American Express Membership Rewards - Anybody notice that Amex is least likely to resolve a disputed charge in your favor

Just an observation, maybe I am alone, but it just seems that way

I have never lost a CC dispute with AMEX or any other credit card issuer, but I file them very rarely and only when I'm right. :cool:

So, I guess my sample size isn't large enough for me to judge AMEX v. other cards.

I've put most of my charges on AmEx, partially 'cause all I've seen anywhere is that they'll side with the consumer (on legitimate disputes) more often than the others.

... so, "Frank", what happened- they said no?

I just had an instance where I had a fraudulent charge and they closed my account ASAP reissued me a new card and reversed the charges within a few days---very impressed.

sdcarver

Amex has always resolved my complaints fairly and quickly, usually within five to ten working days. I have never had a problem with them, but Discover card can be a real pain at times.:mad:

Just an observation, maybe I am alone, but it just seems that way

I think you are alone. I've been a consumer with Amex, and a merchant, and they've always sided with the consumer. In fact, I've had Amex eat the bill a couple of times when the merchant refused to give the money back. On small charges, I find they don't even bother to contact the merchant.

I've seen no difference in this from Green all the way to Black.

I think you are alone. I've been a consumer with Amex, and a merchant, and they've always sided with the consumer. In fact, I've had Amex eat the bill a couple of times when the merchant refused to give the money back. On small charges, I find they don't even bother to contact the merchant.

I've seen no difference in this from Green all the way to Black.

Add Blue to the list as well :D. Never had a problem with disputes.

Funny story. I disputed a charge with AMEX a couple of weeks ago. It was denied and they sent me copies of the fax showing the proof from the merchant.

Well, the fax had my account number on it but it also had a fax cover page with someone else's name and credit card number on it and their disputed charge on it.

It was obviously human error, but who knows if that guy has my fax cover page with my info on it. I called AMEX and they re-disputed the charges after finding out I got someone else's info.

Amex is not so great on disputes, but it is lots better than most of the other companies. :rolleyes: I use it on big purchases of retail items--just in case. Plus, they will actually pay off on their extended warranty coverage.

Add Blue to the list as well :D. Never had a problem with disputes.

You can add me as well. Cardmember since 1979 - perhaps 20 disputed charges -- ALL resolved in my favor. Something has got to be wrong if the charges are always being resolved in favor of the merchant - that is not the reputation of Amex at all.

All disputes I've ever filed with any credit card issuer resolved in my favor. But Amex is consistently the smoothest, most helpful, and most responsive in my experience.

Just an observation, maybe I am alone, but it just seems that way
Can you maybe give us an example or two?

Like others, this is the first complaint I have heard about AmEx being customer-unfriendly in dispute situations.

Just an observation, maybe I am alone, but it just seems that way

Observation? or Experience? So far you are alone. I've never had a dispute turned down. Yours get rejected quite a bit?

Can you maybe give us an example or two?

Like others, this is the first complaint I have heard about AmEx being customer-unfriendly in dispute situations.I've always heard AMEX has a good reputation in disputes.

However, I don't know if you've heard of the Cyberrebate bankruptcy, but I remember reading about trouble disputing their charges on Amex, whereas I had none with Visa and Mastercard. My understanding is that AMEX is both the card issuer and owner of the merchant bank, whereas Visa/Mastercard issuers are not. This means there can be a little conflict of interest in certain AMEX disputes.

http://groups.msn.com/CyberrebateRebateRecoveryAlliance/aninspirationalletterforvictimsbyavictim.msnw

re disputing, the only time ive ever heard something about amex not being the best was a comment IIRC in the DC forum, where someone said they had better experience with DC corporate(/business) cards than amex small business cards.

