American Express New Balance, Interest, Due Date, Violation of Terms and Conditions on Statement, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Attorney General of New York New York New York

American Express's credit card agreement, as stated on the second page of my statement, states that the company will not charge customer's interest if he or she pays off the "New Balance" by the due date each month (see page 2 of 9, "Paying Interest"). Despite what their contractual agreement states, they have charged me interest on several occasions when I have paid the balance in full.

The most recent example occurred on my last billing statement. American Express sent me a bill reflecting a "New Balance" of $3634.06 due by 09/12/2014. By 09/11/2014, my total payments were $3911.31. When I received by recent statement on 09/18/2014, American Express charged me $32.82 in interest.

When I called American Express, I spoke to a representative named Carolyn. I advised her of the $32.82 in interest, showed her that the complete balance had been paid off by the due date, and referred her to page 2 of 9 on my credit card statement. Although the contractual agreement is clearly expressed in writing, Carolyn argued with me and told me that this is not how American Express charges interest; moreover, she claimed I was not interpreting the language on my statement correctly. I'd like to state that I have worked in lending in the past, spent over 4 years in credit card lending, and I am thoroughly familiar with how to interpret contractual agreements.

In addition, I have an undergraduate in English, have taken prior Business Law coursework, and I know for certain that they are violating the terms and conditions of the contract. Please refer to page 2 of 9 on my statements for how they charge interest, and page 1 of my statement that clearly states the "New Balance" to be paid. When I threatened to report American Express to the CFPB, Carolyn stated she would look into having the finance charges removed. Prior to telling me if they would refund the charges, she purposely aborted the phone call. All I heard was a rapid busy tone.

So I called back and requested to speak to a supervisor. This time, I spoke to a supervisor named Matt. I complained about Carolyn's handling of my phone call, and I again explained the problem that my account was billed interest when I paid the balance off prior to the due date. Matt again reflected Carolyn's statement that this is not how American Express bills interest, and again I had to refer him to the terms and conditions on page 2 of 9 on my statement, as well as the "New Balance" that was clearly reflected on page 1. Matt paused, and then he stated he would refund my interest. When he looked into the refunding the interest, he found that Carolyn indeed had already refunded my interest, although she rudely hung up on me.

Although this matter is resolved, I do not have confidence that this will not occur in the future or that this violation of the terms and conditions of American Express's contract is not happening to other customers as well. I specifically believe this because I have had to complain about this issue in the past, requesting each time to have interest refunded. Therefore, I have reported American Express to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (online report) and the Attorney General of New York (online report as well because all of the payments were made online). It is also important to note that the account is an American Express Costco Rewards Account (I don't know if all of their cards have the same terms and conditions listed on the statement, so this might just apply to the Costco cards). I'd suggest that if you have experienced a similiar problem with American Express that you report them as well, because these offices need to establish a pattern of behavior.