Consumer complaint received 2018-12-13
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: NY
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers
Sub-issue: Didn't receive advertised or promotional terms

Complaint:
To Whom It May Concern, 1. 

I would like to file a complaint for the non-delivery of the advertised acquisition offer for the American Express Gold Card ( applied and approved for on XX/XX/2018 ), which was confirmed in writing one month after obtaining the financial product ( Attachment 1 ). American Express Company ( henceforth " Amex '' ) invoked an arbitrary and vague  clause claiming the right to revoke any offer when abuse was suspected. 

I argue that this was not done in good faith, as the reason given does not apply to, and is inconsistent with, the ground on which Amex has directly ( addressed to me, after doing account research, and after at least 30 days had passed since approval ) confirmed said acquisition offer in writing ( Attachment 1 ), provided by Customer Service Representative 2. 

Furthermore, the written confirmation ( Attachment 1 ), by linguistic common sense, unambiguously confirms my qualification for the offer. As shown, the confirmation was given after I clearly stated that there was an ongoing uncertainty as to whether I qualified for said offer. Customer Service Representative 4 ( henceforth " CS4 '' ) would later argue in a phone call that said written confirmation " did not say that you will definitely, 100 % get the [ bonus ] ''. I argue that CS4 exhibited malicious effort to reinterpret, and by doing so misinterpret, what was in fact an unambiguous confirmation. 

This constitutes my first complaint. 

2. 

Within this document I would also like to file a second complaint, in which I argue that misinformation and contradicting information was not limited to the aforementioned encounter. Within a series of communication due to the same incident, I was given three contradicting reasons as to why I was not eligible for the offer : - Customer Service Representative 1 ( henceforth " CS1 ) conveyed in the phone call, after a review, that the reason was I had had this financial product or a precious iteration of the same product. This is not true and was later acknowledged by both CS1, Customer Service Representative 3 ( henceforth " CS3 '' ). It can also be easily reverified through the internal records of Amex or independently with credit bureaus. 

A few days later I was told by CS3 that I remained ineligible, a more in-depth review and investigate had taken place, with the reason for denial of said acquisition bonus being " existing cardmember is not eligible ''. In addition to contradicting the previous reason, which was directly stated in the terms upon application, this new reason was not directly stated in the terms upon application and CS3 invoked the arbitrary clause " other factors to defend ineligibility. 

Upon further contest and review, CS4 would give me yet another reason for ineligibility : I was suspected of abusing the system. CS4 also acknowledged all previous misinformation and indicated that Amex had records of all communications. 

3. 

I would also like file a third complaint regarding Amex 's arbitrary determination of " abuse ''. 

To this end, I would like to clarify that I have only had one other Amex credit/charge card in my lifetime, and that account is still active. I argue that Amex had arbitrarily, or at least not in good faith, made the determination that I either abused, or was suspected to abuse, the system. 

CS4 also claimed that, in the application process, a pop-up indicating my ineligibility for the acquisition offer was displayed. By CS4 's own word, this pop-up was designed so that it would be hard to miss. I have no recollection of seeing said pop-up. I believe this mechanism is a new implementation and may be subjected to technical error. Upon further research on my end, I have found several sources indicating that this experience is not unusual, where other consumers were denied acquisition offer albeit not seeing any pop-up. 



I would like to summarize my complaint. I clarify that my intention is for them to each be viewed as an independent, self-contained, complaint : 1 ) I was given a written, unambiguous, confirmation ( Attachment 1 ) that the acquisition offers were on my account. This was delivered on an official Amex communication channel, one month after my approval for the financial product, after I explicitly inquired about my eligibility.

2 ) Through a series of contradicting information -- changing reasons for non-qualification, some of which can be verified to be invalid ( e.g. inaccurately claiming that I have had the card before ) -- I believe Amex exhibited intentional effort to not deliver advertised and confirmed offers. 

3 ) Amexs determination of abuse was arbitrary, and it claimed to have displayed a hard-to-miss pop-up indicating my ineligibility, of which I do not recall, an experience shared by many others.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation