American Express
reviews and complaints

I just received a letter from American Express stating that they were revising our corporate credit limit down to $8, 000. Our current balance is around $7800. We've had credit as high as $25, 000 on this account. We've had the account since 1996 and have never made a late payment. As a result of this decision, two of our 3 employees will not be payed today and will have to wait until next week.

My concern is not that they lowered the limit. My problem is that they did it without calling or warning or even offering a one week or so grace period. We could have made other arrangements. But obviously, They are not concerned with helping the small businesses they claim to care so much about. Shame on you American Express. We will be closing our account with you and will tell as many associates as we can about your treatment of our company.

I own a small cosmetic company that sells all natural skincare and cosmetics via the Internet. Recently my company was ripped off by a customer who presented herself as a new eligible business. She provided me with her tax ID, her address and her website address and she placed 2 big wholesale orders in June 2008.

She had paid by American Express card. Both her orders were processed and shipped to her billing address within 48 hours by USPS priority mail with delivery confirmation. Almost 6 months later, in November, she contacted American Express and claimed that she had never authorized the purchase with my company, without ever having notified my company at all.

American Express had never informed me of her claim and charged back my bank account. I faxed them all the necessary evidence of the order having been sent and delivered to the customer's address. I spent 2 days on the phone trying to convince them that I had 2 legitimate orders from this customer, that were approved by American Express and the charge was authorized by them. Nothing helped!

American Express never notified me of any of this. After having spent 2 days on the phone they admitted that they sent the notification to some incorrect address. This, their error, did not affect their policy. 25 days after they supposedly mailed me a notice they instituted the chargeback. All I know is I never received anything from them and was not aware of any of this until I saw a chargeback on my bank statement 6 months after the original transaction. Dispite their error they automatically instituted a chargeback and informed me that any further dispute is between me and the 'customer'.

Needless to say that I canceled my merchant account with American Express but I still lost my hard earned money.

American Express' merchant policies only encourage online robberies, product theft and online fraud. My complaint is that by the nature of their chargeback policies American Express fairly encourages fraudulent chargebacks and practically encourages unscrupulous thieves in a commission of their fraudulent crimes.
Not only was I ripped off by my 'customer' but more over I am convinced that American Express behaved is nothing less than an accomplice in this crime. American Express behaved callously and offered me as one of their participating merchants no protection whatsoever, despite their own errors in this matter.

I received a letter from AE saying that my card was canceled due to a bankruptcy that I filed for. I have never filed bankruptcy and I am not in the process of doing so. After hours of fighting with the completely surly and incompetent AE front line staff and supervisors, I found out that they had recorded another account holder's bankruptcy in error to my account. The error was due to a data entry error on their end.

AE refuses to send a letter of error and to confirm or deny whether or not they reported the erroneous closure of my account due to bankruptcy to the credit reporting agencies. I am waiting to receive my credit report. Can't view it on line due to 'freeze' on credit, which indicates to me that AE's incompetency has had a negative effect on my good credit.

AE has refused to take accountability for their error. They did send a new card, which I promptly shredded (never will use that card again). And the real kicker of this, is they sent a card with conditions of use indicating a higher interest rate than the card I previously held with an excellent rate which I earned over years of low balance and steady payment history.

Warning to all AE card holders, if AE makes an egregious error to your account be prepared for days of fighting with them, zero customer assistance, being treated poorly and a refusal to document the error and provide you with a statement of error and correction.

It seems ridiculous that I may actually end up having to hire an attorney to get AE to clean up their damage.

Check to make sure your payments are getting posted correctly and you may want to check to make sure no one else is getting your account information through the process of filing a bankruptcy! If they can record another account holder's bankruptcy to your account, do they also disclose your account number to the person whom filed bankruptcy? Makes you wonder who across the world may get your account information handed to them by AE.

AE doesn't give a RIP about customers in good standing. Actions speak louder. than words.

