Complaint Review: American express serve - Nationwide

 I have been a customer for a year. I never had any problems until I was refunded money. The first couple of times I knew the money was not adding up but I hadn't paid close enough attention. I started taking screenshots of my balance daily whenever something was refunded to document that the money wasn't being returned. It would just drop off. A couple of times I would let them know that I had proof of the money not coming back and they would return it on what they called a good faith credit. Then they started doing recaps, where they would figure the math so that it would add up to a balance that did not include my refund. It had gotten so bad I stopped swiping my card or if I did swipe I wouldn't refund an item. I would exchange it or keep an unwanted or unneeded item. Smaller numbers come back and accessible numbers over $100 comes back but anything over 10 and under 100 would not . I did not mind swiping at restaurants because I wouldn't get a refund on food. Well the last straw was when I swiped at Little Caesars. A transaction that was 18.73 cents has dropped off the face of the earth with many other transactions but what makes this one so bad is that my account is overdraft and not through anything I have done. I was sick recently and missed a week a work and was struggling with a much smaller pay check. I stopped swiping my card 4/26 and after my charges completed I had 2.25 left. I woke up 5/1 to an email sent on 4/30 about my account being in the negatives. I could not understand it. So I checked my statement. There were no new transactions just a negative balance. So I called in. I already had a feeling there would be a story but I held. I explained to the rep that there were no new transactions but I had a negative balance. He put me on hold for what might have been 10 minutes and came back with a crazy story. He told me that the disputed a charge on my behalf previously that kept the money. I stopped him there. I had put in a dispute but after going back and forth with the company they agreed to give me back my money, and because it went through paypal (which is one of the rare occasions the money doesn't disappear), I was refunded without help from them. In fact the people over at serve sent me an email stating that they couldn't help me unless I could prove that the company gave a time frame for the item that they never sent back, after I got the refund on my own. Well his story was that the company refunded the money and pulled it again. I told him I didn't see that on my statement and I check it daily. Then he says that since I authorized the initial payment he couldn't do anything but he was going to escalate the situation to another department that would refund the money. I get to the next department and she was riding on his story until I pointed out that the math did not add up. You cannot subtract 42.81 (the other transaction) form 2.25 and get a negative balance of 15.00. Then she goes "oh I see the problem". You made a purchase from Little Caesars and they did not take the transaction on time and so they refunded the money and took it again. That didn't make sense. I informed her that if they refunded the money it would've been there. She told me that they refunded the money on the 28th of April at 9pm. I guess she was giving details to prove she was being honest. And then said they took it back on the 30th and that's why the balance is negative. I explained that I had not seen this reflect on my balance or my statement and she tells me that there would be no paper trail on my end but she could see dates and times in the system. I told her I had not used my card since April 26th and all transactions were complete so if the money went back on the 28th it should've still been there on the 30th. She put me on hold to check saying that there must have been online purchases made. She came back and said that I was right. She said you haven't used your card at all since the 26th but I can assure you that the balance is correct. Please let me do a recap and show you. I stopped her and let her know that I know how it works when they di recaps and nothing would make it make sense that the money was put back, I did not use my card, and taken out again yet the funds weren't there. I ended the conversation. Now I'm just really upset that they would continue to rob me this way even when I prove that something is not right. I am stuck using the card a couple of weeks because my paychecks get deposited there but when that is switched, I'm done. They have gotten away with a decent amount of money and I need every cent.