American Express Consumer Reviews - Page 4

First of all, let me tell you a little about the nature of my complaint. In 2005, I received an application for an American Express credit card that I applied for without knowing about their business and the scammers that NCO, their collections agency, are. I was young, and I stupidly accepted their credit card. I applied for an American Express Savings One card, which will deposit 1% of all purchase amounts in a savings account, which you can withdraw money from. I thought it was nice at the time to have "money" to buy college books with and tuition. Boy, was I in for a surprise!

In 2006, I got fired for the first time from my job. This resulted in 3 months of unemployment, and I didn't have any money to pay my bills. Also, my parents couldn't help me out since they were strapped as it is. I let my AmEx bill go for 3 months without being able to pay anything on it. My bill, plus interest and late fees, added up to $2,789 plus change. There was no way I could pay it off.

I received a call from a supervisor at AmEx saying that I owed the full amount. I told her that I could not pay the amount, but that I would be happy to pay in monthly installments, since I had just gotten a job. She declined and said that if I didn't pay the full amount, she would immediately send my bill to collections. Well, since I couldn't pay, that's where it ended up, at United Recovery Systems. I decided to set up an account with a reputable debt management firm to see if they could work with AmEx and get them to accept some money, so they wouldn't sue me.

It worked, for a while. AmEx ceased to send me the invoices that I needed to send to the debt management firm (required to disburse monies), resulting in the firm to cease payments since they didn't know how much I still owed. I called United Recovery and AmEx several times for a bill, but they ignored me. Then, 4 months ago, I received a settlement plan from AmEx that said they would stop charging interest if I would pay a monthly fee of 44.00. I agreed with the plan, and closed my account with the firm. Big mistake! For 3 months, my payments went through NCO Financial to AmEx, with no problems.

Suddenly, while trying to pay on the bill online, the payment wouldn't go through, saying I owed no money. I immediately called NCO Financial to find out why, and they said that AmEx pulled my account and they don't know where it is. I have called AmEx several times but can't get a live person. I only get a message that asks you to enter your card number, but after I do, it says to call NCO Financial.

I am running around in circles, and I am worried sick, because I don't know if AmEx decided to charge off (erased) the debt, or placed it with another collections firm, violating the contract we agreed to. I know that the collections was my fault, but I can't stop worrying about if I still owe money. I don't want my credit score to drop any lower if I do. Does anyone know of a phone number to AmEx's customer service that doesn't prompt you to enter your card number? PLEASE HELP!!!

UPDATE: I contacted AmEX again tonight. Instead of saying my account number, I said customer service, and was directed to a representative. They gave another number for NCO (argh!). I'm going to try to contact NCO tomorrow and speak to a supervisor. If I get nowhere with them, I am sending a certified letter to AmEX and NCO expressing my irritation and telling them that if they don't help me soon, I will seek legal action. I have had it with them giving me the runaround. I am a human, I do make mistakes, and I'm trying to rectify the situation. They DO NOT care!

33139, FLORIDA -- While I was trying to purchase at a local store at 9.06pm on June 21, 2007, I called (from my cell phone in order to be identified by your system) American Express to ask to unlock the security put on my American Express card received that same day.

First the man that I was talking to on the phone asked me several security questions to identify me in order to make sure I was the credit card holder; which I passed. Then he asked me my work phone number, which I believe I wrote on my credit card application, to call my work place at 9.00pm! Here are his words: “Do you have an extension number?” After hesitating (caught by surprise on the relevance of the question), he told me he did not need it after all since he needed to identify me through the directory.

I replied that at that time of the night my company was closed and there would no one to answer his call. But he put me on hold and after few seconds he told me he was unable to contact my company. So I responded he should get my extension number but he refused insisting that I had to be at work to call your “customer service department”. I asked him how this would be possible for me to be at work at 9.00pm and being in a store trying to purchase items.

His answer: “Call us back tomorrow then”, on a sarcastic tone. “But I need to make this purchase now…” I answered. Having the feeling that a very smart person was not servicing me, I asked to talk to a supervisor to help me. It turned out that there was no supervisor on duty at the time I called your department. I hang up and called back at 9.17pm, a woman answered the call and told me that her co-worker tried to call my work extension number without success. How could this be possible? He refused to get my extension number. I insisted to give my extension number again.

The woman finally took it and dialed while I was on the other line. She finally told me she recognized my voice on my voice mail! She assured me they would unlock the security put my card, which never happened that night: I was unable to use my credit card. Shocked and embarrassed by the situation uncounted by your customer service, my husband and I decided to call few minutes later. Finally I was transferred to a supervisor who listened to my complaint then unexpectedly hanged up on me without apology and contacted me again! I believe I was very polite with everyone I talked to but they could feel my frustration as well as my anger.

I was so proud and excited to receive an application for an American Express card. All these feelings were washed away by the incompetence of your customer service personnel. Now I am afraid to use the American Express credit card I just received. My husband has been a member since 1997 and listening what was going on he could not believe the nonchalance and the impoliteness of American Express personnel.

The irony of this situation is that I received today an application for a Gold American Express card. Give me good reason to apply for it after having such a bad experience. I expected a much higher level of service from American Express, and I am quite disappointed. I am seriously considering canceling my membership with American Express since I am very happy with the services provided by other banks and my husband has decided not to use his Gold American Express card for an indefinite time.

CALIFORNIA -- American express is a scam. They sold me on mileage and travel saying if I spent 5k it would pay for a flight to Vegas and after spending over $5,000 they are only crediting me a $14 discount. Not worth your time or money. Any bank card will give you a better deal. I have been trying to cancel my card for an hour on the phone and they have hung up on me 3 times.

TAMPA, FLORIDA -- This is how the story goes. I've been a AMEX member since 1996, always paying the full balance when due, always!!! But, I decided to get their Costco AMEX because it made it easy for me to shop there. Within a month and a half of having this particular Amex, they notified me that my account was being cancelled (note I had never ever been late) and gave me too many reasons to list. So trying to make sense of it all, I called them to no avail. They said they would not re-instate the account.

So I continued to make my payments on time as always, until March of this year when I decided I did not want any more debt and paid the balance in FULL, even a little more so that it would take care of any interest the account could have accrued.

To my surprise and being sure I did not owe them a penny, I checked my account online, did not see any balance, so I dismissed the following statements (April), until a week ago I get a notification from a credit bureau letting me know that an account had reported me delinquent. Somehow, I knew, that it had to be American Express, so I got online and checked my account, and sure enough, there was a balance of $3.96 past due. Called them and they took care of it, denying they were the ones who had reported me late and therefore delinquent.

I just received a copy of my credit report, and what do I find out? That American Express, not only had reported my delinquent for $3.96, but that my cancelled account had been sent to the collections department (something they still deny). I tried to have them help me fix the situation with the credit bureau, and their answer was: since my account had been closed by them, that I would have to take care of it on my own. Once you are not a "member" anymore, you've fallen out of grace with them and you are treated poorly. Sad but true story.

After 24 years of using my American Express card I ran into a dispute with one of their vendors, the end result of which left me completely frustrated, shocked and extremely disappointed with American Express's mishandling and complete lack of support and understanding of the horrendous incident which happened to me during a vacation. After 9 months of faxing them letters, receipts, and information about the incident (sometimes more than once because the AMEX supervisor I had to deal with kept losing them!), I hit a brick wall with them and realized sadly that they were not the same company they were when I first got my card back in 1985.

Over 24 years I have used my AMEX card all over the world on vacations and travel, and it all came to a grinding halt thanks to my dealings with a completely inept and myopic idiot of a customer service "supervisor" who goes by the mysterious alias of **. This "person" continually misunderstood the facts, did not follow up on information they requested me to send, and ultimately they proved unable to fully grasp what the situation was and continually ruled in favor of the vendor.

