Another Charge from Netherlands

By Sun

As I expected, another charge of $37.90 from Netherlands appeared on my AMEX Costco card when I checked my statement line-by-line over the weekend. It has been more than a month since I reported similar charges to American Express and except a letter acknowledging my report and assuring me an investigation is underway, I haven’t heard anything else from them about the outcome of the investigation.

So I have to call AMEX again to report the latest charge and to my surprise, they told me the previous reimbursement of $37.90 was actually from the Dutch company instead of from AMEX as I thought. What I don’t understand is if they refund the money, it means they realized it’s a mistake, then why they keep charging me?

So far the card seems to be “safe” as I didn’t notice any other suspicious activities in the statement, and this makes me feel a little bit easy though the exact cause of the unauthorized charge remains unclear. At the same time, I am still using the card at Costco as I usually do. Other than waiting for the investigation to complete, I don’t know if there’s anything else I can  do to facilitate the process. Shortly after I noticed the charges, I even emailed the company in UK which actually made the transactions for a monthly pass (that’s why the charge appears on the 12 of the month every month since last December) of a online dating site (yes, a dating site :D ), hoping to resolve the issue myself. That requests also fell on deaf ears :( (.

Do I have any other options?

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Credit card, Personal finance

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This post was written by Sun You can find out more about Sun and his activities on Facebook , or follow him on Twitter .

3 Responses to “Another Charge from Netherlands”

  1. Tim |  Mar 26, 2007 at 4:54 pm

    This is completely b.s. by AMEX. AMEX should have immediately closed the account and issued you a new card. even if it is a recurring charge, a closed account will send back an invalid transaction to whoever is charging the account.

  2. Moneymonk |  Mar 26, 2007 at 6:22 pm

    Im also shocked with AMEX results, they are known for their good reputation. Either you CALL the company in Netherlands or do like Tim suggested have AMEX close the account.

  3. The Sun |  Mar 28, 2007 at 12:18 pm

    Tim & MM: What AMEX told me when I first reported to them the charge a month ago was that since it’s a recurring charge (I didn’t notice the charge when it first appeared so I missed the opportunity), even if I close the account, the charge will continue to be billed on me, no matter what. Since close the account and get a new card won’t help me anything in this case. All I can do is wait. Fortunately, there’s nothing else on the card, so it doesn’t seem to being abused. I am still hoping this can be resolved soon.