I have found that American Express is always great about resolving disputes and seems to put the burden of proof on the vendor, not me. In fact, I've just started limiting my Master Card use because when I called them about a charge that was wrong, their first response was "Did you talk to the vendor?" They then proceeded to tell me I had to take it up with the vendor first. Amex, on the other hand, will take it up with the vendor for you.

while it is true that Amex did get rid of some small fraud international charge of 10 dollars that keeps appearing on my gold bussiness but as for challenging even poor charges I find that AA MC from citi was better. I am not disputing many charges but I do have to dispute some from international travel

I have disputed many things with Amex and never lost any of them. The only time amex "ruled" not in my favor was when I inquired what a charge was about, and found that it was legitimate.

Their system for disputing charges and having them refunded is slightly flawed though. Sometimes amounts will not appear online as disputed, even if they are, leading you to dispute them twice. And they are not able to automatically refund charges to the card it was made on. The refund always goes to the main card on the account. If you have several cards for a reason, this can be an accounting nightmare.

No, I haven't noticed this.

What I have noticed is that in most of my disputes, the merchant ignores the dispute and then eventually it is decided in my favor as a result.

I have always found Amex to be the best at resolving any dispute. The moment I have raised one they suspend the charge until its sorted out.

Other CC companies will expect you to pay and then pay you back.

I have always found Amex to be the best at resolving any dispute. The moment I have raised one they suspend the charge until its sorted out.

Other CC companies will expect you to pay and then pay you back.

Actually the Fair Credit Billing Act requires all credit card issuers to suspend charges (including finance charges) during an investigation.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/fcb.shtm

I have found that American Express is always great about resolving disputes and seems to put the burden of proof on the vendor, not me. In fact, I've just started limiting my Master Card use because when I called them about a charge that was wrong, their first response was "Did you talk to the vendor?" They then proceeded to tell me I had to take it up with the vendor first. Amex, on the other hand, will take it up with the vendor for you.

Its not MasterCard you called its your card issuer --which is? MasterCard only deals with merchant violations -- minimum purchases required, photo ID required, refused mastercard...etc....

they dont deals with transactions themselves.

...was in a hotel-room in Dallas. Flew in from Paris, just got to my hotel-room when my cellphone rang. It was AmEx. They'd discovered an unusual pattern of charges (Boston and SF within a few minutes) to my card, and wanted to check with me if it was OK. Well, it wasn't, and so I never saw the charges hit my statement -- and had that one card closed and got a new card overnighted.

Another time, on the day before payment of the card, I noticed on the on-line-statement that over the last 24h, a lot of random charges, all in the 10-70$ range, had appeared that weren't mine, and which totalled about 3KUSD. I called up AmEx to dispute those, and within minutes the charges were removed. Not even 24h later, and I had a new card in my hands.

In short, not really had any problems with AmEx. OK, I've never tried to dispute major charges, but what I've had has been squared off with no problems whatsoever.

I have a bunch of different cards from different issuers, but I prefer to use Amex for major purchases because they are the most careful about charges, especially abroad. For example, in Cozumel I was buying a gold charm when the vendor handed me the phone and said Amex wished to speak to me to verify that I was indeed the card holder. I appreciated that extra bit of security.

On the rare occassion I've had to dispute a charge, I have never had a problem with Amex.

Actually the Fair Credit Billing Act requires all credit card issuers to suspend charges (including finance charges) during an investigation.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/fcb.shtm

Maybe in the US but not in the UK

I have had good overall experiences with Amex chargebacks.

Other issuers hassle you to death, make you fill out paperwork, get items "authenticated", etc. etc., and ultimately it's a crap-shoot over who they'll side with.

Amex has been great. I go online, click a few buttons, and I have my money back by the end of the day. It's definitely easier than most other companies, and I haven't found that they are slanted against me like PayPal or something, as example....now THOSE guys are crooks.

I have never lost a dispute with Amex but I have lost every dispute I have on a visa/mc.

That is the reason I try not to pay with visa/mc especially for big ticket items.

