American Express - what are my rights and where can I find them?

[Anonymous]

For those of you who have been on this board for a while, you may have seen one of my previous posts regarding a drug addicted family member who used my husband's personal information to access his American Express card, get a new pin, and use it at various ATM machines to get drug money. The balances due on three cards was $24K. AMEX told us that the only way we could get the cards credited out and erased from the credit report was to file a police report and they would pursue criminal charges against the family member -- which we did not want!

As a result, after 6 months, we paid the FULL balances due but in the meantime, AMEX charged the accounts off as bad debt. They are now showing as a 0 balance but charged off bad debt. My husband wants them removed from his credit report but we have disputed it twice in the last 4 years with AMEX and they continue to say it is valid debt -- even though they have been paid in full.

Because we paid the bills, do we now have any rights now to dispute these debts? AMEX has nothing that relates my husband to this account and the ATM withdrawals, other than the fact he had the account for 11 years prior to this happening and it was always paid on time. During that time, he NEVER did any ATM withdrawals. We feel trapped between wanting to help a family member who temporarily lost her insanity to drugs and this huge conglomerate company that got its money back but they want to make us pay until the debt can be removed at 7 years.

Keep in mind that AMEX did not lose anything in the long run because we paid them back in FULL!

I understand them wanting the money and we did pay it, but geez, give us a f***ing break. I am so frustrated with this. We have disputed it again and are waiting to see what happens. I would like to have a plan in case it is not removed. It has hurt his score big time -- 24K in paid charge off debt is not good at all!!!

We don't want to have to hire a lawyer and demand that they connect my husband to the ATM transactions but it appears we may be forced to. Even with that, while they will have no proof and will be forced to remove it, we don't want to spend thousands of dollars in our own legal fees fighting them. They have in-house lawyers who handle these matters for them.

Thanks for letting me vent -- any suggestions welcomed!

Thanks.

Missy

PS--Yes, yes, yes, the family member paid us back in full, is no longer doing drugs, and other than this AMEX credit report, it is like the whole thing was a bad nightmare!!

[Anonymous]

I think the problem is that without the police report or affidavit of fraud, Amex cannot just take your word for it. The information that was violated was supposed to be kept from anyone else and when someone uses your pin to access funds, its even harder to deny culpability.

I think you may have done the relative a lot of good by filing the police report. It does not good to cover up acts of drug addicted people by taking their punishment which it looks as if you and DH are now doing.

[dangphuocloc72]

I am agree with brammy

they used ATM that mean you or your husband give out #

[haulingthescoreup]

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@dangphuocloc72 wrote:

I am agree with brammy

they used ATM that mean you or your husband give out #

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I think OP said that the relative used her husband's personal information to get a new PIN number. Pretty easy for family members to know the date of birth, SSN, mother's maiden name, etc.

I still think that AmEx experienced very little harm in this incident. The money was paid back quickly. Meanwhile, the family has x number years of credit hell to go through. And it does sound like the offender has dealt with both the addiction and the theft. This looks once again like an instance of people who made good immediately and somehow don't have the options of PFD and all. This is not right.

[Anonymous]

The reason the company requires a police report is that their hands are tied as far as proving fraud in this case. A credit card company is not going to send your pin to a different address than the billing address. Credit card companies, remember, hear every excuse in the book as to why one thing is the way that it is and unless you file a report, you are basically taking responsibility.

They still have the option of filling a report or at least getting a notarized admission of guilt to have the bad info removed. 

[Anonymous]

My husband and I are not guilty of what you both have said. We got crapped on by a family member who we attempted to help, we are getting crapped on by AMEX, and the last thing we need right about now is to get crapped on by members of this forum who we are asking for help from. Please don't make judgmental assumptions about this situation because actually what you are saying is false. We did not give her the pin and your information is totally inaccurate. She was staying with us for a short time and found the information necessary to set up online access to the account. She requested the pin number which SHE got out of the mail while we were at work. We had no knowledge whatsoever that this was being done and as far as we knew, the AMEX card was still in our dresser drawer. The online access was allowed by AMEX and interestingly, my husband says he did not use this card much and most often when he did for periodic travel or gas charges, AMEX would call to see if it was him using the card because the transactions seem suspicious. Sometimes, they would even block the card. He quickly grew tired of this and opted to use other cards and put the card in his dresser drawer. If AMEX had followed this same pattern with the ATM withdrawals (which definitely follows a suspicious pattern), we could have stopped this before it got totally out of hand. And just so that you both know, we did file the affidavit of fraud IMMEDIATELY upon request and were told it would be removed from our credit report within the next 45-60 days. It was only two or so months later (when this began to show on my husband's credit report as a DQ account and we complained, that AMEX requested the police report). We did contact the police and were told at that time by the district attorney that we would have needed to file a police report when we FIRST learned about it, not almost three months later). So, there was nothing we could do to the family member anyway by that point. We did what was requested of us by AMEX when it was requested. It was only at that point that AMEX refused to remove it because we did not have the police report which we could not get. Thus, we had no choice but to either pay it off or let it continue to go DQ. We paid it off  -- we did not know about the PFD at that time or we more than likely would not be in this jam now. It has been a vicious cycle of BS which has literally ripped our family apart at times.

Now, sticking to the subject, what I need to know is whether or not there is any law known to anyone on this site that says that AMEX has to prove that we created this debt or remove it from his report.

That is what I am looking for. If you know that, we would very much appreciate your help. Otherwise, we don't need to hear accusations against us because the only thing we are guilty of is trying to help a family member who did not appreciate it at that time and who of us has not been in that twist.

Thanks for your help.

Missy

[Anonymous]

Missy Bell I never accused you or your DH of anything, I just explained the way the credit card companies looked at it.  I worked in fraud and bankruptcy for a number of years before I moved into the IT side.  They are required to request a police report and if the customer is unwilling to do so, there is no way to prove fraud.  That was your out from the debt but you refused to persue it, therefore taking respponsibility for the debt. The interesting thing is that in some states you can file a report and not press charges and depending on the amount, the banks may just write it off. I wrote enough off in my day.

Sorry you misunderstood my post. Personally, if a relative, even my own mother put me in that position, I would have filed the report.  BTW, so would she.

Message Edited by Brammy on 09-22-2007 11:39 PM

[dangphuocloc72]

sorry

[Anonymous]

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Missy_Bell wrote:

Now, sticking to the subject, what I need to know is whether or not there is any law known to anyone on this site that says that AMEX has to prove that we created this debt or remove it from his report.

That is what I am looking for. If you know that, we would very much appreciate your help. Otherwise, we don't need to hear accusations against us because the only thing we are guilty of is trying to help a family member who did not appreciate it at that time and who of us has not been in that twist.

Thanks for your help.

Missy

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From what I have learned on this site, I have not heard of any law stating that AMEX has to prove anything. This is a crappy situation for you and your husband, but by signing the TOA with AMEX he took responsibility for the credit card and any transactions that may come from it. Regardless of the reasons you chose NOT to file a police report, you did choose not to do that and if the police report is what AMEX requires for fraud they are not obligated to remove it from his records. As far as AMEX is concerned, without a fraud report your husband is the one who made the transactions.  

If I am wrong someone please correct me, but I honestly don't know of any recourse you and your husband have at this point. Good luck though, I hope there is something you can do and I am glad to see your family member is sober and doing well now.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, just so that we are on the same page:

We did file the affidavit of fraud IMMEDIATELY upon request and were told it would be removed from our credit report within the next 45-60 days. It was only two or so months later (when this began to show on my husband's credit report as a DQ account and we complained, that AMEX requested the police report). We did contact the police and were told at that time by the district attorney that we would have needed to file a police report when we FIRST learned about it, not almost three months later). So, there was nothing we could do ... by that point. We did what was requested of us by AMEX when it was requested. It was only at that point that AMEX refused to remove it because we did not have the police report which we could not get. Thus, we had no choice but to either pay it off or let it continue to go DQ. We paid it off  -- we did not know about the PFD at that time or we more than likely would not be in this jam now.

In this instance, do you have any suggestions as to how we can deal with AMEX?

Thanks.

Missy