I Closed My Amex Account After 11 Years. Now They’ve Destroyed My Credit Over $0.37.

Location: MI, USA

Good morning all. I’m on mobile so apologies for any formatting issues.

As the title says, I was an Amex platinum member for a decade or so while I was enlisted. For those who don’t know, American Express Platinum charges an annual $650.00 fee to utilize their scheme, which is waived for Active Duty Service-members. This was a wonderful way for young enlisted folks to grow credit with a respectable card from a young age without having to analyse whether they can afford a “good” card.

I have recently separated from the US Air Force and they immediately charged me the $650.00. I suppose if a decade’s worth of loyalty is meaningless, that’s their call to make, so I zeroed and cancelled the account.

That was a year ago.

Since then, I have now closed the account three separate times, typically about three months apart. Each time, I have called and said something akin to “hey, I paid everything off. What is this charge?” To which I’ll hear that it’s a fee or some interest or something that they just forgot to add to the previous bill.

I cannot stress enough how little I care at this point. I willingly paid the superfluous $87 the first time, figuring that I may have very well missed a payment.

The second charge of $33-ish got my attention.

Now I have an outstanding balance of $0.37. My credit score has gone from an 820 to 450 because of these fucks not doing their jobs. I went from never once missing a payment to missing several over the course of a year, simply because I (silly me) thought that when I zeroed out my account, that would mean it’s zeroed out…

So, my question for you all is this: is there anything I can do for recompense? Do I have to rebuild my credit from scratch or can Amex fix themselves and admit they invented asinine charges and undo the damage?

I’m so disheartened. It’s like every carefully planned purchase for 10 years has been entirely for nothing.

Thank you for any help you may give and thank you for reading.

-Solomon

Edited to add clarifying timeline:

• Separated in September
• Notified of $650 charge in Oct, subsequently instructed them to fully zeroize the outstanding balance and they waived the $650, provided I close my account.
• Notified of $87 in fees and interest in Feb. paid it and clarified “ensure all fees are paid, too.” My account now reads $0.00. Again.
• Notified of $33 in fees and interest in Jun. I refuse to pay it. The customer service rep says she’ll credit my account $33. My account reads $0.00 once more.
• Notified of $0.37 in fees and interest yesterday.

I can’t get away from them even by trying. Is this my life now? Some sort of cyclical hell where it’s nobodies fault and everyone kicks the can to remove any sense of responsibility where I as the customer just remain completely screwed?