I got an email from mint.com this morning notifying me that my account would be deleted due to “inactivity” unless I logged-in again soon. I can’t blame them. I mean, it’s been at least 6 months since I’ve used their service. I decided to buck up and login, just to see if they’ve added any new features or some shit.
I logged-in, and all my info was way out-dated, but then everything refreshed: BING! I scanned the page quickly and noticed something strange and out of place – my American Express card that I canceled almost 3 months ago had a balance of $80. Huh? But, “I canceled that card almost 3 months ago,” I thought. I went over to americanexpress.com and checked my balance there: sure enough, $80 in the hole.
WTF
I really did not want to call American Express and deal with their bullshit at 8am, but I also didn’t want this hanging over my head. The first guy I talked to went by the name of Chris, I think. He asked me what was up, and I explained the situation.
Back in April I decided that it was time to cancel my Costco American Express card. It had served me well in purchasing a Canon Rebel XTi from Costco, but with that paid off (among other things) it really wasn’t serving any purpose anymore. I called AMEX and they were all like, “Oh, but you have a $90 balance on that card right now.”
Apparently Costco had charged me (without giving me notice) for a yearly membership on 1 January 2009 and then, since I had no idea I had been charged for that and therefore had not paid it off, AMEX charged me late fees for a few months. I guess that makes sense.
I told AMEX what was up: that I didn’t want the Costco membership and that I did not know I had been charged for it and that I wanted to cancel the card. They canceled the card and told me to call Costco and ask them to refund the membership fee. Upon receiving the refund from Costco, AMEX said they would refund me the late fees and everything would be hunky dory.
I called Costco and they refunded the membership fee, no problemo.
That was on April 7th.
Fast forward 2 1/2 months, and I’ve still got $80 on this freaking card. Chris (my current “representative”) told me that there was no record of my phone call on April 7th. He said that he needed to ask me some questions to “make sure he understood what was going on.” I told him the entire story again and then he transfered me to Account Services.
Chris hands-off the baton to Jessica, who tells me that because of the recent “activity” on my account, American Express had to cancel the card on June 3rd. Say what? How can you cancel a card that has already been canceled? She then looks into some dark corner of my file and finds a note (that apparently Chris couldn’t find or didn’t have access to) with all the details of the call on April 7th, including the fact that AMEX said they were gonna cancel the card and remove all late fees.
She puts me on hold a few times, and then comes back to say that they’ve “been having this problem a lot lately.” What, the kind of problem where you cancel someone’s card because they asked you to but you don’t actually cancel it and then after late fees pile up you cancel it (again) for them? Yeah, that kind of problem.
Jessica hands-off the baton to Dorothy (back in Customer Service) who removed all the late fees and officially “cancels” the card for the 3rd and final time. Dorothy was a real sweet heart.
Apparently I’m going to get a statement in the mail regarding all of this. We’ll see.
Filed under: general , americanexpress, creditcard, incompetence
people, huh….