Plantman, (sorry LK1)

I have a corporate AMEX card that was issued to me after applying for it through the company that employs me, all for their convenience making travel arrangements, also through AMEX.

Well, I am one who pays the bills and doesn't really review them. I have had some difficulty with being reimbursed by my company timely and have had to front my travel money. When that happened I stopped using my AMEX corporate card and began to use a VISA card that gives me a $100 Home Depot Gift Card as a kickback for using their card after some number of charges. AMEX was giving the same kickback to my company, or something like it.

One day, I get a bill for AMEX with a couple thousand dollars for airfare. I did not use the card for airfare anymore, so I got suspicious and investigated. Two guys from my company, in another branch in Milwaukee, flew to Boston and back, and the AMEX travel department charged my card, not theirs. So I called AMEX the travel department and they said contact the AMEX corporate card account people. I started getting pissed off. I am now working for them to correct an error they made, for free.

The AMEX people act helpful but tell me they will send me an affadavit to fill out ensuring they have my signature on a paper declaring the charges were fraudulent. Without this paper they can do nothing. I get more pissed. Pretty soon, I have the head of the Corporate Account Management on the phone and I tell them they will have to contact the weenie at the AMEX travel agency with the ticket numbers and names of the people who flew on the tickets charged to my account to get their money. I am not paying and I am not working for them for nothing. I have already solved the crime, it is all within AMEX and therefore should be an internal issue. They tell me the travel guys are not the same as the corporate credit card guys and I tell them they both use the same logo, the same advertising themes and present themselves as an integrated service.

Anyway, I ended up getting them to get the travel guys on the phone with me and they ended up resolving it. But it took about 8 months. I do not use the AMEX service at all anymore and I get the company travel weenie pissed off at me every month because I ignore the mandate to use the card and the travel service. I figure they owe me a few thousand dollars at my rate for finding and getting them to resolve a problem. Until AMEX compensates me I will never use them again.

I suggest you get the head cheese on the phone. Make it clear it was their problem and they have harmed you with their negligence. The fact that they have pawned off the investigation to an incompetent (for $150 they are not going to spend any of their own resources - strong arming you with a credit report notation to pay up was free from them, as it was likely a keystroke by a clerk that ok'd the action) outsourced agent is not your fault. They need to make you whole again, and take whatever action is needed to fix your credit report, and eat the money.

The stakes with these guys are big. They will not respond easily, but they will end up responding before dealing with a potential class action suit because they do this all the time. Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)