Apols for starting another thread but would appreciate some help with this question. I've totalled up my late payment fees and over-limit fees for my Amex green card but have also been charged £229.28 - apparently the fee that Amex had to pay to a collection agency when they closed my account. They say that they closed the account in October 05 - I paid off the outstanding balance in full on 16 Nov 05 and now through copy statements under the Data Access Request process I've discovered that they still show my account as being in balance - £229.28. A couple of calls to Amex resulted in the department who are apparently the only people there authorised to discuss account details saying that the account was not in credit and therefore they didn't owe me this money. I believe that if this is a charge that they've had to pay to an outside agency and then added to my account that it's effectively a penalty charge and should be included in my claim, but I'd like confirmation of that, or at least an informed opinion on whether I'm wasting my time adding it in or not.

I had something similar on my account with them, though an adjustment had been made to bring the balance down to zero.

I very much doubt whether you can reclaim this back as all the research I did at the time suggested that it would be classed as a "service charge"

Good Luck with your claim anyway, they paid me out in full the day after they were served with my court papers.

Pat4

Thanks for that - thought I might be chancing it, so will take it off the spreadsheet. One thing you might know - my account statements listed over-limit fees and late payment fees which is primarily what I'm going after, but it also listed a couple of charges as "NSF Fee 2 Assessment" which was the same charge (£25) as the over-limit and late payments. I asked someone in Amex External Relations about this but they couldn't seem to explain what it was - any ideas?

No, I didn't have that on any of my statements. If you don't get any joy from Amex's customer services, it might be worth changing your Prelim to include these "NSF Fee"charges as seperate items and explaining that nobody at AMEX can explain what they are so you are claiming them back.

The value of my claim was similar to your own but they still let it drag on. So unfortunatly you will probably have to put your court papers in or do the MCOL thing.

PAT4

I am having a similar issue with AMEX. My account has been closed with all arrears now cleared but an agency as claimed, authorised by AMEX to collect the so-call cancellation fee (about £315.00). I did call them but to no avail therefore I am prepared to settle this amount but would after this demand my statements as per the data protection act as used against the banks. can I do this?

Do I have to send a request as per a modified templates used from this site though they were design for the banks. Are these templates also applicable for credit companies such as AMEX? i.e if so, do I need to add £10.00 and request for six years statment though I have been with them for over 23 years?

Help Please!

Hi - the first stage is definitely to send off the £10 and the SAR request letter to get them to send your statements back - see other postings on the site re Amex - you'll see that the letter is pretty much standard whether it's a bank or a building society, credit card or storecard operator. I've used the same basic letters/templates for NatWest, Halifax, Amex, Goldfish and Debenhams storecard amended as necessary.

In a lot of other postings here you'll see that the advice is always read the FAQs first, use the standard letters and documents in the order that is suggested and I can't do better than repeat that message - if you have a look round you'll find that your problems are almost certainly the same as someone else's who has already been down the road and successfully got their cash back. Good luck and keep us posted on how you do.