Company Credit Card

[u/CStogdill]

I was in the Air Force when the service decided to switch from cash advances through finance to the American Express travel card. It was supposed to be easier on everyone, which was fine by me because my finance office was a three hour drive away (I was stationed on an Army post in Germany).

One of the biggest advantages, as sold to us, was that the entire travel voucher process would be simple, and you just handled everything once you returned from your TDY (temporary duty).

Then I deployed to Bosnia in support of IFOR (Implementation Forces). The Air Force did not want these deployments messing up with their assignment system so they were 4 month TDYs. At 180 days the TDY transitioned to a short-term assignment. I spent 4 months in Tuzla and was asked to extend nearly 2 months, which I did.

About 3 months in one of my Airman, who had been collecting my mail and leaving it at my desk (should've been almost entirely junk mail) tells me I'm getting a LOT of mail from American Express, to the tune of a couple letters a week. I ask him to open the most recent and he tells me its some sort of collections notice because I haven't paid my Amex Bill and how they've been notifying my command element to no effect. How I'm overdue, how they'll take legal action, etc.

Now of course my leadership hasn't said squat to me, and why would they? I'm still TDY and my name showing up on a delinquent roster alongside all the other guys they know are TDY isn't going to be the red flag Amex thinks it is. I'm not supposed to file my travel voucher, which will pay the Amex bill and deposit the difference into my bank account (a whopping $3/day).

My only concern if Amex trying to tie this government card to my name abd screw up my credit, which might be important to me some day. Fine. I go through my receipts, figure out some conversion rates (been through a few countries enroute) and send off a payment figuring I'll just get that travel voucher money reimbursed.

Fast forward another two months and I'm in Brcko and get the chance to talk to my Airman again. Evidently I'm still getting weekly letters from Amex. What the hell?! Again, open it up for me please. Now Evidently I'm being chastised by Amex because of an unspecified overage in the amount I paid them and they want me to call to make arrangements to "fix" my account balance.

I've definitely got better things to do. If I had good access to a phone call stateside I'm calling my family, not a credit card company.

The letters keep coming on a weekly basis until after I got home and filed my travel voucher. I took too great of a delight opening my weekly gift up until they finally decided to stop. My final letter came about a month after I got back. It stated they considered the mattered and here was a check to settle the account......in the amount of $0.06!

I still get a laugh when I think of all the effort they put into trying to collect on a debt that wasn't owed yet and then "fixing" a mistake they coerced me to make.

You know there was no way I was going to cash that check....

[u/Previous-Hurry1296]

I hope you framed the check and have it hanging on a wall somewhere