American Express, the company idealized for outstanding customer service, has really fallen short this time. Time and time again I have heard stories about large corporations using their power to take advantage of and profit from the little guy.
Well this time, I’m the little guy.
And this time I will not do nothing, I will be heard.
My name is Scott Bartell.
I’m just your average 22 year old college graduate. I was born and raised in Buffalo, NY and studied Business Administration at the University at Buffalo.
In late 2012 / early 2013 American Express took advantage of me.
This is my story. Please tell everyone you can.
Accepting American Express’s Offer
Towards the end of July 2012 I noticed an offer for the American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card.
Earn 25,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $2,000 in the first 3 months. No annual fee for the first year.
I had been looking for a new credit card and I had heard that American Express had very good customer service (especially for their Gold Cardholders), so I decided to sign up for the offer.
When I went to the sign up page which contained the offer, I was noticing some odd behavior. I can’t recall exactly what I noticed, but I came to the assumption that because I was already an American Express Blue Cash Everyday® cardholder, the offer might have not been available to me.
Before I made any real conclusions on my own, I thought that it would be a good idea to talk to an American Express representative.
I sent an email through American Express’s Secure Message Center asking if I was eligible for any offers and I received the following response from an American Express representative:
Dear Scott,
1) Yes, there is currently an offer available to Earn 25,000 Points on the Premier Rewards Gold Card. You can simply go to the following link and you will get the details of the offer there:
https://www304.americanexpress.com/credit-card/premier-rewards-gold/25330
You will earn the 25,000 points if you can spend just $2,000 in the first 3 months of Cardmembership. The bonus points will be awarded to your account within 6-8 weeks after you meet the spend requirement.
2) And yes, this offer is indeed for no annual fee for the first year. From the second year, you will have $175.
In order to apply for the Card, simply click on the Apply Now box on the website.
If you encounter difficulties applying online, please call our Apply by Phone Unit toll free at (877)-621-2639 (24 hours/7 days) and a representative will be happy to assist you with your application.
If you are outside the US, you can call the Collect number at (336)-393-1111 to reach them.
Hope you are happy to know about the offer. If there is anything else that I can help you with, please let me know.
We value your membership since 2011 and I wish you a happy weekend!
I was relieved to have an actual representative from American Express confirm that I was eligible for the offer. I followed the link in the message and signed up for the American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card.
I received the card in the mail within the next couple days. I activated it and I immediately begin to shift my spending to that card.
Meeting The Spend Requirement
After the first month (Period Ending Aug 26, 2012) of using my card I had spent and paid a total of $1,456.79
After the second month (Aug 27, 2012 to Sep 25, 2012) of using my card I spent and paid an additional $670.11
According to the original agreement that was emailed to me:
You will earn the 25,000 points if you can spend just $2,000 in the first 3 months of Cardmembership. The bonus points will be awarded to your account within 6-8 weeks after you meet the spend requirement.
This means that after only two months of having the card I had already met the requirement for earning the 25,000 bonus points! And 6-8 weeks after my second statement closed would mean that I should have been awarded the points between November 6th, 2012 and November 20th, 2012.
So, Where Are My Points?
Towards the end of November I began to wonder when I would be awarded my bonus points. Not remembering the exact details of the original agreement, I did some research on American Express’s website and read that “bonus points will be credited to your account 10 to 12 weeks after you meet the qualifying criteria”.
I really wasn’t sure when exactly I met the criteria, so I decided to ask American Express’s customer service via the Secure Message System.
Here’s our entire conversation:
Customer (xxxxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com) 11/19/2012 11:15 AM
Hello, I should be receiving 25,000 bonus points for signing up and spending $3,000+ within the specified timeframe. I have read that “Bonus points will be credited to your account 10 to 12 weeks after you meet the qualifying criteria for eligible bonus transactions” but I am unsure when exactly I met the criteria. Can you please give me a more specific timeframe for when I will be credited the points? Thank you! Have a great day. Scott Bartell
I’m aware that my numbers don’t really match up with the numbers from the original offer. Honestly, I wasn’t positive about the exact criteria that I needed to meet and I was unable to verify with the original agreement (you’ll find out why after their response).
Here’s their response:
Response (Rajesh Sharma) 11/19/2012 02:40 PM
Dear Mr. Bartell, At the moment, we are unable to confirm you were eligible for this offer, so we cannot award the Membership Reward points to your account. However, I’ve forwarded the matter to our research team. They will verify your eligibility and if the criteria have been met, they will issue the points. Once it is complete, we will send you a letter with detailed information about the outcome. We appreciate your patience while we try to resolve the matter for you. Sincerely,
Rajesh Sharma
Email Servicing Team
American Express Interactive Services
At this point I was shocked and very upset. I immediately went to dig up the message that was sent to me when I signed up for the card.
I couldn’t find it. It was gone!
Apparently American Express removes messages from their system that are 90 days or older and it had been about 115 days since I received the message.
I was frustrated, but having some experience with web development, I had a strong feeling that they still had access to old messages.
Regardless, I wanted to make sure that they looked for this message when they reviewed my case, so I sent another message:
Customer (xxxxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com) 11/19/2012 03:05 PM Thank you for your response, I just want to mention that a few days before I applied for my Premier Rewards Gold Card (####) I sent a message (through this system) asking about my eligibility for this offer. I was told that I would be eligible and as a direct result of this offer I applied for the card and have used it for several purchases. It’s rather upsetting that this information has been lost. I hope this issue gets resolved quickly. Scott Bartell
And here was their response:
Response (Rajesh Sharma) 11/19/2012 04:38 PM Dear Mr. Bartell,
I have already forwarded this matter to our specialized team. Once resolved you will be informed about the outcome of the inquiry.
