American Express Removed funds from my account and can not account for it. New York, New York

As a matter of corporate policy applied to all customers, American Express claims they are required to remove from customer accounts any funds that have remained in the account for more than six months. They move the customer's funds to an American Express corporate account and mail the customer a check via the postal service. The check is valid for 120 days. If the check expires un-cashed, Amex does not (or in my case, did not) put the funds back into the customer's account, even when the customer requests.

American Express will notify the customer about this expired credit refund check by sending a letter via the postal service and calling the customers telephone number.

Apparently, American Express will not (or in my case, did not) voluntarily disclose the existence of these un-cashed checks when the customer contacts customer service by telephone to discuss account status. Also, American Express will not (or in my case, did not) notify the customer of these checks through the web based message service available when the customer logs into their account online via the internet.

After five years American Express claims they are obligated to turn over these funds to the state. The state (New York State Comptrollers Office of Unclaimed Funds, in this case) claims they have no record of these funds.

Since American Express has millions of customers and applies these policies to all accounts, I may not be the only victim of these policies. Ask the NYSOUF how much money Amex claims their customers abandon each year. Add in the other 49 states and multiply times the number of years Amex has been doing this. My guess: $5 billion.

For my account: Estimate $70,000.00 over 28 years. I lived in locations where mail service was not reliable, so I often did not get statements or refund checks. I did manage to recover $12,000, and identify another $10,000 before they closed and deleted my account records.

In my opinion, Amex could have and should have returned the funds to my account.
Since the NYSOUF claims they did not get the funds, Amex is liable for either failing to meet the reporting requirements, or failing to turn over the funds.

I / we need help with this.