response to abusive 'financial review' by Amex
Jul 26, 2008, 10:14 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Kalifornia
Programs: Starwood, Marriott, One Pass and WF Rewards
Posts: 138
response to abusive 'financial review' by Amex
This is written to assist those who need:
- American Express financial review help (Amex FR help as some might say)
- to understand what happens during the Amex financial review process
- to think about how to respond to a cancellation of accounts by Amex as a result of a financial review, and if need be, how to appeal that decision
- to decide if Amex is a reliable partner for their financial affairs and if it is safe to have Amex be the provider of the bulk of your credit
An open letter to Amex which will also be sent to customer service, the Corporate offices, Costco, and legal advisors:
(not that they much care I expect, EXCEPT for that last little item)
I have been a customer of American Express since about 1999. I just finished a nearly 2 month process of 'financial review' with you, which ultimately I suppose I 'passed' since my accounts are now restored and unfrozen, but I want to let you know that this has fundamentally impacted our business relationship, and that I think your process is severely and obviously broken. I must say that given the hundreds / thousands of on-line posts I see about this 'review process,' posts that are unique to American Express and the highly negative experiences of others, I think your process is causing you a lot of problems, and has been and will continue to cost you many of your high dollar value clients. I would be very curious to see how many customers you have lost that truly are financially qualified, and in fact even pass your 'review.'
I stress to you that I 'passed' your process, that although I did have my account initially revoked that after making an appeal to the American Express financial review team my appeal was granted and all of my accounts are back up, and that I do of course understand the need to 'verify' income and the like. So this is not a sour-grapes letter over being canceled or thinking it unreasonable that you follow up on your need to verify income etc., but rather a sour-grapes letter over very poor treatment by a company that I have relied on and allowed to become integral to my financial transactions. I suspect as you get many many complaints about this process that you make the mistake of conflating those who are upset about an abusive and unnecessarily extreme process with those who (wrongly) think you have no right to conduct a review and assure yourself of the creditworthiness of your borrowers, as I can't think of any other reason that you would receive so many vociferous complaints, and yet refuse to make significant change. In truth, I believe it is quite possible for you to accomplish your goals of verifying income and ability to pay while still treating customers with more dignity than you currently do and enacting your policy in a less extreme fashion, which would of course better preserve your customer relations. If many of even the customers who 'pass' your review don't want to work with you any more, might it not be a good idea to rethink your current process a little?
By way of fyi, in the two months (late May) since my accounts were suspended, I have successfully upgraded my 'status' at two other financial services companies who indicate they very much want to do substantial business with me. I have canceled all of my automatic transactions that channeled to my Amex cards (what choice did I have with your 'total account freeze policy'?), and of course won't be sending any of those back your way.
I think it is interesting that both other companies that I spoke with in efforts to replace my lost credit were well aware of this Amex issue and your financial reviews as they are conducted, and both at the supervisor level indicated that they have picked up many high dollar customers from Amex over the last several years, including many customers that had 'passed' their financial review and been fully reinstated. One also indicated a product targeted at high dollar value customers and as such at disaffected Amex customers, the Merrill Lynch card, which I personally find quite persuasive, and have already posted a good 100k to that card in the last month or so. I believe it to be a product with comparable benefits to the Amex cards I am now shuning, specifically the Platinum Membership Rewards product.
As background, I am CEO of a small company with about $2.5 million in revenue, modest profits, and have a personal income of about $150k.
I charge several hundred thousand dollars per year total on my cards, and in the past I have primarily used Amex card products for those charges. My charges have been sufficient that I have twice been invited to become a 'black card' member in the last few years, and in fact have done more than enough charges on all of my combined Amex cards for the last several years running to warrant 'black card' membership.
My business has about 60% of our revenue by charge card, and I'm told Amex has been (although this is a guess) about half or more of that total. So, between $500k and $750k in charges annually, and growing, for annual fees to Amex of roughly $15,000 to $30,000.
In the coming months I will be canceling most of my personal and business Amex accounts, and in September will be dropping Amex as a card we accept as a vendor. I would do it now, but as a seasonal summer business, I don't have time to tackle this at the moment, but rest assured it is coming.
Here is what happened (and didn't) that so upsets me, after roughly 10 years of happy association with American Express.
First, what triggered the review, I was told by the initial reviewing agent, was about $50k of wine purchases on an SPG card at Costco. Now first of all, I am writing to Costco to detail the absurd treatment I received and to request that they reconsider their 'exclusive' partnership with Amex. I cannot be the only high dollar client to have had this happen, and I think it should be of interest and concern to Costco that their highest dollar value clients are treated in this way by Amex, and more importantly that high dollar purchases at Costco, as your agents told me and my case proves, actually trigger this extremely aggressive and unpleasant review.
Please be aware that even as I made thse $50k in charges, as you could see by reviewing my accounts, I paid down the balances EVEN BEFORE THE BILLING CYCLE CLOSED. I believe that I had paid down 50% or more of these charges before the close of billing. So why this would warrant an abusive review as I was subjected to is beyond reason to me. I do understand that if you see customers charging large sums you must be concerned that they might max out their cards and flee or at least become very overextended, which I assume is rare, but does happen: BUT, has any customer steadily paying down their balance EVEN BEFORE THE BILLING CYCLE CLOSES been that sort of customer? I would guess that this factor of paying as the charges are made would reduce to virtually zero the odds you are dealing with a customer in deep trouble. The simplicity and absoluteness of your model for this review defies reason. Why is length of time as a customer of good standing not even a factor in this review, and how does that make sound business sense?
Regardless, investing in wine is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, AND IT IS NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS what I am purchasing or why. Yes, you have a right to know I can cover my charges, but that was truly not at issue since I was paying these charges as I made them. While I did explain my reason for the purchases to your 'review' person, on reflection, this particular inquiry seems like a fairly severe invasion of my privacy and very unnecessary, unless the charges are outside of my ability to pay. Given the steady payment I made on these charges right after they were made, and my history of several hundred thousand dollars a year in charges, I don't understand why this would be such an outlandish purchase as to warrant the experience of review to which I was subjected.
Second, even though with 7 accounts over 10 years or so I have never had even a single 30 days late payment, my accounts were ALL SUMMARILY FROZEN. Now I can understand why risk management might say, 'let's take a customer temporarily down from $125k to $25 or $50k' to minimize risk while such a review is conducted, but in what world does it make sense to take your highest dollar value customers and ENTIRELY freeze ALL of their accounts for what ended up being 2 months? How can a customer view YOU as anything but an unreliable financial partner after such treatment?
This single fix, reducing outstanding credit temporarily by even 80% or even 90% rather than 'freezing' accounts outright, would obviously drastically limit your downside, while allowing customers to continue to make automatic payments, to continue to use their cards to some degree at exclusive vendors and the like, would continue to keep a relationship of some sort with long and loyal customers, and would I think largely solve what is an absurd execution of policy by your financial review team, an execution which to me all evidence indicates is costing you many of your best customers. I would guess that if during review you reduced customers to 20% of credit allocation on a temporary basis, and even on those who 'failed' for lack of adequate documentaiton if you similarly just reduced credit to this degree rather than cancelled people outright, you would dramatically improve your customer relations.
I have read in the financial publications that given your financial difficulties you have 'accelerated' the aggressiveness of your review process, presumably b/c of credit implosions you have experienced; but how does it make sense to alienate your best historical customers and effectively throw out the baby with the bathwater? It sounds as though you are now purposefully targeting your highest dollar customers. From a risk reduction perspective that makes some sense, but given how aggressive and alienating the process is, it is also a first class ticket to hemorrhaging many of your best customers, the one's who CAN pay their bills. It seems to me that as it is being conducted, you will slowly cull AWAY from Amex many of your most credit worthy customers, and instead keep many lower dollar value customers who have a small total volume of credit and charges with you, and therefore effectively fly below the radar.