I've only had one dispute handled by AMEX, and it was with my corporate card. It wasn't a difficult process, although instead of fraud it turned out that a merchant had delayed sending in charges due to a hardware problem. When they posted, I thought they were wrong, but it turns out they were valid, just delayed. AMEX denied the ones that were over a year old, but the others were ruled good.

Out of all the experiences (very few) disputes I have had, Amex has been the best relatively speaking. I have been very satisfied with the overall process so far.

My last experience with a dispute was last year when we rented a car in a foreign country for a day. Within minutes of driving off the lot, the front tire lost all pressure. We drove the car back instantly and were given a new car which worked fine. However, when we came back to return the new car, the clerk informed us that it was our fault for "damaging" the tire. To make a long story short, we only ended up paying for the rental itself and the clerk said the owner of the rental place would call our hotel the next day which he never did. About a month later, I saw a charge of $150 on the Amex bill... I called up Amex and asked them to look into it... and got back the money after a few weeks (no further questions asked... no back and forth... etc.).

Actually the Fair Credit Billing Act requires all credit card issuers to suspend charges (including finance charges) during an investigation.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/fcb.shtm

Yep, that's the rule. But, unfortunately, all credit card companies do not follow the rules. :D

Amex has also always sided with me as well. Even on one occurrence Amex talked with the merchant and was going to side with them. It was a doctors office visit, and what happened was that I paid my co-pay but they insisted on billing me more. Amex told me that I signed the CC receipt and I stated that yes I did because I could not dispute it with them (they were morons and wouldn't budge). I did not want to get sent to collections and have my credit ruined, so I paid and now I'm dealing with you guys on it. The CSR basically said ok, we'll "goodwill" this and remove the transaction. If you're a good enough customer and you have a legitimate side of the story, they can side with you.

Any other disputes I've had they removed without question.

One case is pretty anecdotal but...

My wife and I had a flight scheduled for 9/14/01. We were both willing to jump on one of the first flights after 9/11 but that Friday they were just starting to allow planes to fly again and our flight was canceled.

I had booked through Expedia and of course their lines were swamped so I waited about a week, tried to get refunds. They said about 2-3 weeks.

2-3 weeks passed and they then said 1-2 months.

That passed and they said 3-4 months.

I then got ONE ticket refunded, not two.

So I tried again and they said they'd refile it, it'd take 2-3 months again.

So I disputed it. But since it showed up as two separate charges of equal amounts and I got refunded for one, I didn't know WHICH charge to dispute since there were no ticket numbers associated with the one refunded one I got.

So sure enough, my dispute was denied because I already got a refund for it -- as they said.

Arrgh, so I tried again, carefully explaining that I was refunded one of the two and I was only disputing the second non-refunded one.

I then got a reply back from Amex saying Expedia claimed they issed a paper ticket and I needed to return it (false, it was an e-ticket) to get it refunded.

By this point it was about 7-8 months later. I finally just gave up, thinking I was fortunate that a lot of people lost a lot more than a $400 ticket on 9/11.

I have never lost a dispute with AMEX in 25 years, but also find them to be pretty lousy at handling them. Yes, if the dispute is below a certain threshold they generally just write off the charge and credit me (which usually makes me mad that they let the vendor keep the funds, instead of charging them back - but I guess it AMEX's money in those cases). However, where they open a dispute, they simply send the vendor a notice, and if the vendor claims the charge is correct, they do not seem to evaluate the vendor's statement, and simply side with the vendor and close the dispute. One then needs to go back to AMEX again to challenge their disposition.

This is not how it is supposed to work, but AMEX simply does not follow the requirements of the law in good faith. Most recent example - hotel charge for a hotel I stayed in - but not for my room. My room folio posts to my AMEX - as does someone else's room folio. I dispute the charge, and the hotel claims it is correct - supplying as evidence a folio with someone else's name and address. AMEX closes the dispute and sides with the hotel. I again dispute the charge, and tell them to please LOOK at the evidence. My card was never swiped for that room, I never signed a credit card slip, I don't know the person!!!! They finally credit me. Shouldn't be that hard. Partiuclarly for a Centurion cardholder charging $150k+ every year.