In some cases they got even the simplest facts wrong, such as the disputed amount, which card was used, etc (I have kept all my documentation which shows this). It was my desire to go to court with the vendor - instead, ** decided he or she would settle it instead, and in turn let the vendor use my American Express card as a shield to make sure they got paid & wouldn't have to answer for their negligence in court. Wrong!

It did not surprise me at all when I did a Google search about ** and found several other people who over the years have had had similar negative dealings with him or her that I did. What's most surprising to me is **'s managers apparently don't even care enough to check the internet to find out how this particular supervisor has been mistreating their customers and continually botching situation after situation over the years and hurting even their most loyal long term customers. I guess they are all too busy counting their money. Again, this is not the same company I joined back in 1985.

In the end, since I couldn't resolve the dispute with them, I simply refused to pay them, so naturally they've cancelled my card and have now resorted to besieging and harassing me with collection calls, which I guess they think is somehow going to suddenly convince me the vendor did nothing wrong to me and that the whole ugly incident that happened on my vacation was for some reason all my fault. Wrong again, American Express. Suffice it to say I will never again deal with AMEX and will let everyone I know exactly what happened to me and why the AMEX card is something they should avoid. Cheers...

I have been a card member with Amex since 1997 in which time have spent over $14,000,000 on multiple platinum cards with the various companies I have owned and also had a $60,000 LOC from the banking Centurion arm, and despite never missing a payment and paying my accounts in full each month perfectly for 13 years have recently lost all faith and been a victim of fraud and theft by them.

Starting in Dec of 2009 and the registration of auto-pay (I had paid by phone the majority of the time in the past without any issues) they made one ACH withdrawal from my Acct the date the statement was due and a second two days later both the full amounts due as I had elected that option. As times are slow and the amount not that large I did not realize until I Rec my bank statement the first week in Jan. I now with a large balance coming lost faith and shut the auto pay off and made the min payment online in Jan.

Two days later again came the ACH request (mind you I also called to verify auto-pay was removed). This time though the funds were not avail. After calling Amex they assured me it was a error on their side, wrote me a letter apologizing only to attempt the again seven days later again putting my banking account in distress as the ACH is held as pending for 48 hours and meanwhile items posting are either returned or held to only be cleared after the ACH from Amex is returned. Of course they all have fees. This time I placed a stop on the amount although Amex promised it would not happen again - yeah well Bowman seven days later there it was.

In Feb I made my payment online without an issue other than it did not post as paid for 14 days due to what Amex says I had derogatory info and had a returned payment within the last 30 days. This at the time had no effect on my spending ability since the account had no preset limit. In March I received a letter stating they seer closing account due to recently returned payments (the ones I never made and they apologized for in a letter dated the day before) and what were the other 12 pages.

Try the same letter for 12 other people all much worse than mine with all their account numbers and info etc on them and personal info regarding bankruptcies etc. Anyone else had similar experience or know the best route to take.

I have been an Amex card member since 1987. At one time I had a Green, Gold, Platinum, Corporate, Blue and Optima. Over the years, I have cancelled the Blue and the Optima. Amex was once a prestige product but those days are long gone. There is nothing to differentiate them from any number of MasterCard or Visa products; nothing to warrant the high annual fees Amex charges. I pay my cards in full every month, yet, from day-to-day, it's a crap shoot if the cards will actually be approved for charges.

Moreover, since they decided to impose "limits" on these no spending limit cards, my credit score has been negatively impacted. The ratio between total open to buy and amount of credit used is a MAJOR part of the FICO score calculation. Within one month of Amex imposing a credit limit on my no-limit cards, my credit score dropped over 100 points!

I am in the process of relocating with my company and planned to sell my current home and buy a new one at my destination. Unfortunately, because of the damage to my credit score by Amex, I cannot qualify for a home loan/mortgage. Now, for the first time in my life, I have to rent an apartment while I work to pay off Amex so my ratio improves.

Other than my Corporate Card, which I am forced to use at work, as soon as I pay off Amex and get my home loan, I am cancelling all of my Amex cards, including my Platinum, and never going back. IMHO, I believe that MANY consumers will be doing the same thing. You simply can't change the rules of a long-term relationship like this and expect that you will be forgiven. Amex will never return to the powerhouse it once was because of stunts and strategies like this.

I opened Amex Costco Credit Card when I became a member of Costco. My credit score was 740+ and they readily approve the card with a $3000+ credit limit. My average balances were around 400-450 and paid in full all on time for each billing statement for 6 months. One day I swiped my card at a restaurant and card was declined. I paid with another card and called American Express on reaching home and they told your card was cancelled 5 days back. On asking the reason they stated, change in your credit score since you applied for a card and too many credit enquiries in last 2 years as per the report by Experian.

Next day I subscribed for Experian Credit report and my score was 730+, there was no missed payment on any cards and there were usual 3 enquiries, one by Amex when they opened my credit card and two other by rental screening companies as we moved to another state and changed our apartment after 6 months lease was over in one of the apartment.

I called Amex that "though I don't need your credit as my total credit line is above 8k on 3 different cards but still want to know what is the specific reason and I use this Card at many occasions including purchase at Costco." They told "We can not do anything and you can send a fax of your credit report." Done, did that, no response from them. I received my final statement after 2 weeks and they gave me travel rewards for one hotel booking and there were three flight tickets booked for $1850 for my family and no rewards for those, when I called them, they told "As your card is cancelled we are not giving those rewards."

**. My card was in good standing at the time of booking and I paid all the balances on time, this is your own decision to cancel and then you want to eat my cash reward also. I could have used my other cards and received 2% reward. When I searched on internet about this practice by Amex, I came to know it's common for them to eat the rewards. I really feel they are the biggest cheater in the Credit Card Industry and I am open if any one wants to initiate a formal complaint about them.

I don't know what to do, it's not a question of $50 or so cash back, it's a question of honesty and malpractice cheating with the customers. Now if I don't pay my balance they can charge my interest or can report to credit bureau, I wish if customer also have something like to do a complaint to a credit bureau and to any other court for companies like these. I am never going to go for this company and wish they vanish from the business soon.

After 26 years of being a faithful Amex customer I have made a decision to eliminate my revolving credit relationship with them on their Optima product. Like many who have posted complaints, I received a form letter in early August outlining an interest rate hike from 10.5% to about 15.5% effective Oct 1. I contacted them via phone first and got nowhere speaking to an unempowered customer service representative who was obviously reading a scripted response saying the decision was a "business decision."

I later wrote an email and got basically the same response with a little more detail. They alluded to the fact that the new credit card legislation was increasing their cost of doing business and they were passing that along to their (good) customers. Because I asked about "opting out" of the rate increase, they replied that they were not required to allow this by law until notices sent after August 20 (how convenient that this notice was dated August 5).

I have held accounts with Amex since 1983 and have never missed a single payment; my credit score was around 780 the last time I checked it, so I know it is not anything on my credit history that is driving this. Since I have the resources available to pay off my account and am already receiving more favorable offers from other banks; (even Bank of America and Citi are offering me better rates than Amex), I intend to end this relationship, and I am going to continue to look for other low interest card offers to replace this account.

I am going to stop awarding my business to a company who does not care about their relationship with a good customer, and I would urge others who have been treated similarly to do the same. The once prestigious Amex will ultimately degenerate into a company where all of the customers with good credit leave and they are left with only the deadbeats. We'll see how their business model survives (or not) once this all plays out in the competitive marketplace. Shorting Amex stock might be a good move now; this company is going downhill quickly.