American Express – Page 23

Totally agree - American Express HK is completely separate to Amex anywhere else in the world, and should not even be allowed to carry the same name. Expect this type of terrible "service" from them if you sign up. They stopped my account on several occasions as I had allegedly gone over my limit. However, on chasing up with them, it emerged that someone had in error charged me amounts way over my limit. American Express did NOT notify me of this irregular transaction (despite signing up for alerts), aside from the fact they let an amount way over my limit go through, and took over 3 months to investigate the issue. I had to chase them at considerable roaming costs, time, stress, and effort as all this occurred while I was travelling overseas. They did not reverse the charge while I was traveling so I could use my card, and they continued to try and charge me late fees while I was chasing up the issues, an issue that made the issue even worse.

American Express Hong Kong is short-sighted, has no business sense, and the worst card I have ever used in my life. I ended up closing both the Platinum and Cathay Pacific Elite cards, as they were neither Elite, nor Platinum. The health insurance and travel assist is non-existant or sub-par, they charge around $1600 per annum per card (however, I heard that this can be easily waived with a phone call to them as they obviously know they are so terrible). They could not care less about the customer.

They could really learn from some of their overseas counterparts on how to run a credit card company - it is a shame that Amex HK even has the American Express name - terrible, terrible, terrible... stay away!

In response, no, we could not call this a service.

send a message to obama, contact the better business bureau, and post stuff throughout the internet. lets all be heard. they are pulling this ### on a lot of their lower end customers

Amex Thailand mislead their customers, or should I say made an outright misrepresentation and lie to their card holder customers. The Amex staffs always give reaffirmining statements that the Platinum cards have no credit limit. I believed them for over ten years, only to find out that there actually are credit limits to all Platinum cards. Do you want to do business with people that lie to you? Why should you pay the B20, 000+ fee when other cards of equal stature are begging you to subscribe for memberships for free? They completely forget that fundamental to all business dealing is "trust". They make people feel "shame" to be holding Amex cards.

Jason Freeman demanded tax records or my cards were suspended after years of prefect payments on time.

Screw him and his "team".

I agree with you. It is good that consumers voice out. So that we can expect a better service from these companies or other customers can be aware of what the products or services they will get from the company if they would become their customer. I got very unprofessional service from Amex when i want to apply their card. I sent application for 2 months, no one followed up. I followed up them, and they said they needed more documents from me (but they did not contact me for). I sent them and it took then another month. I followed up again. They said the new form was in place now. They need me to sign in the new form (the credit bureau permission form) and send again. I made a note in the form that unless it worked this time. Forget it, please cancel my application. And they come back to me after few days that they need a clean signed form. I need to sign a new one for me. I said 'Forget it', it took me too much effort to become your customer while I did not see and receive any effort from the staff. How can the application of a credit card take me that few months time and lot of efforts. As you said, i have a lot of other excellent choices from other companies. I don't know whether the management, marketing, and corporate affair team of Amex are aware what a waste of effort and money putting good advertising, corporate PR, and promotion activities while you have such a poor customer service team. By far, you are behind your competitors.

I have dealt with this company now for way too long. They called me 5 or more times a day, would hang up on my husband if he answered the phone, etc. When they finally did reach me, I was told that I had a $2000 bill and "how would you like to pay that today?". I was stunned..I had no idea that this account went into collections in the first place. My husband was laid off last winter and we were doing our best to make the minimum payments on everything and had done fairly well with that, up to that point, so I was shocked to hear that I was getting calls from a collection agency. I mentioned that I was happy to set up payments with them, as I couldn't afford a $2000 payment to get them paid off. (In hindsight...I would have rather sold a limb and paid them then dealt with them for so long!) The woman I spoke with on the phone got irrate and said, "I bet you paid for your house and your car this month.". My mouth dropped to the floor! I said, "Yes, I have to have a place to live and a car to get to work to make the money to pay my bills." She then had the nerve to say, "You know, you could call the mortgage company you have your house through and file forbearance for a couple of months and then you could pay us!" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. When has it EVER been ok to NOT pay for your mortage (a need) in order to pay a credit card bill off in full. It was ridiculous. I told her that I was not willing to do that and then she said, "Well, you better get it from somewhere or we'll call your employer and set up garnishment for the payment." The whole conversation was absolutely awful, the first of many to come.
Most recently, I settled for a lower payment with them and paid off the debt in full last month. 40 days later, today, they took out my automatic payment that I had set up with them. AFTER I had paid them in FULL. I owe them NOTHING. I was furious! I called and talked to someone right away in the morning and she was fairly cooperative, but then I asked to speak with her manager. This is where it all went wrong. His name is Bob Procopio...and wow...don't ever talk to this guy. Someone peed in his wheaties! I told him, "I would like my money back in my account tomorrow by the end of business day as I owe you nothing, so I want it refunded. I expect it tomorrow EOB." He said harshly, "You can't demand when you want your money back. We'll get it to you when we get it to you!" Can they really do this? Is this even legal. Then he told me it would be a week before I would get a refund. I was again stunned! A WEEK? Wow, took a day to take it and a week to get it back...amazing! I then told him that if they don't stop those payments, I was going to call the Better Business Bureau and have them take care of it. He snapped, "Go right ahead." It infuriates me that this company acts this way and gets away with it! It is so wrong! I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one going through this. Maybe if we all report it, we can put them out of business!