Myself and my group of high spending AMEX holders always tell stories of how AMEX always has done the right thing. A friend of mine who works for them also gives me tips on what happens internally so if you have a specific problem that seems to be handled unfairly, there are other ways to get someone to look at it. Just make sure it's an AMEX card issued by AMEX and not an AMEX branded card issued by another bank like Citibank. In that case your resolution may vary.

You are not quite alone. Amex gave me a hard time about duplicate charges some years ago. Although resolution was in my favor, Amex lost their "wallet space" with me. I kept the card, but didn't use it. Now Amex is the only CC that Costco takes, so they are back in my wallet.

I have had one dispute with the Costco Amex. They calculated the rewards wrong. It took about two phone-hours to reach someone who could do arithmetic. Resolved in my favor, but grudgingly and without apology.

When I got my card, I was told the annual fee would be waived for a year, however the fist billing cycle had the annual membership fee on it.

I called AMEX, and they denied, offering me the free for a year. So I disputed the annual fee on my card.

Weeks later, the charge was removed. So I'd say they side with the consumer.

Out of all the experiences (very few) disputes I have had, Amex has been the best relatively speaking. I have been very satisfied with the overall process so far.

My last experience with a dispute was last year when we rented a car in a foreign country for a day. Within minutes of driving off the lot, the front tire lost all pressure. We drove the car back instantly and were given a new car which worked fine. However, when we came back to return the new car, the clerk informed us that it was our fault for "damaging" the tire. To make a long story short, we only ended up paying for the rental itself and the clerk said the owner of the rental place would call our hotel the next day which he never did. About a month later, I saw a charge of $150 on the Amex bill... I called up Amex and asked them to look into it... and got back the money after a few weeks (no further questions asked... no back and forth... etc.).

As a contrast, I got a flat tire on a car while in Europe, a police man helped me change the tire. The major rental car company, not saying which one but it starts with a H----, charged me over 700.00USD for "damage" to the car. I disputed it twice with AMEX and they ruled against me! It really seems to me that AMEX is more interested in protecting major merchant partners than the consumer. Something similar happed to me years ago with the same company and a citi card MC and MC ruled in my favor. I may dislike Citibank, but I have to hand it to them they were much better than my experience with AMEX. I have stoped using AMEX.

I have had two disputes with Amex, both in my favour.

One, an online merchant to charged me a restocking fee for a product he billed me on order, delayed it for a month and then "lost" the product. It was about $25 and was done without any argument.

The second one is when Canadian carrier Jetsgo went bankrupt. Visa/MC dictated that you had to wait until after your flight before you could make a claim, I called Amex, sent in a form, had the charges reversed in less than a week.

No if/ands/buts

As a contrast, I got a flat tire on a car while in Europe, a police man helped me change the tire. The major rental car company, not saying which one but it starts with a H----, charged me over 700.00USD for "damage" to the car. I disputed it twice with AMEX and they ruled against me! It really seems to me that AMEX is more interested in protecting major merchant partners than the consumer. Something similar happed to me years ago with the same company and a citi card MC and MC ruled in my favor. I may dislike Citibank, but I have to hand it to them they were much better than my experience with AMEX. I have stoped using AMEX.
Sounds as though a trip to court would have been in order. The card company's determination of the dispute is not final, it is only a step on the way to court--should you be inclined to do that.

My only complaint: You can't un-file a dispute online...I had a problem with a vendor a month or two ago, who sent me a replacement item after I filed the dispute.

I suppose I could have called it in, come to think of it...

(but yes, I've had good luck with them, too. Also with the lost-baggage insurance, which they paid up nearly immediately after making me fill out only a bare minimum of paperwork.)

Don't intend to impune the OP, but I have found in 100% of the cases that AMEX, along with every other credit card, has resolved disputes in my favor when they should have. I have disputed clearly fradulent charges from merchants I've never done business with, from merchants with whom I do regular business but not for the questioned charge, and one time with Hilton for a truly crappy stay and not getting resolution prior to checkout. I don't dispute much...just those things that are either not authorized or when I have a legitimate beef (not just a bone to pick) with a merchant.

Sorry for using this old thread, but I just wanted to share my latest experiences with AMEX DE:

I was travelling 3 weeks ago on the US eastcoast (MA, VT, NY) and using my Amex like 10 times at restaurants, gas stations, ... Just this morning I realized that I had like 20 charges from Montreal area on my card that wasn't me. After double checking everything I called Cent hotline and the first guy asked me to send in a fax stating the fraudulent charges. After talking another 2 minutes I got transferred to Fraud detection, explained the details and was told that the charges are very likely to be fraudulent and will be taken off my card as of today. A new card will be sent via courier to arrive today and best of all that I should cancel the automatic debit transfer from my bank account and just pay the non-fraud amount within 2 weeks or so.

To be honest, that was the best customer service experience I could have imagined. Of course they could have seen it by my travel pattern, but as I happen to be in 3-4 cities/region in a day it was not too obvious.

Sorry for using this old thread, but I just wanted to share my latest experiences with AMEX DE:

I was travelling 3 weeks ago on the US eastcoast (MA, VT, NY) and using my Amex like 10 times at restaurants, gas stations, ... Just this morning I realized that I had like 20 charges from Montreal area on my card that wasn't me. After double checking everything I called Cent hotline and the first guy asked me to send in a fax stating the fraudulent charges. After talking another 2 minutes I got transferred to Fraud detection, explained the details and was told that the charges are very likely to be fraudulent and will be taken off my card as of today. A new card will be sent via courier to arrive today and best of all that I should cancel the automatic debit transfer from my bank account and just pay the non-fraud amount within 2 weeks or so.

To be honest, that was the best customer service experience I could have imagined. Of course they could have seen it by my travel pattern, but as I happen to be in 3-4 cities/region in a day it was not too obvious.

Yes, they are excellent at dealing with fraud, from the cardholder's point of view. I just wish they could do a better job of detecting. When my wife's card got skimmed, there were multiple physical charges *all at the same time, in different cities*. Didn't cost me extra directly, but I'm sure we could get even more benefits if they didn't allow these charges to go through.

I have found that American Express is always great about resolving disputes and seems to put the burden of proof on the vendor, not me. In fact, I've just started limiting my Master Card use because when I called them about a charge that was wrong, their first response was "Did you talk to the vendor?" They then proceeded to tell me I had to take it up with the vendor first. Amex, on the other hand, will take it up with the vendor for you.


^^

I may have issues with Amex, but legitimate disputes are not one of them. I've disputed many things during my 11-year relationship with them on various Amex cards, and I'd have to say that the customer service in this area is one in which they excel above all other cards that I have. As tashabelle says, they do seem to act as the advocate for the wronged consumer, IME.

This is one aspect of carrying the Amex card that has helped to cement my loyalty to this card.

I was ripped off by a taxi driver in CPH. The taxi ride should not have been more than $20. MAX....After taking me on a "tour" from the Radisson, back out towards the airport, around the ring road, past the RR station, etc etc he finally brought me to the pier at a cost of $64. I was going to pay cash, but knew I would never have any recourse so I put it on Amex. Got home, called them, and they brought the charge down to $20. with no additional info requested. I was prepared to write a letter and give all the details and back up but it was not even requested. I thought that was great. The $44. credit was on my next statement.

I've only had one charge disputed with my AMEX and I admit, it was more difficult then I would've wished for. I had to send in a written complaint with documentation.

Alternatively, I disputed a charge on my Chase Platinum a year prior to that and it took no more than a 5 minute phone call, no documentation, etc.

In both cases my issue was resolved, but it was a much faster and hassle-free ordeal with Chase. It's worth noting, both charges were no very much; both around $80 or so.