Consumer complaint received 2023-10-21
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: AZ
Product: Credit card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
Hello ALL, Please review this timeline of what transpired : XX/XX/2023 I attended a webinar for section 8 pros interested in earning supplemental income purchasing and renting out section 8 properties. Through this webinar, XXXX XXXX laid out what he would do for us, i.e., setting up my LLC and operating agreements, hand pick 5 sections 8 units for me, getting involved in my offer negotiations, screening tenants, and setting up property management, and helping me scale 5 rental units ( stating NO EXPIRATION ON THIS PROMO AFTER PURCHASE. Also, he mentioned in his webinar that there would be step-by-step handholding for XXXX XXXX ( the ability to buy rental properties with only {$2500.00} down. He notes that he has access to his XXXX XXXX and finally a 60 money-back guarantee, which he notes Includes the full section 8 course, XXXX community access, private lender access, and monthly group Zoom calls. He stated during the webinar that this offer is good for the first 15 people who sign up and pay ( limited-time offer ) the moneyback guarantee removed any fear I had about signing up as I know I can get my money back if worst case scenario I cant or no longer wish to continue. I visit the checkout page, review the links at the bottom, and review Terms, Privacy Policy, and Refund Policy. The refund policy routes me to the privacy policy, leading me to assume the 60 moneyback guarantee was the refund policy. I proceeded to check out. Around an hour later Im sent links to sign up and join the XXXX  community and create a username and password to his website for the video learning. Roughly an hour later I got home and discussed this with my wife and she let me know her business is not doing so well as she lost employment from several children she provides childcare for and we are losing a sizeable amount of monthly income so we decided to reach out via email to XXXX and request our refund. 
To my surprise, they replied Typically there are generally no refunds on digital/software products. Especially since I took up a limited slot on his webinar. But does bring up the 60- day guarantee still applying if I didnt buy a property at the end of the 60-day coaching period. This is the first time Ive heard that there are typically no refunds as this is not mentioned anywhere during the webinar and nowhere on the site to purchase the courses. 
XX/XX/2023 I replied to the email from the previous evening being as polite and provoking as possible to indeed receive my money back to which this XXXX person states he is empowered to refund {$2000.00} of my money now and the remaining $ XXXX will check with XXXX Friday morning. XX/XX/XXXX was that Thursday so I thought no problem Ill get my money back tomorrow. I thank XXXX and also let him know I will not be using the services, promos, etc. As I intended to get my full refund tomorrow XX/XX/2023 Friday comes I get nothing from XXXX or XXXX and the charge has now hit my account as it was run on the XXXX and posted on the XXXX. I emailed them at XXXX XXXX and received no response. 
XX/XX/2023 I emailed them again still no response. 
I started getting very nervous that they werent going to return my money so I started searching online regarding the company. 

I went to the charge and reviewed the company info stating its from XXXXXXXX XXXX but looking up the phone number and website it takes me to Section 8 Rental Assistance and its a company based out of XXXX XXXXXXXX. 

No luck there so I go back to the link that I was provided during the webinar I attended : https : //section8formula.com/paid-webinar I try clicking around on everything and reading as much as I could to see if there is any solution to getting my money back. I find nothing so I go to google.com and search Section 8 formula refund which leads me to the actual refund policy that was not disclosed to me at the time of purchase and ( it seems purposefully hidden from the purchase site he rushes you to in order to make your purchase. 
This leads me to here and the beginning of my nightmare with American Express. I dispute the charge with my credit card company 6 or 7 times and I continue to get the same response over and over again that they cant negate anyones policy even if I didnt receive it beforehand. 
XX/XX/2023 I emailed them after ( NOT ME ) my credit card company got a response in regard to my dispute. XXXX says I in fact did receive notice from the refund policy that is in place on his site and he included a copy of it in the response along with a receipt ( which was never sent to me other than the mailed response from American Express. 
This has been going on since XXXX so I have thrown some of them out but they all have the same information each time. American Express only accepts screenshots as proof. XXXX XXXX sends them his refund policy and American Express closes out the case. I first tried uploading video evidence of me clicking on his link for his refund policy to illustrate to American Express that it, in fact, doesn't take you to the refund policy but instead to a privacy policy, I tried sending the entire webinar to them showing he offers a 60 full money back guarantee ( again I've been disputing this since XXXX and still no refund from the merchant. The merchant not only stopped responding to me completely but also blocked me from the site they maintain I'm responsible for paying?? Here are some photos for you to review ( see link for photos ) https : XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XX/XX/2023 XXXX XXXX holds another webinar. I join under an alias as at this point, Ive pretty much been blocked from contacting them in any way. He starts again with his limited slot access exactly the same as before all the same information provided the only change this time is I screen-record the entirety of the webinar, including clicking on his link again to check out and again I try to click on his refund policy which again routes you back to his privacy policy. I attempted to provide this to American Express to no avail as all he has to do is resend them this policy that he has in place and thats the end of that. 
Present day Ive since given them a screenshot after screenshot showing them the webinar 60 money-back guarantee. A screenshot of the site inspection page shows that the refund policy he sent American Express is not accessible from the link he provided to make the purchase. I tried sending them a video but their guidelines wont accept a video and anything I upload to their site cant be anything larger than 10 megabytes The credit card company has since closed my case again stating Im liable for the charge, but I still feel with all this compelling evidence that I am not. I feel the merchant did not act in good faith by purposefully hiding the refund policy link on the check-out page from their ( hurry-up and by ) time/open slot arrangement webinar. stopped responding to me directly, lied to American Express stating I had a copy of documents that were never provided to me, lied about the 60-day money-back guarantee, and to top it all off theyve revoked my access to the online master class that this was all for. 
Thank you for taking the time to review this mess of a situation for me as this is my final and only resolution left to take with XXXX XXXX. Im including a link to the XXXX XXXX so that any screenshots or photos that are unclear are available to you through the site along with videos showing everything Ive laid out so far. 

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XX/XX/2023

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief