American Express Reviews & Complaints

Contacts

• Official websiteamericanexpress.com ↗

Customer service & general contact

• Personal Cards customer service (24/7)1-800-528-4800 26 complaints mention this number
• Contact American Express (phone and mail by product)americanexpress.com/en-us/support/contacts ↗
• Help Centeramericanexpress.com/us/customer-service ↗
• Small Business Cards customer service (24/7)1-800-492-3344 1 complaint mentions this number
• Savings customer service (24/7)1-800-446-6307

Locations

• Headquarters200 Vesey Street New York NY 10285
• Mailing addressP.O. Box 981535 El Paso TX 79998-1535
• Mailing address115 W. Towne Ridge Parkway Executive Consumer Relations (prepaid products) Sandy UT 84070

American Express complaints and disputes: the company's own channels and outside complaint routes (checked October 6 and 7, 2026)

This page starts with American Express's own channels and the outside complaint routes, then lists the government actions and court cases on the record. The company's contact page, Security Center and the court dockets named below were opened on October 7, 2026, and the BBB, Trustpilot and CFPB figures on October 19, 2026; the Help Center, Form 10-K and 10-Q, Bluebird and regulator pages were opened on October 6, 2026. The posts on this site linked to this page were written mostly between 2004 and 2013, so the current channels come first.

Phone numbers by product. The company's "Contact American Express" page lists, for Personal Cards, Customer Service "Already a Card Member? Get help with your existing account" at 1-800-528-4800 (24/7; TTY relay: dial 711 and 1-800-528-4800), Make a Payment 1-800-472-9297 (24/7), Apply for a Card 1-888-297-1244 (8 am-11 pm EST), Check Application Status 1-877-239-3491, American Express Serve 1-800-954-0559 (24/7), Gift Cards 1-877-297-4438 (8 am-12 am EST) and Gift or Travelers Cheques 1-800-221-7282 (24/7). The same page lists, under Small Business Cards, Customer Service ("Get help with your existing American Express account") at 1-800-492-3344 (24/7); under Consumer Accounts, Savings customer service at 1-800-446-6307 (24/7) and Rewards Checking customer service at 1-877-221-2639 (24/7); and separate sections for Corporate Cards, Merchant, Travel and Membership Rewards.

Mail. The contact page gives P.O. Box 981535, El Paso, TX 79998-1535 for General Inquiries and, for prepaid products, "American Express Global Payment Options, Executive Consumer Relations, 115 W. Towne Ridge Parkway, Sandy, UT 84070". Bill payments go to separate addresses on the same page; billing-error notices should go to the address printed on your statement (the CFPB says that address can differ from the payment address).

Company Information

Legal name

American Express Company

Founded

1850

Business type

Bank holding company and card issuer, network and merchant acquirer (New York, NY; NYSE: AXP); U.S. bank subsidiary is American Express National Bank

Website

americanexpress.comSource: Form 10-K for 2025 refers readers to the company's own site, www.americanexpress.com, checked 2026-10-06

Headquarters

New York, NYSource: Form 10-K for 2025, cover page: '200 Vesey Street, New York, New York 10285', checked 2026-10-06

Independent Sources

Shown for context — not merged with USAComplaints' own numbers.

Reviews & Complaints on USAComplaints

USAComplaints currently maintains 449 historical complaints about American Express, published between 2000 and 2014. No approved complaints have been published on this site during the last three years. For a current reputation snapshot, see the independent sources on this page.

• Poor Service Caused Me Losses Twice With Same MistakePublished Jan 29, 2014 · Historical consumer allegation
• Late Fee Refused After Mailed Check Arrived Two Days LatePublished Jan 29, 2014 · Historical consumer allegation
• Late Fee Not Waived After 14 Years of On Time PaymentsPublished Jan 7, 2014 · Historical consumer allegation
• Platinum Card Promotion Offered by Letter Then WithdrawnPublished Jan 6, 2014 · Historical consumer allegation
• Card Charged Three Times for Declined Best Buy OrderPublished Dec 28, 2013 · Historical consumer allegation

Complaint Themes

Themes summarize what people write about most often. One complaint can touch several themes, and some complaints (a positive report, or one later retracted by its author) fit none, so themes are not a count of complaints.

Complaint record: USAComplaints posts, CFPB database, BBB and Trustpilot (as displayed October 7, 2026)

Posts on this site. 449 posts on USAComplaints.com name American Express, Amex or one of its card products (for example the Blue, Gold, Platinum, Delta SkyMiles, Costco or Bluebird cards, American Express Travel, travelers cheques or gift cards) in the offender field and are linked to this page as its own complaints; 62 are dated 2007 or earlier, 383 are dated 2008 through 2013, and 4 are dated 2014. Posts that name American Express together with another business in the offender field (for example a collection agency or a retailer) are not linked. These are unverified statements by their authors; American Express's responses to them are not part of the posts.

What these posts mention (keyword matches, not findings). Among the 449 linked posts: 95 mention a charge dispute, unauthorized charge or fraud; 142 mention fees, interest rates or late-payment charges; 182 mention a closed, cancelled or reduced account or credit line; 81 mention rewards points, miles or a rebate; 74 mention travelers cheques, a prepaid or Bluebird card, or a gift card; 73 mention credit reporting or debt collection. One post can match several keyword groups.

CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, as queried on October 19, 2026. For the company name "AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY" the database returned 60,888 complaints, the latest received on October 14, 2026, of which 11,569 were received since October 19, 2025. The product categories shown were Credit card (21,354), Credit card or prepaid card (13,942), Credit reporting or other personal consumer reports (7,826), Debt collection (5,574), Prepaid card (5,070), Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports (3,898) and Checking or savings account (2,097). Company responses recorded: Closed with explanation 43,043; Closed with monetary relief 9,198; Closed with non-monetary relief 8,180; Closed without relief 248; In progress 122; Closed with relief 80; Closed 17. The CFPB does not verify the facts in each complaint, and the database lists complaints, not findings. These are counts of complaints, not rates; the company says (Form 10-K) it had 86.6 million proprietary cards-in-force worldwide at the end of 2025, and the database covers several products.

Government actions: CFPB, OCC, Federal Reserve, FDIC and Justice Department, 2012 to 2026 (status as of October 6, 2026)

The CFPB, the OCC, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, the Utah Department of Financial Institutions and the Justice Department have each taken actions involving American Express companies. Each item below is taken from the agency's own page or release, opened on October 6, 2026 (the October 2026 orders: the Federal Reserve release and order and the Form 8-K, opened on October 19, 2026); dates and amounts are as those documents state them. Allegations are not findings, and an administrative order's terms are quoted, not turned into new claims. The older orders concern subsidiaries named in them; the CFPB pages list their status as "Expired/Terminated/Dismissed".

• October 1, 2012, CFPB order against American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc., American Express Centurion Bank and American Express Bank, FSB (CFPB docket 2012-CFPB-0004 for TRS), coordinated with the FDIC, the Utah Department of Financial Institutions, the Federal Reserve and the OCC: the CFPB release says the orders require refunds of "an estimated $85 million to approximately 250,000 customers for illegal card practices", covering conduct "between 2003 and spring 2012": a "Blue Sky" card program in which consumers who qualified did not receive a promised $300; late fees billed as a percentage of the debt in violation of the Credit CARD Act; a charge-card credit-scoring system that treated applicants differently by age; failure to report consumer disputes to credit bureaus; and misleading statements to consumers about paying old debt. It states civil penalties totaling $27.5 million: the CFPB $14.1 million, the FDIC $3.9 million, the Federal Reserve $9 million and the OCC $500,000. The CFPB page lists an order terminating the consent order.
• December 24, 2013, CFPB order against American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc., American Express Centurion Bank and American Express Bank, FSB (docket 2013-CFPB-0013 for TRS): the CFPB page says the Bureau "ordered American Express to refund an estimated $59.5 million to more than 335,000 consumers for illegal credit card practices", including "unfair billing tactics and deceptive marketing with respect to credit card 'add-on products' such as payment protection and credit monitoring", plus "an additional $9.6 million in civil penalties to the CFPB". The same day the OCC assessed a $3 million penalty against American Express Bank, F.S.B. and ordered restitution of approximately $4.5 million, finding that its billing and marketing practices violated Section 5 of the FTC Act; the OCC release says restitution paid under its order also satisfies identical obligations in the CFPB action. The CFPB page lists an order terminating the consent order.
• August 23, 2017, CFPB order against American Express Centurion Bank and American Express Bank, FSB: the CFPB page says the Bureau took action for "discriminating against consumers in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and other U.S. territories by providing them with credit and charge card terms that were inferior to those available in the 50 U.S. states" and against certain consumers with Spanish-language preferences; it says more than 200,000 consumers were harmed over at least ten years, that American Express "has paid approximately $95 million in consumer redress", and that the order requires at least another $1 million. The page links an order terminating the consent order.
• July 25, 2023, OCC civil money penalty: the OCC announced a $15 million penalty against American Express National Bank "for failing to govern and oversee a third-party affiliate and for violations of regulations relating to certain efforts to retain small business customers", finding that the bank failed to ensure the affiliate had appropriate call monitoring controls and mechanisms to track customer complaints, and failed to collect required consumer information under Customer Identification Program regulations. The release says the penalty has been paid.
• January 16, 2025, Justice Department resolutions. The Civil Division release says American Express Company "has agreed to pay a $108.7 million civil penalty to resolve allegations that it violated the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA)", alleging deceptive marketing of credit cards by an affiliated entity that made sales calls to small businesses in 2014 through 2017 (misrepresenting rewards or fees and whether credit checks would be done without consent, and submitting falsified financial information such as overstated business income), the entry of "dummy" Employer Identification Numbers on small business card accounts in 2015 and the first half of 2016, and deceptive marketing of the Payroll Rewards and Premium Wire products from 2018 through 2021. The release says: "Except for the conduct admitted in connection with the criminal resolution, the claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only. There has been no determination of liability." The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York release says American Express entered into a non-prosecution agreement concerning the Payroll Rewards and Premium Wire products, with a criminal fine of $77,696,000 and forfeiture of $60,700,000, a cooperation term of at least 36 months, and that the company terminated approximately 200 employees after an internal investigation that began in early 2021 and discontinued the products in November 2021. The two releases describe overlapping payments (the Civil Division release gives a $30.35 million credit toward the civil penalty if the criminal payments are made in full); they are not added together here.
• October 8, 2026, anti-money-laundering orders. The Federal Reserve Board's press release of October 8, 2026 says its action addresses, among other things, the firm's "failure to sufficiently detect and report certain suspicious activity related to money laundering" and that the Board found significant deficiencies in how the enterprise-wide anti-money-laundering program was implemented, particularly at the subsidiary national bank. The Board's order (Docket No. 26-052-B-HC) is an "Order to Cease and Desist Issued Upon Consent" against American Express Company and American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc.; it states it was entered "without Amex or TRS admitting or denying any allegation made or implied by the Board of Governors". It requires, within 90 days of its effective date, a written board-oversight plan, a plan to improve the enterprise-wide BSA/AML compliance risk management program, and (for TRS) a plan on compliance with the OFAC regulations, plus quarterly progress reports. The order's recitals say the Federal Reserve Bank of New York identified "weaknesses in transaction monitoring, fraud referral processes, third-party risk assessment, and financial crimes risk management", and that the OCC "has issued a consent cease-and-desist order and civil money penalty against the Bank". American Express's Form 8-K dated October 8, 2026 says the company and TRS consented to the Federal Reserve order and American Express National Bank consented to an OCC order, that the bank agreed to pay a $350 million civil money penalty to the OCC (part of which the company says it had reserved for in prior periods), that the orders do not impose an asset cap, and that the penalty does not affect its 2026 guidance. The OCC's own news release (No. 2026-87) could not be opened from this page's browser on October 19, 2026, so the OCC order's findings are not summarized here. The orders concern the anti-money-laundering and sanctions-compliance programs, not individual cardholder accounts.

This section covers orders about American Express's consumer and small-business card practices. Enforcement actions outside the United States, and the merchant antitrust cases (see the lawsuits section), are not covered here.

Lawsuits and settlements: status as of October 7, 2026

Status is taken from the settlement website, the court filing posted there and American Express's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, which says that the company does not believe it is party to any legal proceeding that would have a material adverse effect on its consolidated financial condition or liquidity, and that the estimated range of reasonably possible loss in excess of accruals is zero to $260 million. The merchant-case entries below combine the 10-Q (as of June 30, 2026) with the First Circuit decision on Justia and the CourtListener docket listings opened on October 7, 2026; the 10-Q's June 2026 statements are not current docket status.

• Moskowitz (formerly Oliver) v. American Express Co. and American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (E.D.N.Y. No. 1:19-cv-00566): a putative class action by holders of Visa, Mastercard or Discover cards (not American Express cards) alleging that the anti-steering provisions in American Express's merchant agreements raised prices. The settlement website says the trial concluded on August 28, 2025, that the jury found American Express violated Illinois law but not the laws of the other states with certified classes, and that only the Illinois non-rewards credit card class was found to be damaged; American Express "denies these claims and that it did anything wrong". The settlement fund is $17.5 million; the claim deadline for the Illinois non-rewards credit card class was May 19, 2026 and has passed; the opt-out deadline has also passed. The 10-Q says the settlement "was approved by the court on July 7, 2026", and a final approval order dated July 7, 2026 is posted on the settlement website (that posted copy is headed "[PROPOSED]"). Settlement administrator contact: 1-877-315-0587, [email protected].
• Merchant anti-steering antitrust cases: Pizza Hazel, Inc., et al. v. American Express Co. (D. Mass., filed September 30, 2024) and 5-Star General Store aka Bento LLC, et al. v. American Express Co. (D.R.I., filed March 21, 2024). The 10-Q says the courts rejected American Express's motions to compel arbitration and that the company appealed both decisions to the First Circuit. In 5-Star (D.R.I. No. 1:24-cv-00106; First Circuit No. 25-1023), the First Circuit decided the appeal on August 19, 2026 (Justia notes an August 26, 2026 revision of the opinion): Justia's summary says the court held that American Express's "deliberate refusal to pay arbitration fees, despite repeated warnings, constituted waiver and default" and "affirmed the district court's denial of the motion to stay and compel arbitration"; CourtListener lists the appeal as argued September 9, 2025 and terminated August 19, 2026. That ruling concerned whether the case goes to arbitration; the antitrust claims were not decided. For Pizza Hazel, CourtListener lists First Circuit No. 25-2007 (filed October 27, 2025; argued September 15, 2026) with no termination date shown on October 7, 2026. These cases are brought by merchants, not cardholders.
• B&R Supermarket, Inc., et al. v. Visa Inc., et al. (E.D.N.Y. No. 1:17-cv-02738, filed in N.D. Cal. March 8, 2016; CourtListener lists the E.D.N.Y. docket as terminated April 28, 2026): merchants allege that card networks and issuers shifted liability for fraudulent chip-card transactions to merchants. The 10-Q says American Express reached an agreement to settle with the class representatives on March 31, 2025, "which was approved by the court on April 27, 2026".
• KServicing Wind Down Corp, et al. v. American Express Kabbage Inc. and American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (Bankr. D. Del., filed October 16, 2025): the 10-Q says the wind-down estate of Kabbage seeks to recover up to approximately $746 million, alleging that American Express's acquisition of Kabbage's lending platform and other assets included a fraudulent transfer. The company's filing does not say the claims are resolved; CourtListener lists the adversary proceeding as No. 25-52371 (filed October 16, 2025; nature of suit: recovery of money or property, fraudulent transfer), and this page did not read its entries.

The 10-Q also describes an ERISA putative class action by participants in the company's retirement savings plan (Rivetti v. American Express Company, S.D.N.Y., filed May 15, 2026) and value-added-tax disputes in several countries; neither concerns cardholders' accounts. This page did not search for every open consumer class-action claim deadline against American Express; the settlement website of any case that affects you states its own deadlines.

Court & Public Records

Company background

American Express Company is a New York corporation (incorporated in 1965 as a New York corporation and, in the company's words, "Founded in 1850") with principal executive offices at 200 Vesey Street, New York, NY 10285 (Form 10-K for 2025, filed February 6, 2026). It and its principal operating subsidiary, American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (TRS), are bank holding companies supervised by the Federal Reserve; the 10-K names American Express National Bank (AENB), headquartered in Sandy, Utah, as its U.S. bank subsidiary, supervised by the OCC and, for certain matters, the FDIC. The 10-K says the company had 86.6 million proprietary cards-in-force worldwide and worldwide billed business of $1,670 billion in 2025, and employed approximately 76,800 people at December 31, 2025. Its products include credit and charge cards, banking and deposit products, merchant acquiring and a card network.

The 10-K says the company maintains "direct relationships with Card Members (as a card issuer) and merchants (as an acquirer)" and that, through contractual relationships, it also works with third-party card issuers and merchant acquirers, and designs, cobrands and distributes certain cards with partners. Co-brand cards that appear in older posts (for example Delta SkyMiles and Costco cards) are therefore governed by their own card agreements; read the agreement for the issuer named on your own card.

BBB's profile lists American Express Financial Advisors, American Express Travel Related Services Co., Inc., American Express Centurion Bank, American Express Bank Ltd., AMEX, IDS Mineola and Egencia as alternate names. Posts on this site about similarly named but separate businesses (for example businesses whose names merely contain "Centurion" or "Amex") are not linked here.

Company Relationships

• Affiliated withAmerican Express National Bank
• Affiliated withAmerican Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc.
• Affiliated withAmerican Express Kabbage Inc.

Frequently Asked Questions