I’m off topic today, but here is my personal story.

I always wondered why when company wants to get money from you, they always have correct and complete information. All statements are delivered on time and customer service is excellent.  But  if YOU, AS A CUSTOMER need help, then they treat you as a criminal, lose your info and turn into robots.

My Amex was declined on gas station early Monday morning. As a perfect customer who uses Amex to pay for everything and then pays bills in full, I thought that maybe my card just got old and does not go through. Two hours later my dad called me from the grocery store completely ashamed. “I felt like a criminal with the full basket of food without ability to pay for it! What if I didn’t have cash on me?”

I ignored his words because I knew how great Amex was! Also, they sent me a new card on the mail!  I couldn’t wait to activate it before taking clients out.

“Your account is cancelled and you have been reported to collection agency because of your debts” customer service rep with robot voice informed me.

“Whaaaaaat? I just paid two of my accounts in full! What happened? I was working hard on building my credit history” I was shocked.

“We don’t know m’am’, you have big debts on your account number three”

“But I have only two of them, I cancelled third one a year ago when they kept double charging me for my internet. They have done it for a few years. I called them many times, but they would do it again, so I cancelled this card” I was almost crying.

I asked for a supervisor who told me that she is absolutely unable to access my account and tell me what kind of damaging amount I owe. I wanted to know because it must have been terrible if it caused the cancellation of all my accounts. “We don’t know, M’am the only thing I can see that your account ends of xx002. M’aam we sent you XXX amount of letters and emails, but you never replied, we can’t help you at this time.”

I hang up, and logged in to my online account and saw the “secret info”. They didn’t cancel my card a year ago, they forgot. And yes, it was my fault I didn’t follow up. Then I changed my account info on GoDaddy.com but they kept charging this card…$2.99 per month. Amex added monthly late fees. The amount I was penalizing for was $113.00.

Yes, none of this was my fault. Yes, I should have called GoDaddy, then Amex and resolve the problem without paying. I’m single mom and each dollar matters to me as much as for American Express. But I decided that if I pay this $113.00 it will save my time and health. Human can’t win a Robot War.

This morning I called to collection agency. I paid them in two minutes. The Lady on the phone could not believe what happen. “Right, you pay thousands dollars to AMEX every month, it’s not true that Amex people didn’t know how much you’re owned.” She said that collection agency already sent me one letter. But they had wrong address, that’s why I didn’t receive it.

I checked all emails from Amex. They NEVER informed me about this problem and collection.

I understand that business is about making money. And AMEX is making money. But customers are humans and aren’t treating humans as humans would bring even more money for Amex? What do you think? I’m going to call in now to cancel all my cards with them. I don’t have a lot of friends, just a few thousands on Facebook, MySpace. Also, I have a few thousands of clients.  I’ll make sure that they know the story and won’t get screwed the same way.