I received a call at work from someone claiming to be Mr. Bays last week. He let me know he was calling from the legal department for Capitol One, and was letting me know I was about to have my wages garnisheed. I told him I was at work and wasn't allowed personal calls. I asked for his phone number and was told I"d better call him back or else.I thanked him and told him not to contact me at work.

I googled the number and discovered it was for TCR. I planned on calling Mr Bays back the next day, but before I got the chance I received another call from him at work. I told him I couldn't talk and woulld call him back. I asked him again not to call me at work. He told me I had until the end of day to call him back or my HR department would be hearing from him.

I called him back the next day and left 2 messages. He called me today, at work and at home and let me know I had until end of business to show up and pay the full amount owing.

I called Mr Bays back and let him know I didn't have $1200 extra dollars to drop off. He let me know that he was willing to settle with me for $800. I told him I didn't have that either, but was willing to work out payments.

He told me that was the best he could do, it was out of his hands...
I told him this was pretty unreasonable since this was the first I was hearing of the debt. He told me he had records showing they'd been contacting me. When I asked him to give me dates he told me he didn't have time to discuss this with me.

He told my I'd btter go and find someone to loan me the money or my HR department would be getting a garnishee request tomorrow.

I let him know I was familiar with how garnishee works and he wasn't allowed by law to do that. He fed me some line about Capitol One being a US company and he was allowed to do so.
I told him to do what he had to do and to have a nice day.

I couldn't believe this guy!

Who do they think they are. I am aware that I owe money, but my circumstances aren't allowing me to pay in full, but I do want to work with them to make payments.

I have received the same treatment from American Express and their henchmen called Total credit recovery out of Canada. They have broken the law at least twice and I will be reporting it to all the necessary organisations. Never get American Express.

I also had a bad experience with TCR. My story is I owed on an overdraft account with TD and when tD first contacted me to say I had to pay it off, I begain making payments. Withing 2 wks I paid $75% of the debt, and the day I was goint to deposit the rest, I got a letter from TCR. I spoke with a Mrs Fournier, from TCR, who was extrememly rude, and did not believe that I had made the last payment, saying she was on the same system as them. When I told her I just got off the phone with TD and they confirmed the payment, she began yelling, saying ' you have 48 hours to repay the full amount, OR ELSE, and good luck to you' and hung up on me. I was dumbfounded. I called back 3 times in a row and she would not answer. I then called TD back and told them this and told them I would rather deal with them and I just want to get this over with and I have cash in my hands. They tell me I must deal with TCR. I told them I was making one last attempt, after this, they aren't getting one more black penny out of me. So I called TCR back, and when this Mrs Fournier picked up, I politely said, please do not yell and hang up on me, I am trying to settle this. I asked for an address to send payment, she would not answer me, she would just repeat that I have to pay the full amount, and that I lied about making a payment. After being yelled at for another 3 minutes, I told her never to contact me again, and hung up.

Then, I looked this company up online, and sent a complaint to their HR department (hr@totalcrediting.com). This was around 6 p.m. on Wedneday. Thursday morning, 9:30 a.m., I got a call from the President, Mr. Jim McFarlane. He told me how sorry he was, and he told me the case was turned over to their Montreal manager, a Mr. Joe Scapelli. I am waiting for a call from him, but still have Mr.McFarlane's direct line. I also made a complaint to the FTC, and BBB, and TD.

I hope something comes out of this

American Express must own or operate Total Credit Recovery. American Express will not talk to you, to try and work out any type of payment arrangements but refer you to Total Credit Recovery, but when a payment is sent out to Total Credit Recovery, American Express records the receipt of the payment, continue to charge interest and late charges. Seems to me they are double dipping and using the most awful people of the face of the earth to do their dirty work. American Express is just as bad as Total Credit Recovery. After sending a letter advising not to telephone the work place or home they still continue to call only they are not leaving the nasty messages just hanging up. This is still a form of harrassment by calling the home 3-4 times every evening.

Does anyone have a phone number for these people? I have left message after message with no response.