We appreciate your patience while we resolve this.
Sincerely,
Rajesh Sharma
Email Servicing Team
American Express Interactive Services
The Results of My First Case
Weeks pass…
And still no response from American Express.
On Dec 12 2012, I decided to send American Express another message:
Customer (xxxxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com) 12/10/2012 10:32 AM Any news on this? It’s almost been a month…
Their response:
Response (Raashi Semwal) 12/10/2012 02:23 PM Dear Mr. Bartell,
I understand your concern.
I see that your request is still being reviewed by our Membership Rewards Team.
Please note that it generally takes about 10 business days for a research to complete. However, depending upon the complexity of the request, it may take more than the usual time to complete the research.
Once it is complete, we will send you a letter with detailed information about the outcome.
If you want, you may contact our Membership Rewards Team at (800) 297-3276 (Monday - Friday 9AM EST to 12AM EST or Saturday and Sunday from 10AM EST to 6:30PM EST) to discuss the matter.
We appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this matter for you.
Sincerely,
Raashi Semwal
Email Servicing Team
American Express Interactive Services
On December 23, 2012 I finally receive a letter from American Express that was dated December 17, 2012.
Here’s an excerpt from the actual letter:
We have reviewed your account and do not have a record of this particular Membership Rewards offer being extended to you. Therefore, we are unable to award these points to you.
Here’s an the actual letter:
Wonderful.
What a delightful Christmas gift.
At this point I am very upset; how could they have not looked at the record of communication between me and support? How could they have not read the message that clearly states that I was eligible for the offer?!
It had taken American Express 1 month to give me a poorly researched, generic response and close the case.
But I wasn’t going to give up that easily.
Getting Proof of The Offer
At this point I figured that I should take a more strategic approach. Therefor my next goal was: get a copy of the original message where American Express clearly extended the offer to me.
I decided to send another message through the Secure Message System and ask if it was possible to get an old message that was sent through the system. I was very careful not to provide American Express with a reason.
Customer (scottsbartell@gmail.com) 12/29/2012 03:07 PM Are you able to see old messages sent through this system? I am looking for a message I received from American Express around June/July 2012.
I was getting impatient with the response time so I also sent a tweet to @AskAmex.
I received a quick response and was asked to send another message though the Secure Message System that included my twitter name.
A couple of hours later I received this response:
Response (Sumiran Ghalay) 12/29/2012 05:54 PM Dear Mr. Bartell,
I’ve received both your emails and replying in one for your convenience.
Yes, I can definitely see the messages sent on July 2012 regarding signing up for a new Gold Card.
For your convenience, I’ve copied an pasted the email which was sent then:
” Dear Scott,
1) Yes, there is currently an offer available to Earn 25,000 Points on the Premier Rewards Gold Card. You can simply go to the following link and you will get the details of the offer there:
https://www304.americanexpress.com/credit-card/premier-rewards-gold/25330
You will earn the 25,000 points if you can spend just $2,000 in the first 3 months of Cardmembership. The bonus points will be awarded to your account within 6-8 weeks after you meet the spend requirement.
2) And yes, this offer is indeed for no annual fee for the first year. From the second year, you will have $175.
In order to apply for the Card, simply click on the Apply Now box on the website.
If you encounter difficulties applying online, please call our Apply by Phone Unit toll free at (877)-621-2639 (24 hours/7 days) and a representative will be happy to assist you with your application.
If you are outside the US, you can call the Collect number at (336)-393-1111 to reach them.
Hope you are happy to know about the offer. If there is anything else that I can help you with, please let me know.
We value your membership since 2011 and I wish you a happy weekend!”
I hope this helps. If there is anything else we can assist you with, please do reply back.
Happy New Year!
Sincerely,
Sumiran Ghalay Email Servicing Team American Express Interactive Services
Bingo!
At this point I felt like I had enough proof to call American Express Customer Service and actually make some progress.
I was wrong.
My Second Case
On December 29th, 2012 at 6:47PM EST I called American Express and spoke with Donnell.
I explained to him what had happened. I told him that American Express sent an email to me through their own Secure Message System when I signed up for the card and that message clearly stated that I was eligible for the offer.
I explained that they don’t even need to take my word for it, that the email was sent through American Express’s own Secure Message System by an American Express staff member.
I asked him how my claim could have possibly been denied when there was such overwhelming proof that a staff member extended this offer to me.
He didn’t have an answer.
Donnell told me that the only thing he could do was open another case and to make a special note in the case explaining my situation.
I told him to go ahead and create the case.
He assured me that American Express would call me within the next 7 days.
Canceling My Gold Card
Today is 31 days later.
I still have not heard a word from American Express.
So today at 4:30 PM EST I called American Express one last time; but this time I called to cancel my American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card.
I talked to yet another American Express representative. For one final time I told my story.
The representative agreed with me and told me that he didn’t understand why I wasn’t eligible for the offer.
He offered no solution.
I explained to him that I am a 22 year old college graduate with a business degree (the lifetime value of me as a customer has to worth something… right?) and that I would never be using American Express again because of how I was treated.
Again, he offered no solution.
5 minutes later my Card was canceled.
That’s My Story
Was I treated fairly? Is this good customer service? What would you have done differently?
You tell me.
One more thing…
It’s time for corporations to stop treating individuals without the slightest bit of dignity.
It’s time that a solid foundation of good ethics and morals becomes what is normal and expected from business and not regraded only as a form of differentiation.
Spread this message, tell everybody, and demand higher standards.
Thank you,
Scott Bartell
