AMERICAN EXPRESS Archives

Cartoon of an alarmed woman holding an American Express card in one hand and a glowing phone in the other.

Viva Aerobus canceled my flight. Why did it send my $844 refund to the wrong bank?

August 5, 2026August 5, 2026 by Christopher Elliott

Carol Bartell booked a flight from Tijuana to Hermosillo on Viva Aerobus, and the airline canceled it. When she asked for her money back, the carrier would not simply reverse the charge on her American Express card. It insisted on wiring the refund to a US bank account instead. So she looked up a SWIFT code for her credit union online and sent the details across. Two problems followed. Her credit union does not use the SWIFT system at all, and the airline transmitted a different code than the one she had supplied. Her $844 landed at Navy Federal Credit Union, where she is not a member and where nobody could help her. Emails to customer service and to the chief executive went unanswered, so she filed a formal complaint with PROFECO, Mexico’s consumer protection agency.

Cartoon of a man staring in shock at a smartphone showing the PayPal app, as a wide-eyed cat peers over the couch behind him.

I have two fraudulent charges on my PayPal account. What should I do?

July 23, 2026July 23, 2026 by Christopher Elliott

Two charges David Melton never made showed up on his PayPal account, both for sports tickets to a Knicks-Bulls game. One, for $1,098, hit a linked American Express card. The other, for $757, pushed his PayPal balance into the negative. Together they came to $1,855 for a game he had nothing to do with. So he did what you are supposed to do: he opened disputes with both PayPal and Amex. And both turned him down, telling him he had made the purchases. He had not, and he spent hours trying to piece together how it had even happened. Here is the trap that catches so many fraud victims. When someone gets into your account and buys something using your own credentials, the transaction can look perfectly legitimate to an automated security system. The computer sees a login with your name on it and assumes the charge is yours, which is very likely why both first-round disputes were denied without a human ever taking a real look.