I feel American Express treats their customers badly and will do whatever they can to make as much money off of you. I had been a customer for over 10 years and had been paying faithfully and on time for years. Then, last year we received a notice--after we made some rather large charges -- that we no longer had a credit limit and that any new charges we incur would be due at the end of the month. I have no idea why this was done other than American Express wanted to get their money back and hurt us financially. I had paid off the card last month finally and tried to close the account before the membership amount was due, but because of delays by American Express, they charged me another $85 for membership renewal even though the amount owed was paid in full and we requested the account closed. I truly feel ripped off by American Express and will never use any of their products ever again.

What ever happened with this? They are such thieves. They just stole $833 dollars from me. It's disgusting that businesses can run however they want with no recourse.

I too had a $25, 000. limit never going above 12k. I recived the phone call of the lower limit. And after paying $4, 000. on my card thinking that would stop them from ever lowering my limit again...not the case . today three months after the time ..they did it again know $9, 900.limit when I have a $8, 800. balance.

I would love to join a lawsuit, this cannot be legal to play games with peoples FICO score.

T Warlick
long Beach, CA

On Friday, October 05, 2007 at approximately 700 pm, pst, I contacted American Express Card Company and spoke to a card account representative who stated that she would remove the charge from my account. I then inquired as to how this charge was authorized in the first place.

She then stated “We mail out non-requested magazine subscriptions to our card members and if they don’t respond we automatically charge their account with the annual subscription amount. Again I asked who authorized this charge and she replied we just automatically charge it to your account. I asked for a way to make a formal complaint as to how they are automatically deciding on my behalf and without my consent to apply charges to my account. She then gave me an address (American Express, PO Box 981542, El Paso, TX 79998) to send a dispute/complaint letter to and stated that this is just the way they do things at American Express at which time we ended our conversation. I will be pursuing fraudulent credit card charges against American Express because they charged something to my account without my consent. Just because I hadn't responded to the magazine offer thru American Express doesn't mean they have the right to automatically charge my account. Based upon the fact that my LACK OF RESPONSE to their magazine subscription does not give them the right to charge anything without my consent. The question is how many other American Express card holders are being charged for magazine subscriptions who hadn't responded to a non-solicited magazine.

You don't own the card/account, American Express does. So you want to file a fraud claim for charges that the card issuer put on "your " account? This doesn't sound right. Your story doesn't make any sense. Additionally, the card issuer gave you credit for the charge. I'm sure Amex got consent to enroll you in the magazine. I'm sure you didn't completely read some sweepstakes form or other promotion that was sent to you.

American Express is a very powerful company and gets away with a lot of abuses. That are not generally known until an individual uncovers one on a bad day, as above. Most people won't spend the time to deal with this and Amex knows it.

You are correct on this. If u did not order something and it is sent to you anyway, you are NOT obligated to pay for it and they cannot do this on your behalf.

Contact your state attorney general.

Contact your local media.

Fight Back!

What can we do as a group to stop this? If you read all of these AMEX stories from customers who truly don't deserve this, from this website and many, many more...there has to be a way to get this resolved. There must be a lawyer or congressman that will take this on and expose this situation. Maybe CNN, GMA or 20/20 can do a story and expose this now, not later after AMEX has done all this damage to good people and their credit scores!

Same thing here. My credit limit was lowered and I was advised due to low score and delinquent accounts. I obtained the credit report and my score is over 900 and no late accounts. Everything is perfectly fine. I have been calling for weeks and asking for supervisor. I faxed their credit dept my report and was told in review. I keep getting the run around. Thats fine if you need to lower my limit because I do not use the card often but don't tell me for the wrong reason. This is absolutely not acceptable. I hope there is a law suite over this. I especially feel bad for those over their limits that did not get advance notice. Shame on A-mex. This is very bad business practice.