Third, even though I had a certified mail receipt proving that I had turned in my tax returns, the IRS had not processed those returns, and when that was discovered, all of my accounts were summarily canceled! Now why wouldn't an 80% to 90% reduction in credit, for example, have sufficed to limit your liability sufficiently given a customer who pays most accounts in full each month, and in fact was prepaying balances even before the cycle ended?
Why would your offices not be empowered to look at my proof that I had submitted my returns? The IRS itself accepted my proof, was willing to write a letter stating they had received but failed to process my return, was willing to validate a return and provide you a copy through the taxpayer advocate's office, and agreed to expedite the posting of the returns; but Amex's financial review team would not consider ANY of my additional proof, even after a number of calls and talks with agents and supervisors, nor accept any of these alternative communications from the IRS!
Why is it even reasonable to think that it is a problem that I may not have submitted my 2007 return, when I was and am still within the window for an extension of time to file without penalty even by the IRS's own standards and policy?
Why would other forms of proof, such as bank balances for myself and my business, my bank account statements, and my W-2 forms, not be acceptable alternatives in this situation, which was no fault of my own? For the record, I offered all of these to your offices.
Fourth, how is it reasonable that Amex 'takes' / forfeits my Membership Rewards points in this case? I feel that is obviously unreasonable, and I am so outraged by that that in fact since two of my former students are now class action attorneys, I am informing you that I will be reviewing the matter with them and hope they find this set of facts to be of interest. I have been told by your agents that I will not get my points reinstated, even though my accounts have been restored, unless I submit a special plea and written request. Well, that is simply outrageous, and warrants a common two word expletive as a response. I notice that Amex has not done well on class action suits, and this one seems to me a doozie, and very just and justified; I certainly think any jury would have strong biases, as they should, that such a policy is completely unreasonable and abusive and should be punished.
Finally, once my returns were registered with the IRS, I appealed. The agent I spoke with felt my case was as clear a case for reinstatement, he said, as he had ever seen, but nonetheless it had to go through two levels of management review, which took ANOTHER 3 weeks! How is that reasonable or wise? It seems that the implicit goal with this review is to alienate your best customers as completely as possible, at least as it is currently carried out. Well, congratulations, if your goal is total alienation you've now succeeded with me.
So even though all of my income matched my claims, my business revenue I believe exceeded it, and I have nearly 10 years of successful credit management with you (even paying down all of my accounts the day that you closed them, just fyi), this is how I was treated. The file will reflect that I was courteous and reasonable with your agents and representatives at all times.
I have often felt that Amex has had the best customer service; I cannot say the same for your financial review process or how I now feel about your company. I run a seasonal business, with the bulk of my charges coming in the summer months, so the summary initial freezing of my credit cost me substantial problems and difficulty, was done without warning, and in my view, was unnecessary for the many reasons that I have detailed for you. I have come to rely on Amex as a solid, responsible partner for my business charges and affairs. Of course, that is no longer the case, and I feel I can no longer trust Amex with anything more than incidental business for me or for my company. So, as a customer, I have my own 'financial stability' and 'partnership stability' review process, and American Express has failed those.
Sincerely,
Modestexpert
- American Express financial review help (Amex FR help as some might say)
- to understand what happens during the Amex financial review process
- to think about how to respond to a cancellation of accounts by Amex as a result of a financial review, and if need be, how to appeal that decision
- to decide if Amex is a reliable partner for their financial affairs and if it is safe to have Amex be the provider of the bulk of your credit
An open letter to Amex which will also be sent to customer service, the Corporate offices, Costco, and legal advisors:
(not that they much care I expect, EXCEPT for that last little item)
I have been a customer of American Express since about 1999. I just finished a nearly 2 month process of 'financial review' with you, which ultimately I suppose I 'passed' since my accounts are now restored and unfrozen, but I want to let you know that this has fundamentally impacted our business relationship, and that I think your process is severely and obviously broken. I must say that given the hundreds / thousands of on-line posts I see about this 'review process,' posts that are unique to American Express and the highly negative experiences of others, I think your process is causing you a lot of problems, and has been and will continue to cost you many of your high dollar value clients. I would be very curious to see how many customers you have lost that truly are financially qualified, and in fact even pass your 'review.'
I stress to you that I 'passed' your process, that although I did have my account initially revoked that after making an appeal to the American Express financial review team my appeal was granted and all of my accounts are back up, and that I do of course understand the need to 'verify' income and the like. So this is not a sour-grapes letter over being canceled or thinking it unreasonable that you follow up on your need to verify income etc., but rather a sour-grapes letter over very poor treatment by a company that I have relied on and allowed to become integral to my financial transactions. I suspect as you get many many complaints about this process that you make the mistake of conflating those who are upset about an abusive and unnecessarily extreme process with those who (wrongly) think you have no right to conduct a review and assure yourself of the creditworthiness of your borrowers, as I can't think of any other reason that you would receive so many vociferous complaints, and yet refuse to make significant change. In truth, I believe it is quite possible for you to accomplish your goals of verifying income and ability to pay while still treating customers with more dignity than you currently do and enacting your policy in a less extreme fashion, which would of course better preserve your customer relations. If many of even the customers who 'pass' your review don't want to work with you any more, might it not be a good idea to rethink your current process a little?
By way of fyi, in the two months (late May) since my accounts were suspended, I have successfully upgraded my 'status' at two other financial services companies who indicate they very much want to do substantial business with me. I have canceled all of my automatic transactions that channeled to my Amex cards (what choice did I have with your 'total account freeze policy'?), and of course won't be sending any of those back your way.
I think it is interesting that both other companies that I spoke with in efforts to replace my lost credit were well aware of this Amex issue and your financial reviews as they are conducted, and both at the supervisor level indicated that they have picked up many high dollar customers from Amex over the last several years, including many customers that had 'passed' their financial review and been fully reinstated. One also indicated a product targeted at high dollar value customers and as such at disaffected Amex customers, the Merrill Lynch card, which I personally find quite persuasive, and have already posted a good 100k to that card in the last month or so. I believe it to be a product with comparable benefits to the Amex cards I am now shuning, specifically the Platinum Membership Rewards product.
As background, I am CEO of a small company with about $2.5 million in revenue, modest profits, and have a personal income of about $150k.
I charge several hundred thousand dollars per year total on my cards, and in the past I have primarily used Amex card products for those charges. My charges have been sufficient that I have twice been invited to become a 'black card' member in the last few years, and in fact have done more than enough charges on all of my combined Amex cards for the last several years running to warrant 'black card' membership.
My business has about 60% of our revenue by charge card, and I'm told Amex has been (although this is a guess) about half or more of that total. So, between $500k and $750k in charges annually, and growing, for annual fees to Amex of roughly $15,000 to $30,000.
In the coming months I will be canceling most of my personal and business Amex accounts, and in September will be dropping Amex as a card we accept as a vendor. I would do it now, but as a seasonal summer business, I don't have time to tackle this at the moment, but rest assured it is coming.
Here is what happened (and didn't) that so upsets me, after roughly 10 years of happy association with American Express.
First, what triggered the review, I was told by the initial reviewing agent, was about $50k of wine purchases on an SPG card at Costco. Now first of all, I am writing to Costco to detail the absurd treatment I received and to request that they reconsider their 'exclusive' partnership with Amex. I cannot be the only high dollar client to have had this happen, and I think it should be of interest and concern to Costco that their highest dollar value clients are treated in this way by Amex, and more importantly that high dollar purchases at Costco, as your agents told me and my case proves, actually trigger this extremely aggressive and unpleasant review.
