Amex and fraudulent charges - Help
 

Sorry, but this will be a long post.

Story:
About a month ago, someone stole my father's amex plat business card number. What they did was (which I don't know how they did) call up and do a full payment of the balance on the account from the linked checking account and then proceed to charge some $55K from a store in Beverly Hills (while the card was used that day in Chicago suburbs). My father, checking the Amex almost daily noticed this charge and alerted amex. The account was closed and they opened a new account for us and reissued new cards.
Since then it has been nothing but issues. First off, they are declining almost every charge and he has to keep calling in. And now today he received a letter in the mail stating that the fraud charges will not be covered and he has to pay the balance (some $44K) PLUS the fraud charges ($55K) and they require more info to continue the claim. What new info? He told them everything already multiple times and while the amex rep was getting info, they disconnected. With all these issues, he averages at least 4x a week on Amex calling and some hr on the phone every time. He keeps getting bounced around from dept to dept and getting disconnected. This has been overall very aggravating for him as it is not his fault the card number got stolen and he does want to get this resolved.
What adds to the interesting part is:
1. He never did more than a few thousand as check payment. Never in the double digits.
2. They call my father up for a $200 (seriously!) multiple times. They decline purchases over $1k unless we call them up before. They call him up to verify any charges but not on some $55K one.
3. That was a manual entry into the terminal - not even a swipe. Thus some guy with a piece of paper and the card number went in there and typed it in. How a store allows that, I don't know.

What recourse does he have? He is fed up and sick and tired of dealing with Amex, including sine this is his 25th year as a Amex client. How can he proceed? He just wants this to get straightened out and get this headache over with.

I'd contact the executive offices. They resolved a couple of serious issues I had years ago very quickly.

Do you happen to have the number/contact info?

Did he dispute the charges in writing as required by the Fair Credit Billing Act? Strictly this law does not apply to business accounts, but he should follow the requirements to the letter.

I don't think in writing. but over the internet and over the phone.

If the charges occurred a month ago there is still time. With this amount of money at stake I would follow the statutory process without any deviation.

Thanks. Looks like he has a total of 60 days, so he has enough time to do that this week and mail it out via Fedex/UPS.
If someone has the executive address he can also mail it out to them.

Found this address in a 2007 post:

Bloomberg is very handy for finding out executive officer names and addresses. Here are some that you might send to, depending on your father's situation and account:

Edward Gilligan (Vice Chairman/Head: Small Business)
Stephen Squeri (Group President: Global Corporate)
Daniel Schulman (Group President: Enterprise Growth)
Joshua Silverman (President: US Consumer Services)

I have had success using this method in the past--not about an Amex issue specifically, but other corporate aggravations. It helps if you write a to-the-point, concise, non-ranting letter that states exactly what the company did wrong, exactly what you want done to solve the problem, and nothing more.

If it were my money I would focus exclusively on the disputed $55,000 transaction. Leave the annoying overly zealous transaction verification calls for another discussion.

Also, contact the bank and Amex verbally and in writing to immediately remove the connection between Amex and the linked checking account.

-David

That was already removed.

Another person from bloomberg I found that might be appropriate:

Katrina R Lane
Exec VP:Consumer Cards & Experiences
American Express Co
World Financial Center
200 Vesey Street
New York NY 10285
United States
+1-212-640-2000

Thank you all for the prompt replies.
I will keep this thread updated on what happens.

^^ah I would follow MIA's advice to the Letter (pun intended) fyi.. you have here what is often called a "bust out" credit card theft crime. You will find many complaints on flyertalk about card members complaining about why xyz credit card company will them not let them pre-pay a card for a higher credit line to cover a purchase and this is exactly the reason why.

I would not be shocked if Amex thinks something fishy is up and is being extra cautious just in case this was an inside job done by the customer. Your complaint about small charges not going through is because crooks do small test charges to see if they have been shut down. A crook making a small purchase that is declined is not going likely get much attention versus a large purchase.

Oh and Amex may think your father has a mistress or just went crazy for a short period. Fyi...You do remember the story about the man who charged over $100,000 at the strip club at NYC and then tried to dispute it right?