Have recieved several harassing telephone calls at home and work place. When asked to stop calling, is when the yelling starts. They have threatened to charge interest. Complained to American Express, who really does not care. American Express even sent a letter stating that if I paid off the Total Credit Recovery they would issue a new cared (yeah like I would ever use AMEX again.) I'm sure AMEX knows exactly the type of people they have hired to collect. From the supervisor down to the people who answer the telephone, they are rude, have an attitude and think they can get whatever they want by harrassment. Complaints have been filed with the Attorney General as well as the Fair Debt Collection Org.

i have just received 3 extremely harassing within phone calls from a person who claimed to be Kevin Dee. I asked for cease and resist from this person but he refused. The telephone number and name of this company did not appear on the caller ID as it is supposed to. This is all regarding an account that is in my dead grandmother's account of which I am an authorized card holder. I am not legally responsible for the bill. We asked for documentation and have not received it as of yet. He went through the usually degrading comments about responsibility. He had all the polish of a 100 year old shoe. My sister has been in collections for several years and this person has violated at least 2 separate laws for consumer collections. The next move is to report it to the proper government agency. The funny thing is I want to pay it but will find myself hard pressed to send this guy a dime now. I will cut my nose off to spite my face as far as my credit is concerned just to make sure this company suffers financially.

We were treated the same way through this collection agency for a Capital One credit card. They accused my husband of spending all his money at the bar-he doesn't drink!- and that we must live in the projects and he sounds like a 'hood rat'. They never sent us a bill for this debt and refused to do so when we asked for one. They demanded the money over the phone. I think that this company is bad for everyone who hires them. For this reason alone we are not sending them there money.

I have had a personal amex blue account for several years. Recently, l I called them to set up a special payment plan to accomodate our financial situation of late. My husband is an outside sales rep. His pay has decreased due to lack of sales. I still have the person's name and extension I spoke with. I set up pmt to be deducted from my personal bank account on the 30th of every month for 1 year. The Sept. pmt was deducted. However, Oct. pmt was not. I realized it when collections called my cell phone to advise me the acct had been turned over to them. I tried several times to contact the csr. I left numerous messages for her to return my call. I spoke with other reps who stated that pmt could not be automatically deducted. They stated it was up to me to call and make a phone pmt by the due date. I finally was able to speak with a supervisor, Craig Schaffer (if that's his real name). I was absolutely attacked verbally over the phone . He stated "Katy did not tell you that and we are done dealing with you." (and turned the volume up about ten fold! ) I then requested to speak with his boss. He then stated, "why? you aren't going to change anything." I asked 4 times in a row to speak with his boss. He wouldn't allow it. I requested the name of his boss. He would not give me the information I requested. My rights have been completely violated. I did nothing to deserve any of this. I'm trying my best to do the right thing in a very difficult time; they made a mistake; and they do not plan to make it right. So, I now have a strike against me on my credit report due to Katy's mistake of not entering the info or giving me false info. I have contacted the credit bureau to inform them. Mr. Schaffer was trying to intimidate me into thinking there was no way this could be reversed. The very idea that he stated "we are done dealing with you" was absolutely the most hostile statement I've ever received from any customer service rep or manager. All of my creditors were more than happy to accomodate me due to the fact that I was attempting to avoid having any delinquencies. In the meantime, I've had no choice but to set up payment with collections.

Take this then ...

Upgrade an AMEX from GOLDEN to PLATINUM, the software will automatically cancel the Golden one if you have no debts and that's all. They didn't re-compensate back the money you already paid at the beginning of the year. In my case I paid in July 2007 130 for Golden Amex ( one year fee), in Jan 2008 I applied for Platinum based on the forms they send me, I never used Golden but only today May 3-rd 2008 and to discover that the payment was refused, I payed by debit card and when I get back home I called them and find out what is wrong with the card. I ask them WHEN and WHO canceled the card .. THEY DID, WHEN they canceled ? .. IN JANUARY, it means that I paid 130 for a year they own back me the amount between Jan and Jul ( around 65$ half of the year). In the phone conversation I get the money with no resistance from AMEX which proves that they recognize their mistake, but my next question was why your software didn't do that automatically ... Hm it is easy because foolish my loss and them win free money. ... ok but how much per year, If a million switch a year they win in average 65 millions, ( I consider that some might do that at the begging of the period some at the end so it is and average).

I do not think this is fair either. ... and the authorities should force them to refund the money back.

American Express canceled my cards after being a loyal customer for 20 years. Upon learning of the cancellation I immediately contacted AMX and was told to bring my account balance to zero and they would reinstate my accounts. I paid the entire balance on three AMX cards totaling nearly $40,000.(within 30 days) One of the three was not canceled. I contacted AMX after paying balances to find out why the accounts were not reinstated and was informed the account supervisor that made the arrangement with me was not available and should not have authorized the reinstatement. I have been a loyal customer for 20 years without any other issues. Amx should honor their agents commitments to their customers. I acted in good faith with a company I deemed trustworthy.

I can varify this persons complaint completely. I too came across hard times and have a balance that I've been paying on at the rate of $1000 / month. Yet AMEX is charging me $200 / month in fees and refuse to work with me on this. Once paid in full, I will never use another credit card again. I can pay myself $1000 / month and save enough to have plenty of spare cash in the future and not owe anyone anything. I HATE ALL BANKS!

I want this ### canceal