American Express Membership Rewards - Amex Won't Investigate Until After Statement Prints

I think this has been mentioned before, but I find it very curious that Amex simply will not investigate charges, even those which appear to be "fraudulent", until after the statement actually prints.

I regularly (almost daily) download my charges into Quicken. On occasion I have found charges which were questionable, and on other occasions, which were outright fraud. Amex has a policy, even if you can "prove" that the charge is fraudulent, that they won't open an investigation until after it appears on your printed statement.

It doesn't hurt me because they give me the credit. But why don't they want the information to protect themselves? Especially where I have done the detective work? (Note: This is different than some VISA issuers. I once reached a security officer at VISA who personally went to the airport in D.C., that day, to try and apprehend someone flying on a fraudulently issued airline ticket.)

This is the policy at all the credit card companies.

Maybe they want to wait and see if your dispute gets resolved by the time the statement prints. I know that's happened to me before, where a dispute gets settled between the merchant and me before AmEx would get involved.

d

Well, in the most recent case, they gave me the street address they had for the merchant. I tracked down the building management and confirmed that no such company was located there. Again, I am not worried about the money which I won't owe. But I assume that there will be thousands of such charges that Amex will need to write-off.

I think there's a big difference between a "dispute" and your card number being compromised. If it comes to your attention that someone is using your card number in some widespread fashion, I'm sure they'll be able to cancel your card and give you a new one immediately. This is far different than a single transaction that you may consider "fraud."

Investigating a single charge can be a high cost action, and can't be done for "small" amounts at a reasonable price.

In case of a fraud , Amex has the possibility to stop crediting the merchant's account.

I think some of you are missing the sbrower's point. The desire is stop a crime since we know are liability is zero. I had someone use one of my amex accounts to charge an expensive sony electronic product via online merchant bluelight.com. I found the charge the following day on americanexpress.com. I called bluelight and spent an hour on the phone in the middle of the night and determined that the product was being shipped fedx and would arrive at the destination within a few hours. I called amex and all they seemed interested in doing was canceling my card and issuing me a new card. So much for amex calling the police and setting up a stakeout....I was so ‘shocked by amex’s lack interest that I made several long distance calls and found the police station in the city that the package would be delivered and they messed up by calling fedx and putting a hold on the package! I forgot to mention that even though the product was charged to my American express bluelight.com would not release any information about the order until I begged them I wanted to stop a crime!

Apparently, the bankrupt Bluelight crowd (K Mart) doesn't take accusations of insider trading by a celebrity very seriously either.

Centurion's post is right on, although I don't blame anyone else because I wasn't super clear.

In *this* case, I used an in-hotel "internet terminal". It didn't work so I tried to call the 800 number for the merchant right then. Disconnected. Charge for $3 few days later. No call to Amex because I know their policy. A week later *another* charge for $3. That's when I take the time to ask Amex for the address of the merchant and determine that they don't have an office at the address on file with Amex. For me, just $6, which I won't end up owing. For Amex, probably a problem, because someone dishonest will take more than $6 from one customer.

However, about a year ago, I had one like Centurion. Saw a strange charge for $200 at a flower shop and another one for $1800 at a company I didn't recognize. Called the flower shop and learned that the flowers had been delivered to a restaurant. They had the name of the lady who got the flowers. I managed to track her down (elderly, by her voice) and got the name of the nephew who gave her the flowers. Called the other company. Wholesale beauty supplies being shipped to an apartment in Van Nuys. They had my name on the order, but they had an actual street address was the delivery was going to be made the next day. Called Amex, no interest on their part in taking any action prior to the statement printing, even though I told them that $1,800 in stolen goods (stoled from them, in essence) were being delivered to the thief the next day. Of course, like Centurion, once I called the merchant they didn't deliver the goods, and they credited my account directly.

So, Amex saved the "cost" of investigating because I got the credit by stopping the fraudulent transaction. But I reserve the right to ask the following question: In the rare case where Amex has a customer like me or Centurion, who have given them the chance to actually catch a crook, isn't there some benefit in doing so? I think there would be value to creating a belief that if you use fraudulent Amex charges they *might* run a sting. The way it exists now, a thief *knows* that even if the fraudulent charge is detected, they have 30 days to cover their tracks.

Honestly I don't think AMEX really cares. IMHO as far as they are concerned it's not their problem and they won't be out. The person who gets screwed is the merchant, since AMEX simply charges them back. While you and I (logically) would want to put someone in jail for a crime, I don't think AMEX pays much heed and simply figures that if they deactivate the card the problem is solved, case closed.

I had a couple of wrong charges on my accountin the past, which I found on my online statement and queried immediately, before the statement actually was printed. There was never any problem with that. The last time I called they were anxious to get the correction done before actually printing the statement...

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by kanebear:
Honestly I don't think AMEX really cares. IMHO as far as they are concerned it's not their problem and they won't be out. The person who gets screwed is the merchant, since AMEX simply charges them back. While you and I (logically) would want to put someone in jail for a crime, I don't think AMEX pays much heed and simply figures that if they deactivate the card the problem is solved, case closed. </font>

I think this is the crux of the matter. If Amex does a chargeback to the merchant, then the thief is in fact not stealing from Amex, but from the merchant. The merchant is the one that you need to get interested in calling the police to catch whomever is doing this to them.

Here's my issue: El condado hotel in San Juan, I have an issue with the hotel and their charges to my incidentals. However they say that the charge needs to be taken up with Priceline. Well since I can't get a hold of anyone at Priceline, I thought I would just challenge the entire PL bill and force them to talk to me or AX. Well I call AX and sure enough, they won't look at it until the bill is printed. I said isn't it easier to clarify something right when it happens than wait another 3 weeks, he says yes but by law you are not liable for this charge until the bill is printed. So he wouldn't look into it. Now I've called Diners to challenge the incidentals portion as well and although it hasn't hit my account yet, the lady did say as soon as it does I can challenge it. We'll see, I'll c all as soon as it hits my online statement.

All of this BS for a lousy $8.25. If I didn't feel that the hotel and PL was trying to pull one over on me.. I would not care.

For further details see my post under the Wyndham.

The law, if anyone is interested, is here: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/1666.html.

It does specifically say that billing errors only need to be looked into after the statement has been transmitted.

As for the fraud - AmEx puts all the responsibility on the merchants anyway. They'll just charge them back and let them try to get the money from the customer. No need for them to waste their time or money when the merchants will do it for them.

I, on the other hand, would probably want to catch the crook.

d

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Doppy:
The law, if anyone is interested, is here: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/1666.html.

It does specifically say that billing errors only need to be looked into after the statement has been transmitted.

As for the fraud - AmEx puts all the responsibility on the merchants anyway. They'll just charge them back and let them try to get the money from the customer. No need for them to waste their time or money when the merchants will do it for them.

I, on the other hand, would probably want to catch the crook.

d</font>

Link does not work. There is no part 1666 in title 15.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by seawolf:
Link does not work. There is no part 1666 in title 15.</font>

Yeh, but there is a section 1666 in chapter 41 subchapter I part D of title 15, and that's what this link is aiming at. Try the link without the period in the end...

I have had similar situations a couple of times, including one a few months ago. Two merchants in California put a few hundred dollars in fraudulent charges on my AMEX card. I called the merchants repeatedly and got answering machines but no call-backs. AMEX would do nothing until the bill was printed. Then, they simply credited the charges back and, I suppose, pursued the mercants, if they could find them.

AMEX did offer several times to cancel my card and issue a new one with a new number. Because I have lots of charges billed automatically to AMEX, I declined. That seems to be their standard offer, and if you refuse, they aren't very nice about it.

Bruce