Had the exact same experience with 2 Amex cards. When I took out my American Express Blue Card they offered me a $10, 000.00 limit and I transferred a balance from another card to it which was $4300.00. Never made a purchase on the blue card. I get notified that they lowered my credit limit to $4500.00. Same excuses as all of you. FICO score of 763 which I watch very carefully. No negative reports, no late payments and if you added the balances of all my other cards together it may equal $1000.00. Put in a dispute, sent them copies of my credit reports, FICO score. Got a letter back stating that due to the amount of money I owe out and bla bla bla. So that was a resounding NO. As for my green AMEX, they set a credit limit $500.00. I have never made a late payment to AMEX in all the years I've had them. While all this is happening to my credit, my husband got a letter from Discover, they raised his limit another $1200.00. Imagine that when I pay his card as well as mine. Oh well... Karma

Did the same to me today. Told me I had several negatives on my credit report. I got my report and none! I called back and was told debt to income to high. Credit score 780? How could that be? Cut my limit from $11, 000 to $4, 300. I am at $4, 100.00 and that means it looks like I am almost maxed out. Also told I don't pay enough each month. I only had one bill since I had not used the card in over 5 years. I paid 3 times what they asked for but was given a response that I now I charged $3, 000.o0 more this month and haven't paid anything on it. I have NOT even received this months bill never the less pay it. It is not due till the end of the month. Asked rep why that set a payment minimum this month at $84.00 but really want hundreds? No answer. Have been with AE since the 1980's and I am angry with these tactics. Always thought they were a solid company. Will pay off this account and will NEVER use this card again. Waiting for them to lower credit again like they do to everyone. I hope they go down like some of the others. Rude to boot. I also hope a class action suit starts...need a good lawyer and then count me in.

I had the exact same thing happen. I have stellar credit. Never missed a payment, or been late. I have an AmEx business card - they've lowered the limit twice. I also have a personal card. We used it at Costco this last weekend and got an AUTOMATED phone call a few hours later that they'd lowered my limit from $10K to $1000! WTF!. So, we will be paying off the balance and canceling. They apparently don't want any customers. Especially the kind that can and do pay their bills.

I wish some attorney would start a class action suit involving all of us who have been duped on this american express credit card sham! As far as I am concerned, they are involved in criminal acts. There must be thousands if not millions of us out there who have been abused. I don't care if I ever get a dime out of this . I would just like to see them fry on this whole deal. Just because the whole economy tanked, why should we all of a sudden be the bad ones with alleged bad credit risks. If you ask me, they are the ones with the problem. Why the government ever allowed them to be become a bank and borrow money is beyond me. Now we are paying the price for their poor money management.

AMEX has lowered my limit twice since December of 2008. Each time, they lowered it to less than 1k above what I owe them, and in both cases the letter from them states it is due to poor credit report, and high risk.

In both instances I immediately went to Experian to get my free credit report that is allowed whenever someone is denied credit. I also paid the 5.95 extra to get my credit score.

Both times my credit report shows NO POTENTIALLY NEGATIVE ITEMS!
In fact, my credit score which was 782 in Dec. of '08 actually went UP to 785 this time around!

American Express, shame on you for not just telling the truth. If you have overextended yourselves and need to pull back some credit that you have out their to protect the company, fine...just do it and say that's why.

Don't send bogus letters to long time customers saying that the reduction in credit was OUR FAULT!

If AMEX does not want to stick with me during the hard times, I do not want anything to do with them during the good times.

It is my intention to pay off my balance with AMEX and cease to do business with them going forward.

They are going to find I think that this will backfire, and their plan to "protect the company" is going to end up costing them the company all together. American Express will be just one more thing we talk to our grand kids about when we speak of the "olden days".

I am havig the same problem with Amex...

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I bought $2000 worth of American Express in 8 gift cards to give to customers to create goodwill. 1 card I had not yet given out. One customer called me to tell me her card was not working. I had Amex check the other card I still had and found out that one also was not activated, even though I have the activation receipt! The Gift Card Resolution team was willing to send me a replacement for the 2 non-working cards I had in my possession. Now I am left with going back to my customers and asking for those cards back. More than likely, they tried to use the cards, said a few choice words about me and just discarded the non-working cards. Now to replace them and try and minimize the bad-will this has created, I will be taking a loss of another $1600. Amex won't replace the cards from the receipt or even credit me back the processing fee unless I can produce the non-working cards from my customers. DO NOT BUY Amex gift cards to give to anyone you actually like, or you could have your gift blow up in your face like this has for me!

