American Express Amex,Alpha Card American Express Cancels My Account No Warning Brussels, Internet

It has been a stressful couple of weeks an ex pat living in Belgium now, started a business and got an American Express Platinum card, was running smoothly not a high spend every month Euro 3000 and paid on time.  Then I came to use it in a store and my transaction was temporarily not authorised.  So it was tried again and the same message came up.  I then decided I would ring the Amex Platinum Helpdesk, which during normal office hours was not manned and the secretary who answered put me through to the Helpdesk.  Whom I asked what was going on.  She looked at my record and said payment had not been allocated to my card, which had been sent by wire transfer direct to their account previously and my bank stated it had cleared on their bank long before this call took place. 

So I asked to speak to the accounts team, who could not search for a transaction with a clear reference on their systems and asked me for proof of payment, which I sent within 5 minutes to them.  Wireless technology! and I rang back.  Yes they confirmed payment was there etc and my card would be active within 5 minutes so I waited and went to pay for the item again and got the same message.  Rang Amex back and they said it would happen overnight the previous person got it wrong.  So none the wiser I assumed perhaps an overnight batch run would be needed to reset the account.

The next day still nothing and I rang back and was told the same story as above, payment not been allocated etc, and I explained I went through it all with them yesterday.  I spoke to the accounts department who aid yes payment was in but because it was not allocated it was not classed as received by Amex and I had to settle all of my outstanding balance before the card could be authorised again.  As I had added a second card holder this was standard procedure as we were higher credit risks.  But nobody provided this information or told me this, I found out because my card was "Temporarily Refused".

At this point I was furious at having been given the run around and told a series of outright blatant lies by Amex which I hope they have recorded on their "training systems" as I have requested a full audit record now of what happened.

At this point depsite my account being in good standing and nothing wrong with my payments etc I walked away from American Express, a stressful time knowing you have done everything correct yet people telling you, you have not.

Then yesterday I received an invoice from American Express which I was expecting, however it was missing most of the transactions which made up the total, so I could not reconcile any of the payments against the invoice amount.  I hit the roof my partner accused me of not paying the American Express bill, you are playing with people's lives here.  Fortunately I do not rely on Amex and had used it for the advantages a charge card does bring as I hate debt.  It has taught me a lesson though, even if something is in black and white it is not necessarily true.

I have now written to ask them for a correct invoice that can be presented to an accountant and at this point I will ensure final payment is made, less of course the amounts left of  the sky high fees which they seem to have not mentioned at all!

Goodbye American Express