Amex Credit Card Complaint

Amex Credit card department,

Transaction issue New York

On - -, I attempted to purchase a personalized gift card from American Express using my American Express credit card. However, when I attempted to complete the order, I got a server error message and never received formal confirmation that the order was successful. I called Amex several times that day and spoke with - people for over an hour! I wanted to cancel the gift card because I was so disgusted that so few know what they are doing in customer service and each time the gift card group was attempted to be contacted, the line would disconnect or the wait time was over 10 minutes and I would get disconnected again. But American Express would not allow me to cancel because they stated the charge was pending. That I had to wait 48 hours for the transaction to go to pending to recent activity. I checked my activity online every day since and the pending amount of $77.00 was no longer there when I checked on -/-/16 but it was not on my recent activity. So I was not sure what was going on. At - - EST I received an email from American Express stating that the


spoke with someone at - EST and I asked why I was not able to see the charge before having the ability to cancel the order? So they shipped the card to the recipient and when I asked about cancelling the order I was told they would do it but then the recipient would receive a card with no funds. It is absolutely ridiculous. How could I cancel an order and have a gift card sent to someone without any funds? What is illogical to me is that if I order something online from a large department store, I have the ability to cancel the order within 30 minutes of the transaction. But I ordered something from American Express and they would not allow me to cancel the transaction before being approved. So in my view, what Amex just did is not within normal standards and I was never given the proper opportunity to cancel the gift card before it officially appeared on my activity. They basically cornered me and I felt forced to leave the charge as is because I could not in good conscience have them ship a card to someone without any funds. This is n't proper procedure in my view and I find it a violation of ethical and regulatory standards.