I just bought a $25.00 Amex gift card for my daughter so she could buy a game online five dollar change. The Web sight had a picture of the Amex card on its page. The card would not work and when I called the help desk I got some Indian guy with plenty of excuses. After waiting two hours and trying repeatability still no game. Now I have to wait until Monday after 7AM to call them back and my daughter is crying she wants to play her game. I want a full refund and I have Monday off so I have all day to spend on the phone. I will never buy a AMEX gift card again and I will tell everyone I know to stay away too. Who else can we call to complain about them?

I have $100 X 3 American express gift cards( $300 total) not activated. When I called American express, I got an Indian call center that implied that I stole the cards and said I was lying when I said they had a problem with their computer system.

When the activation instruction were followed, the balance on the cards were check online before they were fully activated which caused their system never to active the cards.

Now, it has been days since the activation and the cards have zero balance on them.

Why can't American express fix their computer systems? My guess is because it is run by these Indian call centers who are like mindless robots which follow a script and have no ability to look into problems that fall outside their script.

Stay far far away from these cards or else American express will end up stealing your money.

We opened an American Express Costco Card 2 months ago. It was cancelled 2 months later, due to our 'credit report'. How much could it have changed in 2 months? We have no late fees, no problem areas and no understanding of what happened. I am relieved to hear this is a pervasive problem as I have been searching for what happened. And their closure of our account will do more to hurt our credit than anything they could have found. A class action suit is in order. Portland, Oregon

Same thine happened to me. I think it would be a good idea to have a class action suit. Please contact me scarlett185@mac.com

Steer clear of Amex prepaid gift cards. Gift cash instead and save yourself the headaches.

I was given 3 Amex prepaid gift cards as a holiday present ($500, $50, $25). First, I called the toll-free number on the back of the Amex card to verify the full amounts were available - - they were.

Surprisingly, few retail stores in my NYC area would accept Amex gift cards. I should have gotten the hint then, but I forged on innocently.

A Nordstrom department store accepted my Amex gift cards, however the clerk was having such a hard time exchanging the Amex cards for Nordstrom gift cards (standard procedure?), that she became frustrated.

After 5 minutes of trying without success, the clerk asked me how I was going to pay, then dismissed me and told me to go to customer service. At that point, I started getting very embarrassed.

Next, I discovered that when the clerk swiped my cards to then cancelled my purchase, the cards were showing $0 balance.

No merchandise. No money on my Amex gift cards, and no Nordstrom gift card.

Nightmare.

Welcome to the club! AMEX took away 70k of our available credit with no warning. No lates, 700+ score. What they are doing should be against the law. I wrote a blog with some things I did to fight back:

http://amexcreditreduction.blogspot.com/

The funny part is they are also asking for BILLIONS from the bailout bill. The same bill that was passed by congress to INCREASE lending!

Once again, they little people get the shaft, while corporate america gets a bailout. Shameful. Shameful Shameful.

They lied - it was American Express's decision to cut your limit - YOUR CREDIT RATING had nothing to do with it. IT WAS PURELY A BUSINESS DECISION. ALL THE CREDIT CARD COMPANIES ARE DOING IT!

Its the economy - they are claiming it was your credit rather than admit it was a company decision They ARE DOING IT TO EVERYONE!

Same thing happened to me. They screwed up, admitted they screwed up and said "sorry, you're in collections we can't do anything". I had never made a late payment. Matter of fact, I was paying more than the minimum. I have contacted the BBB and now the State Attorney general. I told the debt collectors that I will not pay as long as I am in collections, but I will pay AMEX if they fix this. I made the charges I will pay them. Luckily my ex-husband destroyed my credit so this is really doing anythiny MORE to it, but the principle of it is jsut ridiculous. At least I have a divorce decree stating I wasn't responsible for his things, but this AMEX was in my name! Not happy, but they're going to be a lot unhappier when I'm done. They should learn the cardinal rule of customer service. Apologize early, because the longer your mistakes go on and people get harassed and pissed off, the more your mistakes cost you. Good luck on your end!

American Express Gift Card Promotion Is a scam. They tell you that they are going to send you a $10.00 Gift card after you refill the card 2 times @75 dollars.
Then they dont send the card. Customer service is in Some country where They dont have the first clue about the english lanquage.

I can swear that happened to me too.
First, about 8-9 months with Amex Blue and I thought perhaps it was my fault so did nothing and paid late fee. Now it happened again! I always schedule a payment as soon as I get statement for all my cards and have not missed any of my credit card payments except for Amex. Seems a strange way of going crazy if it affects just one of several credit cards that I have. Also, why can't Amex have a normal autopay function that allows to pay on due date? I bet they chose to make it difficult on purpose by making customers
choose "# of days after statement".

They absolutely do not recognize any business with them beyond the previous month. I had been an American Express blue, then gold and also a corporate card member for 20 years. One month I missed paying my balance that coincided with the company I was working for shutting their doors. Suddenly I had to speak to their collection department who were very rude. They had actually sent my file to a collection agency. The representative from the collection agency was extremely aggressive using various tactics and threats. I won’t even mention his name since he was [censor]. When this happened I called American Express and spoke to a Mr. Fernandez. After I gave him a piece of my mind from 20 years of loyalty, he called the collection agency to cool them down. An agreement was made to pay in installments over a period of time. The collection agency representative couldn't believe it and asked me "who are you and how did you manage that". Well, since he was [censor], he had no idea how the business world worked, he was puzzled. Now Mr.Fernandez also promised me to re-activate my card once the balance was paid. When I completed the payments, I called back Mr. Fernandez and no one knew where he was in the company. He mysteriously disappeared and my request to re-instate my card was completely refused. What they don't know is that I record all my telephone conversations when dealing with over the telephone promises. One day, when time permits, someone at American Express will re-instate my card when they listen to the conversation.

I have had the same issue just today. This is definitely a scam. I schedule my payments online. I check my bank balance daily and have noticed that my pmt due Nov 2nd was not getting processed. The money was still in the bank. So I log into Amex this morning, and guess what? No record of the payment.
The rep said they have no record of it either. The supervisor waived the late fee of $25. But I am still upset. You can't trust a business like that. I used to have autopay. I guess since I removed it, they screwed something up and just deleted my manually set up payment. Who knows...

I have had trouble w/ online payments as well. They now send you a confirmation email, but they changed my bill closing date from what was posted on the website when I made my payment vs. what was paid on my bill.

When I have tried to talk to the 'drones' that work in AMEX customer service, they refuse to listen...

I used to love AMEX... Now I despise them... I have been w/ them since 1995...

The other thing this situation demonstrates is that to AMEX, cardholders are only as good as their last payment. A long past history with a card does not mean a thing to them...

Hi,

I'm so glad I found this post, which confirms mine isn't an isolated case. They charged me a late fee plus a 75% reduction in my credit line. I told the CSR the situation and she said she's never heard of prescheduled payments disappearing before. I'm sure it's some sort of scheme to charge late fees and get rid of people who pay the whole balance on time all the time. They only make the real money with those who carry a balance. I'm going to say bye bye to AE and try someone else.

I thought I was the only one or that I was going crazy. I distinctly remember scheduling a payment for my Blue card at the beginning of the month only to look today and see that it had not posted. The result was a $38 late fee. A call to AMEX and the charge was removed, but I know I had made the payment. I like the cash back, but this company isn't being run properly. Add to that the fact that their retailer rates gouge small businesses and I'm seriously considering canceling my card.