessive fees like this when American Express is unable to locate a payment account. It was frustrating enough when there were XXXX charges, but I could XXXX a scenario where someone would use that feature to pay, say, XXXX transactions. In that scenario, they would assess me {$290.00} in returned payments fees for the same reason? 

XXXX. It does not seem fair, that American Express can require me to make a payment, WHEN NO PAYMENT is due, because they have returned a voluntary payment for the reason of " unable to locate account '' in order to again use my credit cards.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation