American Express Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Misleading Billing Policy

An American Express customer says that the credit card company violates the Truth in Lending Act by providing inaccurate billing statements.

The credit card giant was challenged by New York resident and American Express card holder Marcy Zevon. According to Zevon, she received multiple billing statements for her household credit card that included inaccurate information about her billing rights.

In her American Express class action lawsuit, the statements excluded the crucial information that if she chose to contact the company using one contact method over another, she could lose her right to have a charge reduced or removed.

According to Zevon, this affected her ability to make an informed choice about how to contact the company. Additionally, she asserts that the practice violates the Truth in Lending Act, which aims to ensure customers have accurate and reliable information about their borrowing.

Zevon states that American Express’ terms did state that if a consumer disputed a charge by mail, they preserved their billing rights. In contrast, if a customer made a dispute by telephone, their rights would not be preserved. Allegedly, the billing statements did not explain this crucial difference.

She argues that the billing statements provided both a mailing address and a telephone number by which a customer could dispute a charge, but did not inform them of the differing consequences of using each.

The American Express billing class action lawsuit notes that, per the requirements of the Truth in Lending Act, lenders are required to inform customers of their billing rights on each billing statement in order to give customers the most access possible to the information they need.

The goal is supposedly to help prevent customers from making uninformed use of their credit, and protect them from inaccurate and unfair billing practices that businesses might use in their own gain, at the expense of the public.

Allegedly, Zevon was unable to determine various contact methods’ effects on her billing rigors by reviewing her billing statements. 

Zevon says that American Express violated the law repeatedly, because it made a practice of sending these insufficient billing statements to its many customers. The plaintiff seeks damages on behalf of herself and all similarly affected customers. She estimates that more than 1,000 customers received the unlawful billing statements. 

The American Express billing statement class action lawsuit asserts that the TILA violation issue is best suited to a class action lawsuit as opposed to individual claims. Allegedly, it is impractical for each individual to pursue these claims, because their damages are relatively small.

However, the AmEx billing class action lawsuit goes on to assert that considering all the individuals’ claims collectively, a significant harm has been done.

Additionally, Zevon notes that the legal issues affecting many consumers at once are more numerous than those affecting just a few consumers — she says that the consumers experienced relatively the same situation. 

She rounds out her advocacy for an American Express class action lawsuit by saying that, because there are so many similar claims, it is more fair to litigate them as one claim so each consumer receives the same verdict, whereas if each claim were litigated separately, consumers could receive a range of verdicts.

The American Express billing statement class action lawsuit stresses that because of American Express’s non-compliant disclosures, Zevon and the potential Class are entitled to recover up to $1 million in statutory damages.

Alternatively, Zevon notes that she and others are entitled to recover up to $5,000 each in statutory damages. She notes that the law allows consumers who were affected by a violation of the law to collect statutory damages, even if they were not otherwise injured by the violation.

However, she does state that the violation could result in damages for possible Class Members who might have inadvertently given up their billing rights by making an uninformed decision about how to contact American Express. She makes a request for actual damages in addition to these statutory damages, in addition to funds to cover court costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees.

Do you relate to this legal news? If you ever received an inaccurate billing statement, tell us about how you dealt with it in the comments below.

Zevon is represented by Brian L. Bromberg and Joshua Tarrant-Windt of Bromberg Law Office PC and by Harley J. Schnall of the Law Office of Harley J. Schnall.

The American Express Inaccurate Billing Statement Class Action Lawsuit is Marcy Zevon v. American Express Company, Case No. 1:20-cv-04938, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

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