Credit Card Companies Gone Bad

A friend of mine had a recent incident with American Express that I found somewhat curious and unsettling. I thought my writing about the incident would be beneficial to those that may have placed themselves in the same type of situation with Amex. I can only speak for Amex but you may want to take heed with any other CC companies you are dealing with.

The scenario: Bill & Sally acquired an Amex card for use on business travel. Bill traveled overseas on a regular basis to purchase products for their business. Bill was the only one listed on the CC, which was fine. Sally, who pays all of her bills online proceeded to set up their Amex account online and set the billing to paperless billing, an easy, useful and secure means of tracking and paying their CC. Bill, went overseas and made a few purchases. Amex fraud department called to verify the charges. I applaud any CC company that does this as did Sally. After all it is for your protection. Because Sally was not listed on the CC she was not able to verify the charges. Bill, in Argentina at the time, did not call home often so Sally continued to pay the Amex bill. They both made the decision not to use the card until Bill returned home to verify the charges.

Well I guess Bill didn't arrive home soon enough. In the midst of his trip away Amex locked Sally out of the online account. She was not able to make an online payment, had no paper statement to send in, nor Bill's full account number or CC number in hand to make a payment via a check at the listed address for Amex.

Sally called Amex at least three times asking them to a take a payment for her, either over the phone as a check or as a debit. At this point Sally wasn't even aware of their balance. Amex refused. Why? Because Sally was not listed on the account. With all due respect to Amex, the woman was not seeking info. on a CC, she was seeking to make a payment. Why would Amex NOT accept a payment no matter where it came from and no matter what kind of lock was on the account? What part of the word payment did they not understand?

We now have a CC that was in good standing, locked for two months, with no viable payment method accepted by Amex and a constant barrage of more fees which eventually brought the CC over limit.

Bill returned home, called Amex, confirmed the charges, added Sally to the account to speak with, had the online account unlocked and canceled. Sally began to make their payments. Of course at this time the account was considered in arrears due to the abundant overcharges. Sally paid what she could to catch up, which I believe any consumer would do, and was making good on the CC. All seemed well. Until, the calls began to come in.

Amex decided to turn to account over to a company called United Recovery a collection agency with a reputation like a snake in a cage. Sally made a call to Amex and got a wonderful rep. that was able to see her previous attempts to make payments and gave her some useful info. He wiped out the late fees they'd incurred during the lock out period and told her to call UR, ask for a supervisor and arrange a payment schedule that fit their needs. She was assured by Amex that UR would help them manage the account until it was paid. NOT.

Sally was connected with a woman named Alexis. With a recorded session on UR's end, Sally informed them she was doing the same on hers. A fantastic job on her part. Alexis, although doing her job was not the brightest bulb on the tree nor were they accommodating. For some reason UR employees are trained to be interrogators rather then professionals. They insisted Sally had to pay the amount due in full. Now that we're into the main section of this fiasco let me state that the outstanding balance on the Amex card in question was a little over $4,000. Not a small amount but not a huge amount that could not be easily worked with. Alexis gave all sorts of advice to Sally. Go to family, friends, cash in your 401K, charge it off to another CC. The kicker to the entire conversation between Sally and Alexis was when Alexis informed her that she had their credit report in front of her and saw that they made timely payments and were in good standing. Welcome clue number one and an extremely stupid move on the part of Alexis if further action is to be taken. So with that being said Sally told her she was willing to take $300 a month auto debit out of her account towards the debt. Get rid of it and let's move on. Nope. Alexis was not biting. The offer was 6 months to pay, with no interest or penalties with an auto debit of $771 a month. In order to be done with Amex and UR, Sally had no other choice but to agree. Sally & Bill now had a closed account, other bills to pay and a large chunk of their income being taken away for 6 months which meant they had to juggle other bills. I know some of you are sitting there thinking, look they have the debt, they owe it, and they're obligated to pay. We all agree. In fact, even after Amex unlocked the account, and it was yet unknown to Sally and Bill that the account had gone to collections, Sally was still able to make payments online via Amex on her bill and had brought it up to date. So why was the account not pulled from UR? She can still make payments, after speaking with Alexis, via her Amex online account as well. So who's really holding the account? Amex or UR? After the fact Sally is now realizing she could have continued to make her payments via the Amex account and been fine had UR taken further action. Her payments would have shown as current on a canceled card. Is it too late to stop? No but why bother.

We had some lengthy discussions after Sally made the commitment to UR. One of the biggest problems we found was in the statement Alexis made regarding Sally and Bills good credit and payment history. That's where UR felt Sally & Bill could handle the balance due in larger monthly fees. Had Sally & Bill had poor credit and a number of outstanding debts showing late fees and poor payment history UR would have had to rethink their stance. After all, how do you water from a stone? We now have Sally & Bill being punished for taking care to assure their credit is good standing. What were they thinking?

Another side to this is that Sally was told by Alexis that they would receive a letter once a month to inform them that the stated amount was going to be withdrawn on the 14^th of that month and to assure the monies were in the account named. Sally & Bills first letter came yesterday, the 16^th, from UR reminding them to have money in their account for the past march 14^th withdrawal. A little late on the take are we Alexis?

So who's at fault here? Sally for making 3-4 efforts to make a payment to Amex, Amex for refusing to take those payments, or Bill for not being home to verify his overseas charges? We place our bet on Amex.

We, the American people, need a bailout. We, the American people, need a short term reprieve, placed into effect by this administration, on all bills due above and beyond the essential utilities. We, the American people, deserve our own chance to catch up, be it from the loss of income, to a disability, to medical bills. We, the American people deserve to get back on our feet in order for the economy to get back on theirs. We, the American people, are our nation's largest financial institute and should not be considered anything less.