Consumer complaint received 2019-04-06
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: MN
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Getting a credit card
Sub-issue: Sent card you never applied for

Complaint:
I initially applied for Delta Gold Skymiles Card during their promotional period ( should be described here XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX ), which ended on XX/XX/XXXX. I filled out the application and got an approval email back, thinking I signed up for the Gold Card. 

The approval email is here, but makes no mention of which card I signed up for ( can provide full email headers if needed, but this is the text - with my personal info redacted ) : -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- - Notification Your Card Approval Your Account Number Ending : - XXXX XXXX : XXXX Dear [ My Name ] [ My Name ] Member Since : Today! 

Welcome to Card Membership! We're excited that you have chosen American Exp= ress. 

Your new Card will arrive before you know it. In the meantime, you can set = up your online account XXXX XXXX XXXX [ rest of link ], which will let you : Check your balanceTrack your rewardsPay your billSign up for account alerts We're here for you FAQs : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Phone Numbers : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Connect Socially : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  We want to let you know that you can contact us 24/7 online, via social med= ia, or over the phone, if you have any questions big or small - that's part= of our commitment to delivering our award-winning brand of Relationship Ca= re=C2=AE service to you. 

Thanks again for choosing American Express. 

American Express Customer Care Privacy Statement XXXX XXXX XXXX [ rest of link with my member number ] XXXX XXXX XXXX Update Your Email XXXX XXXX XXXXl Your Card Member information is included above to help you recognize this a= s a customer service e-mail from American Express To learn more about e-mai= l security or report a suspicious e-mail visit us at americanexpress.com/ph= ishing. We kindly ask you not to reply to this e-mail but contact us via [ link ] 2019 American Express. All rights reserved. 

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- - Found out after I received the card that they signed me up for their Blue Card ( which had no promotional offer ). They also never asked me what the credit limit should be in the process of the application ( automatically assigned 25k to the card, which is far more than I would have wanted for this card ). 

I thought that this would be a simple fix, but apparently not. My wife and I called customer service to get the signed up for the appropriate Gold Card w/ the promotional offer that we signed up for originally, and wasted over an hour on the phone with them. I was transferred at least 6 times ( back and forth between their Application line and Customer Service ). I was also refused when I asked to speak to management about the issue ( and subsequently sent back to their phone tree ), and then later told I wouldn't be able to upgrade the card to Gold anyhow until a number of months had elapsed. 

I eventually requested to cancel the card ( because I never signed up for it ), and then they told me that it would impact my credit by cancelling ( which is probably due to the the high credit limit that they gave me ) My wife then called them back and requested to file a complaint with them and then that also went nowhere.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation