Consumer complaint received 2015-06-09
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: UT
Product: Credit card
Issue: Other

Complaint:
American Express credit cards have a benefit called Return Protection. This is a complaint regarding the AMEX company which operates this AMEX credit card benefit, an AMEX subsidiary called AMEX Assurance. 

In my view the American Express Return Protection program is a joke, and also a criminal enterprise and fundamental deception. 

XXXX of my claims were recently denied, showing the more true & honest whack-a-mole ( ie : whack-a-customer ) atmosphere present at AMEX and AMEX Assurance. Claim numbers involved : XXXX and XXXX. 

Regarding the denial of claim XXXX : Just found out for the first time after using the program for more than a year : if the merchant will take the item back for a *store credit* then the item is not eligible for the Return Protection program. The merchant involved will only take items back after a person has tried them for XXXX days, and only for a store credit at a 30 % hit ( restocking fee reducing the store credit amount ). So a. ) the item *must* have been tried for XXXX days first, and b. ) only a store credit is available and at a 30 % reduction from the original purchase price. 

Nowhere in the terms of the Return Protection program does it state that it 's a store credit protection program. A true return is for cash. The protection program ( as per the stated terms & conditions ) is reasonably understood to be a returns for cash back program, not a store credit protection program, and not a program that requires that items be " tried out for XXXX days first. " Agents at AMEX Assurance just add in denial verbiage which is not in the original return protection terms. So they can and do just add in whatever denial reasoning they want, reasoning not in the original terms and conditions. They also ca n't read or understand English. 

Regarding the denial of claim XXXX : AMEX Assurance will also deny return protection claims if an item is *similar* to another not-allowed item, but technically verbally ( by normal XXXX definitions ) not on the not-covered list. 

For example they denied a separate claim for a newspaper because the terms & conditions has the word " book '' in it. But a book is not a newspaper, and a newspaper is not a book. Books are bound. Newspapers are not. Newspapers are printed frequently. Books or not. Books are long. Newspapers are short. 

In a library books are kept in the books section. Newspapers are in their own section. In XXXX denial letter they claimed that both books and newspapers are periodicals, even though books are not. And the word periodicals is not in the terms & conditions either. 

So they just do whatever they please anytime they please, and they deny claims for whatever reasons they please. If they want to deny an item, they can just make up word definitions which do n't exist or which are just plain wrong. Or they can add in terms and verbiage which are n't in the original terms and conditions. Whatever they type on their keyboard is law - they make new rules just by typing. That 's how they work. But it 's a sham & a lie & it 's fundamentally deceptive. 

AMEX Assurance is in my view a shady and deceptive company. 

An insurance company which makes up denial reasons on the fly and outside the scope of original terms & conditions documents, and XXXX which makes up new non-existent definitions of XXXX words, is in my view a criminal enterprise.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation