American Express
Reviews and Complaints

American Express sent me an invitation offered credit cards application with deal that if I spend $500.00 before between December 1, 2008 to February 26, 2009 I can earn bonus points and be eligible for 2 domestic flight. I had bad experience with American Express once long time ago, but I though I give it a chance. I get approved for Rewards Plus Gold Card and earned 51, 007 points from spending according to agreement. On January 29, 2009, I received letter from American Express informed that my account has been canceled due to " I did not provide the financial document and/or income tax return information requested" and the letter also thread me with under these circumstances may result in negative reporting of this account to the consumer reporting agencies. When I applied for credit card all my personal information had been given included my work address and my home address. American Express keep sent the bills to my company head-quarter and were forward to my home address. Finally the last billing statement and the letter of cancellation come to my home address. My complaints is American Express offered with the false pretense for consumer to go and change on the credit card and then decided to cancelled the credit card and void the reward points. I was not late or over-due on the bill. I am suggesting that if anyone wants to have an American Express you might think before you do, don't waist you times and effort and get your blood pressure up for it.

12/22/08 I received a $50 American Express gift card as a Christmas gift from a friend in Plano, TX. I tried to use the card that very evening at a nearby Walmart to purchase some last minute gift for my child. The self-check out would not accept the card so I asked an employee to finish my transaction at her terminal. The card kept spitting out receipts with zero balances. I paid for my items with cash and called AMEX when I got home 30 minutes later. I was told that my friend who purchased the card needed to call them with her receipt information before they would investigate.

12/30/08 I sent an email to my friend letting her know what happened and she called AMEX herself. They told her I'd spent the money already and that she could see the transaction online. I went online myself and checked and the website said the information was unavailable. I called AMEX again; just as one other gift card victim experienced the agent explained that although the receipt claimed the card was activated it was not and contained a balance of $0 not $50. I too was told to fax over copies of the receipt, front and back of gift card plus the packaging, a photo id, my name, address, phone number.

01/05/09 faxed over all items; no response from AMEX that information was received

01/08/09 still no response from AMEX so I called yet again. My first call was directed to the resolution department's extension which rang three times and hung up. I called customer service again and the agent Michelle says they did receive my faxed information.

01/14/09 still no response from AMEX. Agent Gail says they are sending me a letter to my home with an update to my case but would not tell me what the letter would say.

01/23/08 still no response from AMEX. Agent Kat says the letter was sent on 1/14 but would take 10 business days (talk about snail mail) to arrive at my home. I found the letter waiting for me when I got home and was sent into total shock when I read it. AMEX claims that I sent them the wrong receipt (total lie!) and that it did not match their information. Not only that but if I did not sent them the correct receipt immediately that the case would be closed. This is crazy! They show in their system the exact store that I was at when this fiasco occurred, I send them a receipt from that store showing the same timeframe, but my receipt is unacceptable?

Are they really that starved for money? If they treat non-customers this way I can't imagine how actual customers are treated. This has been a month of hell and many times I just said forget it, it was the thought that counts, but I can't back down from a scandal like this. This is total nonsense and I want them to credit my card or my friend for her original funds. It's one thing to read about these nightmares, it's quite another to live through.

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. Despite 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.

That's right folks with a credit score of 719 I found out today that American Express, just this morning, lowered my credit limit on my American Express Business Platinum card. They lowered my limit to $400 dollars above my current limit.

I just made a payment of $1, 000 on this card last week. I was no where near my limit but my charge was rejected, wouldn't you know, when I was trying to buy airline tickets to take my family vacation.

This is a new practice that the financial world is now employing if you haven't heard about it, let me share what I know. They now do periodic reviews of your credit and based on their questionable formulas of the debt ratio you have on other cards and other information about your credit that doesn't pertain to the account you have with them at all, they make decisions to lower or even cut off your credit.

This is what we get for bailing them out with billions. I am sure all the fat cats at the top got their bonuses and instead of opening up the lines of credit to encourage confidence and spending, they are going into a hoard mode. UNBELIEVABLE!

I have been a member with AMX since 1981, usually the gold card that you pay off at the end of the month. So AMX comes out with this new business card plan and offer me this card to purchase equipment for start up and now they cut my limit in half.

What a way to stimulate the economy and encourage more economic growth. Cut available credit so you can't expand. This is only the tip of the iceberg I am afraid. But as for American Express, they have lost a loyal customer that will find another place to do business.

After years of not missing a credit card payment deadline, I missed one on my new American Express Corporate card. I was signed up for electronic vs. paper notification. I attempted repeatedly to pay online, 01/12, 01/14, 01/18. 01/19, 01/20. The American Express site was down, and I could not review my bill. The amount due in the notification email was different than the amount due on the telephonic "pay your bill", so I wanted to understand the difference before making payment. When I finally got a hold of a person on the 20th and had access to the website, I was able to get my questions answered, understand the bill, and make a full payment.

However, I was forced to pay a penalty, and began incurring daily finance charges. I tried to make a full balance payment to eliminate the daily finance charges on 01/31 and 01/05 but the site was down. Once again, I finally got a hold of a person on 01/06, and although the site was down, I was able to make a payment based on our discussion that cleared all the balance, interest, and penalties.

American Express wants to save money by using paperless billing. They therefore incur an obligation to keep the site up the vast majority of the time. The site's repeated outage is more than an inconvenience; I have the right to know what I am paying for and ensure the accuracy of the bill before making payment. However, the company threw the liability of timely payment back on me stating that I could have called an operator; I did not need access to my account to make a payment.

Note that the other financial institutions I do business with, ING and USAA Bank, had no know outages during the same period. Over the past year I have worked with them in a paperless billing relationship, there have not been any unscheduled site outages.

AMEX is responsible for maintaining access to their site. This is not a profit opportunity; their downtime is their liability, not the consumers. They should be compensating the business that patronize them for repeated site outages.

Therefore I am dropping AMEX Corporate as too unreliable of service to maintain a banking relationship with. Began incurring penalties, $59 fine. AMEX reversed the late payment fee, but was not concerned about the site access issues I raised. They did not deny the site was down, but stated that it was "not their problem".

My credit card limit was recently lowered from 17, 000.00 to 5, 000.00 dollars. When I called to question this action I was told that I have delinquent accounts on my credit report and that my proportion of balance was to high. The people I talked to said that My credit score showed delinquent accounts, so I went and looked at my credit report which I pay American Express to monitor, and nothing has changed for a long time. I have had no delinquent accounts in a long time, and I certainly have not have had any since I applied for this card and got it about 8 months ago. They told me that they credit report I was looking at which was all threee of the credit reporting agencies was only 75% accurate. How is that possible what am I paying them for if I only get some of my credit report? They then told me that I do not pay enough each month, in November of 2008 I paid 9, 000.00 dollars, well above the minimum payment, also I pay more than the minimum payment every month. My question is the legality of this. I assume this hurts my credit, and If they do this whithout good cause and without any grounds is that legal? They will not tell me anything more but that, I just dont see how this is legal. Also this happened to my parents company. They own a small buisness, and American Express cut their credit limits and told them it was do to credit scores. When hey researched it they found that they were wrong and that their credit was excellent and they always paid their bill, American Express gave them the run around for 6 months until they just gave up. This is wrong if not legally than morally!

American Express has become a sub-standard card. During the holiday season numerous places of business denied the card complaining that they are charging retail vendors too much. It was also turned down by several restaurants, one of which I was lucky enough to have just enough cashto pay the check and had to apologize to the waitress for stiffing her.

I also booked a flight the beginning of Dec. to the Dominican Republic using my membership rewards points. The Am Ex operator directed me to go online and use 67, 239 points...the equivilent of what she said was a $672.39 ticket. Now, I found out that I could have transfered 25, 000 miles to Jet Blue and booked it through them. So basically, Am Ex screwed me out of 42, 239 points! I called to complain and when I couldn't get anyone on the phone from Am Ex that spoke clear english, I finally asked, "Where are you located?"

Amex is doing a scam on the public by advertising in the media and on its online site that there is no pre-set limit on their charge card which you pay in full each month. Maybe in the past that was true but when you are embarrased after a DECLINE at the merchant you find that they are perpetrating false advertising on the public and they don't have the decency of any warning of the limit till it is too late. Shame on you AMEX
the credit card companies and banks want the help of the taxpayers but they act like loanshark mobsters with their customers who have excellent payment records

We have been American Express cardholders for years in order to access our car insurance through Costco. A couple of years ago American Express began a campaign to encourage cardholders to pay bills electronically. We preferred to avoid this payment option and noticed that despite being paid well in advence of the due date, we were told that the payements were arriving late. Customer service agents at AMEX told us it would be better to pay online and avoid this problem which they attributed to the post office. We chose not to do this but instead started paying by phone. Last month our bill was not even received until 13 days after the due date. The envelopes are prepaid so there is no record of the postmark and as usual customer service agents are blaming the post office for the delays and encouraging us to pay online to avoid these issues. We have never had a problem with any of our other mail! We called our local post office (who has fielded similar complaints from other American Express customers, some of whom had to pay for priority delivery to avoid late penalties) and they deny the problem is at their end but unfortunately they have no way to track the incoming bill without a postmark.
We have spoken to other Costco members who have had the exact same problem but most of them got tired of fighting late fees and switched to the online payment system. We also spoke with a Costco employee who was familiar with this problem from others who had similar experiences. She told us to fill out a complaint about AMEX and encouraged others to do the same...So if this has happened to you please let Costco hear about it and perhaps they will drop this credit card company in favor of a company that is more ethical.

I bought a $50 American Express gift card from CVS in Diamond Bar for my brother-in-laws birthday. Three days later he tried using the card and it was declined at three places. Turns out although the receipt claimed the card was activated it was not and contained a balance of $0 not $50 that was charged as well as a fee of $4.95. I called AMEX customer service, they told me to fax over copies of the receipt of purchase, front and back of card, it's packaging and my state issued ID. I had this problem happen months ago and CVS called AMEX and resolved the problem within minutes and CVS issued me a new card in store. Now CVS has a "new policy" with AMEX and customers MUST go through AMEX exclusively. I think I'm getting the run around as I've read has happened to MANY other unsuspecting customers. I think a class action lawsuit may be in order! As well, if I don't get satisfaction from AMEX I will see if the local Los Angeles TV news stations want to hear the story of the big card company AGAIN ripping off the hard working consumers!

I recently returned from Afghanistan.

After inacting the federally mandated Service Members Civil Relief Act American Express told me thay had recieved negative cret information from Equifax and had to reduce my available credit.

I pulled my credit report and discovered my credit is super-clean without a single mark with a credit score is "excellent". My American Express account has always been paid in full and I have A+ credit. After years of trusting AMEX I find that I have no faith in the company. Who knows if the card will be accepted or declined when used. American Express FIRST lowers the available credit THEN sends out a notification letter. I guess they have better things to do than make money off of my business. Good riddence!

AMEX reduced my credit limit as an act of revenge for my enactment of the Service Members Civil Relief Act. How do I know? This is the second time they reduced my available credit and both times it was within days of either enacting the Service Members Civil Relief Act or days of renewing the Service Members Civil Relief Act. Coincidence? Nope!

I will be looking elsewhere for my financial requirements. American Express can no longer be trusted. Beware: they are beginning to show signs of financial collapse.

My husband has been a member with American Express since 1993. In the last two years we have spent $3, 000 a month on the card and before for that more like $800.00 to $1, 000.00. Of course we would pay it off each month. In May 2008 my husband was laid off. We were still making the payments. When August came and he'd still had no luck getting a job so we'd called up American express and spoke with them about how we'd reached hard times right now. They set us up in their CARE Program and the agreement was to pay $410.00 each month for a year till it was paid off and our account would be reinstated. That was August 14th. We than paid the bill each month after - Sept. 11th, Oct. 10th and Nov. 10th.

Come November 15th we'd received a letter from AMEX stating that we hadn't paid our bill and if we didn't it would be sent to collections. We called American Express and the rep stated that it was a system error but that we would have to make another $410 payment. The rep also stated that the payment would drop when he re-enrolled us in it again it would be about $200. We would still have paid the $410 though. We told the rep we did not have the money to make another $410 payment since we'd just made one. Rep stated that it was OK to make the payment come December. November 18th comes and we get a call from a collections agency stating that our acct had been sent to them.

My husband called AMEX and they cold transfered him right over to collections. On 12/03/08 he called again and they stated that they were unable to assist him because his acct was in collections that they would transfer him to collections. My husband refused to be transfered and the rep was unwilling to help so my husband hung up the phone. So I immediately called AMEX. I spoke with rep id# 85970 in Manila and immediately asked to speak with a supervisor. Rep stated that I would have to tell her whats going on, so I told her the story. The Rep then proceeded to tell me that her supervisor refused to speak with me. I also heard her floor supervisor speaking to her in Filipino which I know is NOT OK. She than tried to warm transfer me to Account Services but she got back on the line stating that Account Services refused to speak to us as well. Finally after over an hour of being on the phone she transfered me to a Supervisor (I'm assuming). Supervisor became very agitated when I asked for her name and rep id; trying to ignore the question. Her rep id# NOVB815 which I have reason to think that is not even her id#. Oh and she is also in Manila. She placed me on hold for 15 minutes right after she'd received my call than came back on acted like she couldn't hear me than stated "oh, just a sec, just a sec" and placed me back on hold. Then came back on and quickly mumbled something. I asked her to slow down and she stopped and asked to speak to my husband. I put him on the line and she told him that they saw where we had been making our payments and that some one will give us a call back later that day (Dec 3rd, 2008). I told my husband to ask for a case# or a commitment date and she said there was no such thing. No one ever called us back!

We've wrongfully been sent to collections! We spoke with a gentleman from the 3rd party Collections Agency and he'd stated we're not the only ones this has happened to. He said that it was showing our account was flagged to be able to get another credit card with them after we paid this one off. Does that even make sense? That they would want to give us another card if we weren't paying our bill and "had" to be sent to collections? THERE IS NO WAY I'M GETTING ANOTHER CARD WITH THEM! They will either fix this and allow us to keep THIS account OR nothing at all. Our credit is immaculate and there is no way I'm OK with wrongfully being sent to a COLLECTIONS AGENCY!

I'm at a complete loss... I don't know what to do. Maybe I will take it up with the media. They talk about things that aren't even news and this to me is more news than many stories I've seen lately.

My husband and I received 2 American Express gift cards for our wedding from his boss at work. Both were $100 in value and purchased at a local Wawa.

The very evening we received them, my husband opened one of the gift cards up to find that the box had been slit on the side and the gift card was missing. He immediately called American Express to inform them of the missing card in order to have it replaced. They said they would note the complaint and we would receive a phone call within 5 business days. After a week passes, we still never received a call.

My husband calls a second time and discovers that they have NO RECORD of the first call. He gives them the information again, and once more they tell him that American Express will call him within 5 business days.

We got married and went away on our honeymoon for almost 2 weeks without hearing a thing from American Express. My husband calls a third time, and the employee on the other end tells him that he needs to send in the receipt for the gift card purchase. This was GIFT! We didn't buy the card, it was given to us. My husband is not tactless enough to ask his boss for the receipt for our wedding gift because the card had been stolen in the store. If American Express was competent enough to have recorded the first complaint, hours after the card had been purchased, perhaps we could have had it replaced. Instead, we spent a month trying to resolve the issue and got nowhere.

I feel terrible that my husband's boss gave us a gift that went to waste because American Express lacks proper customer service.

We did not receive a replacement card and $100 was probably spent by the thief who stole it in the first place. We will never purchase American Express gift cards for this very reason and I canceled the credit card I had with them.

Don't reward your customers with AMEX gift cards. They will curse you for it.

I had 2 amex gift cards which expired and AMEX isnot willing to re-activate my AMEX GC. Each time I got a new 800 number to call. Basically I am out of $50.

I am a happy customer with their Credit Cards but their Gift Cards suck.