Please be aware that even as I made thse $50k in charges, as you could see by reviewing my accounts, I paid down the balances EVEN BEFORE THE BILLING CYCLE CLOSED. I believe that I had paid down 50% or more of these charges before the close of billing. So why this would warrant an abusive review as I was subjected to is beyond reason to me. I do understand that if you see customers charging large sums you must be concerned that they might max out their cards and flee or at least become very overextended, which I assume is rare, but does happen: BUT, has any customer steadily paying down their balance EVEN BEFORE THE BILLING CYCLE CLOSES been that sort of customer? I would guess that this factor of paying as the charges are made would reduce to virtually zero the odds you are dealing with a customer in deep trouble. The simplicity and absoluteness of your model for this review defies reason. Why is length of time as a customer of good standing not even a factor in this review, and how does that make sound business sense?
Regardless, investing in wine is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, AND IT IS NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS what I am purchasing or why. Yes, you have a right to know I can cover my charges, but that was truly not at issue since I was paying these charges as I made them. While I did explain my reason for the purchases to your 'review' person, on reflection, this particular inquiry seems like a fairly severe invasion of my privacy and very unnecessary, unless the charges are outside of my ability to pay. Given the steady payment I made on these charges right after they were made, and my history of several hundred thousand dollars a year in charges, I don't understand why this would be such an outlandish purchase as to warrant the experience of review to which I was subjected.
Second, even though with 7 accounts over 10 years or so I have never had even a single 30 days late payment, my accounts were ALL SUMMARILY FROZEN. Now I can understand why risk management might say, 'let's take a customer temporarily down from $125k to $25 or $50k' to minimize risk while such a review is conducted, but in what world does it make sense to take your highest dollar value customers and ENTIRELY freeze ALL of their accounts for what ended up being 2 months? How can a customer view YOU as anything but an unreliable financial partner after such treatment?
This single fix, reducing outstanding credit temporarily by even 80% or even 90% rather than 'freezing' accounts outright, would obviously drastically limit your downside, while allowing customers to continue to make automatic payments, to continue to use their cards to some degree at exclusive vendors and the like, would continue to keep a relationship of some sort with long and loyal customers, and would I think largely solve what is an absurd execution of policy by your financial review team, an execution which to me all evidence indicates is costing you many of your best customers. I would guess that if during review you reduced customers to 20% of credit allocation on a temporary basis, and even on those who 'failed' for lack of adequate documentaiton if you similarly just reduced credit to this degree rather than cancelled people outright, you would dramatically improve your customer relations.
I have read in the financial publications that given your financial difficulties you have 'accelerated' the aggressiveness of your review process, presumably b/c of credit implosions you have experienced; but how does it make sense to alienate your best historical customers and effectively throw out the baby with the bathwater? It sounds as though you are now purposefully targeting your highest dollar customers. From a risk reduction perspective that makes some sense, but given how aggressive and alienating the process is, it is also a first class ticket to hemorrhaging many of your best customers, the one's who CAN pay their bills. It seems to me that as it is being conducted, you will slowly cull AWAY from Amex many of your most credit worthy customers, and instead keep many lower dollar value customers who have a small total volume of credit and charges with you, and therefore effectively fly below the radar.
Third, even though I had a certified mail receipt proving that I had turned in my tax returns, the IRS had not processed those returns, and when that was discovered, all of my accounts were summarily canceled! Now why wouldn't an 80% to 90% reduction in credit, for example, have sufficed to limit your liability sufficiently given a customer who pays most accounts in full each month, and in fact was prepaying balances even before the cycle ended?
Why would your offices not be empowered to look at my proof that I had submitted my returns? The IRS itself accepted my proof, was willing to write a letter stating they had received but failed to process my return, was willing to validate a return and provide you a copy through the taxpayer advocate's office, and agreed to expedite the posting of the returns; but Amex's financial review team would not consider ANY of my additional proof, even after a number of calls and talks with agents and supervisors, nor accept any of these alternative communications from the IRS!
Why is it even reasonable to think that it is a problem that I may not have submitted my 2007 return, when I was and am still within the window for an extension of time to file without penalty even by the IRS's own standards and policy?
Why would other forms of proof, such as bank balances for myself and my business, my bank account statements, and my W-2 forms, not be acceptable alternatives in this situation, which was no fault of my own? For the record, I offered all of these to your offices.
Fourth, how is it reasonable that Amex 'takes' / forfeits my Membership Rewards points in this case? I feel that is obviously unreasonable, and I am so outraged by that that in fact since two of my former students are now class action attorneys, I am informing you that I will be reviewing the matter with them and hope they find this set of facts to be of interest. I have been told by your agents that I will not get my points reinstated, even though my accounts have been restored, unless I submit a special plea and written request. Well, that is simply outrageous, and warrants a common two word expletive as a response. I notice that Amex has not done well on class action suits, and this one seems to me a doozie, and very just and justified; I certainly think any jury would have strong biases, as they should, that such a policy is completely unreasonable and abusive and should be punished.
Finally, once my returns were registered with the IRS, I appealed. The agent I spoke with felt my case was as clear a case for reinstatement, he said, as he had ever seen, but nonetheless it had to go through two levels of management review, which took ANOTHER 3 weeks! How is that reasonable or wise? It seems that the implicit goal with this review is to alienate your best customers as completely as possible, at least as it is currently carried out. Well, congratulations, if your goal is total alienation you've now succeeded with me.
So even though all of my income matched my claims, my business revenue I believe exceeded it, and I have nearly 10 years of successful credit management with you (even paying down all of my accounts the day that you closed them, just fyi), this is how I was treated. The file will reflect that I was courteous and reasonable with your agents and representatives at all times.
I have often felt that Amex has had the best customer service; I cannot say the same for your financial review process or how I now feel about your company. I run a seasonal business, with the bulk of my charges coming in the summer months, so the summary initial freezing of my credit cost me substantial problems and difficulty, was done without warning, and in my view, was unnecessary for the many reasons that I have detailed for you. I have come to rely on Amex as a solid, responsible partner for my business charges and affairs. Of course, that is no longer the case, and I feel I can no longer trust Amex with anything more than incidental business for me or for my company. So, as a customer, I have my own 'financial stability' and 'partnership stability' review process, and American Express has failed those.
Sincerely,
Modestexpert
Last edited by modestexpert; Aug 5, 2008 at 5:22 pm Reason: grammar fix and to reduce all caps which some find annoying!
Jul 26, 2008, 10:25 pm
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: ORD/MDW
Programs: BA/AA/AS/B6/WN/ UA/HH/MR and more like 'em but most felicitously & importantly MUCCI
Posts: 19,719
Good letter, although far too long.
Membership Rewards points aside, why would you go to such lengths to try to keep doing business with a company that clearly doesn't want to do business with you?
Amex reviews are triggered by some algorithm that has nothing to do with human judgment, and there's no court of appeal. In that sense they are not a "reasonable" company. My company dropped Amex years ago and we bin the gold / platinum / whatever come-ons we receive almost weekly. We moved on; so should you.
Membership Rewards points aside, why would you go to such lengths to try to keep doing business with a company that clearly doesn't want to do business with you?
Amex reviews are triggered by some algorithm that has nothing to do with human judgment, and there's no court of appeal. In that sense they are not a "reasonable" company. My company dropped Amex years ago and we bin the gold / platinum / whatever come-ons we receive almost weekly. We moved on; so should you.
Jul 26, 2008, 10:35 pm
#3
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Kalifornia
Programs: Starwood, Marriott, One Pass and WF Rewards
Posts: 138
my purpose in posting this...
Is many fold, including to inform Flyertalk members about the FR process, which is shrouded in mystery based on this board's posts, and largely misunderstood. The process is different, I gather, for different customers.
I think it is a service to other FT members for them to know that if the bulk of their credit is on Amex, it can be severely reduced or eliminated and in a summary fashion, and apparently at least sometimes without rationale. I expect there are many on here who have the bulk of their credit on Amex, and if Amex did to them what it did to me, it could be problematic for them, particularly if at the wrong time.
Also, for those who view this board, including Costco management, I would like them to see the implications of an exclusive partnership with Amex, and ponder if that is best. Now of course I know full well my one little complaint won't make much difference, but I suspect there are many thousands out there with similar stories, if not hundreds of thousands or more. If Costco begins to hear a few hundred of those stories, maybe a little change can be effectuated.
I do find my Amex SPG one of my most valuable cards, so it is not impossible that I will continue to use that on occasion. Will I entirely boycott? Maybe, but I'm just trying to be complete with my explanation for what has happened. Will I ultimately 'move on?' Yes I will, but for now, alerting others to this absurdity while it is fresh in my mind seems appropriate. This has been up just a few minutes, and already looked at by 20 or so members; so, I take it that FT members are interested in this process and few might appreciate my detail.
As far as length, I find your post much too short. I write for those who are interested, not for those who aren't, as they presumably know how to stop reading any time they like and can make that decision for themselves, thank you very much. But thanks for sharing your editorial insight!
I think it is a service to other FT members for them to know that if the bulk of their credit is on Amex, it can be severely reduced or eliminated and in a summary fashion, and apparently at least sometimes without rationale. I expect there are many on here who have the bulk of their credit on Amex, and if Amex did to them what it did to me, it could be problematic for them, particularly if at the wrong time.
Also, for those who view this board, including Costco management, I would like them to see the implications of an exclusive partnership with Amex, and ponder if that is best. Now of course I know full well my one little complaint won't make much difference, but I suspect there are many thousands out there with similar stories, if not hundreds of thousands or more. If Costco begins to hear a few hundred of those stories, maybe a little change can be effectuated.
I do find my Amex SPG one of my most valuable cards, so it is not impossible that I will continue to use that on occasion. Will I entirely boycott? Maybe, but I'm just trying to be complete with my explanation for what has happened. Will I ultimately 'move on?' Yes I will, but for now, alerting others to this absurdity while it is fresh in my mind seems appropriate. This has been up just a few minutes, and already looked at by 20 or so members; so, I take it that FT members are interested in this process and few might appreciate my detail.
As far as length, I find your post much too short. I write for those who are interested, not for those who aren't, as they presumably know how to stop reading any time they like and can make that decision for themselves, thank you very much. But thanks for sharing your editorial insight!
Last edited by modestexpert; Jul 27, 2008 at 12:29 pm Reason: add a detail
Jul 26, 2008, 10:47 pm
#4
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Miami, FL, USA
Posts: 4,049
How many accounts do you currently have with Amex?
Jul 26, 2008, 11:50 pm
#5
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: CH
Programs: LH
Posts: 1,780
I am impresst of two thngs:
About calculation:
- The length of your posting (longer than the longest airport bar in Zürich)
- The amount to be spent.
About calculation:
- 2.5 Mio reveniew
- - 0.15 Mio Manager
- - 0.5 Mio Amex
- = 1.85 Mio
Jul 27, 2008, 12:33 am
#6
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Kalifornia
Programs: Starwood, Marriott, One Pass and WF Rewards
Posts: 138
number of accounts
7 and falling. Amex agreed to reimburse my entire Platinum card fee, although at first they suggested a prorating, but given my protests over the two months of lost time with the card and the shabby treatment I received, they relented and waived the whole fee without too much argument; that is the first account that I will be cancelling, once my fees have been refunded. FYI, none of those cards has been started in the last 6 months, and I believe the most recent was started close to a year ago, with the other 6 cards being 2 or more years old, and my largest credit line accounts being close to 10 years old.
I also have Delta Amex, SPG, and a few others, a combination of personal and business.
I also have Delta Amex, SPG, and a few others, a combination of personal and business.
Last edited by modestexpert; Jul 27, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Jul 27, 2008, 1:15 am
#7
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: ORD/MDW
Programs: BA/AA/AS/B6/WN/ UA/HH/MR and more like 'em but most felicitously & importantly MUCCI
Posts: 19,719
Hopefully the length of my post serves to offer clear information to others who might value it, particularly given how vacuous most posts are on this topic, with much assumption and little detail in most posts, and if my post is too long for some, I'm sure they can choose to stop reading at any point. Just as with direct mail marketing that I put together, I write for those who are interested, not for those who aren't.
Jul 27, 2008, 1:28 am
#8
Suspended
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: USA
Programs: UA/CO(1K-PLT), AA(PLT), QR, EK, Marriott(PLT), Hilton(DMND)
Posts: 9,538
Excellent points, but frankly your letter will get trashed after 30 seconds of reading. To get noticed, consider the following format, rather than a traditional letter:
1. Situation
2. Problems you experienced
3. Impact to Amex
4. Suggested improvements
Try to limit the entire letter to 1 min. of reading time and offer to spend 15 minutes on a conf. call w/ them to help them improve the review process. This is good because if they go for it, you can get passive aggressive on them and not show up to calls, continuously reschedule and eventually just not turn up.
1. Situation
2. Problems you experienced
3. Impact to Amex
4. Suggested improvements
Try to limit the entire letter to 1 min. of reading time and offer to spend 15 minutes on a conf. call w/ them to help them improve the review process. This is good because if they go for it, you can get passive aggressive on them and not show up to calls, continuously reschedule and eventually just not turn up.
Jul 27, 2008, 1:39 am
#9
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: TYO
Programs: Tokyo Monorail Diamond-Encrusted-Platinum
Posts: 9,632
Jul 27, 2008, 7:56 am
#10
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: PSM
Posts: 69,232
Yeah...you lost me around the 3rd paragraph when you switched to all caps.
Way too long, but it doesn't matter because AmEx doesn't care (and shouldn't) if they've already lost you, which you state several times that they have.
Way too long, but it doesn't matter because AmEx doesn't care (and shouldn't) if they've already lost you, which you state several times that they have.
Jul 27, 2008, 8:31 am
#11
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 4,531
Agree with the above. Make 3 major points and what you want remedied. If your business is truly gone, they won't read it anyway.
Jul 27, 2008, 8:50 am
#12
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: NY Metro Area
Programs: AA 2MM Yay!, UA MM, Costco General Member
Posts: 49,038
I found it useful and will probably forward it to the person at our institution who handles corporate cards to see if anyone here has had any problems. Thanks.
Jul 27, 2008, 10:20 am
#13
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: DFW
Posts: 1,387
Third, even though I had a certified mail receipt proving that I had turned in my tax returns, the IRS had not processed those returns, and when that was discovered, all of my accounts were summarily canceled!...Why would your offices not be empowered to look at my proof that I had submitted my returns? The IRS ITSELF accepted my proof, and agreed to expedite the posting of the returns; but Amex would not consider any of my additional proof, even after a number of calls and talks with agents and supervisors.
Jul 27, 2008, 10:27 am
#14
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Miami, FL, USA
Posts: 4,049
7 and falling. Amex agree to reimburse my entire Platinum card fee, although at first they suggested a prorating, given the two months of lost time with the card; that is the first account that I will be cancelling, once my fees have been refunded. FYI, none of those cards has been started in the last 6 months, and I believe the most recent was started close to a year ago, with the other 6 cards being 2 or more years old, and my largest credit line accounts being close to 10 years old.
I also have Delta Amex, SPG, and a few others, a combination of personal and business.
I also have Delta Amex, SPG, and a few others, a combination of personal and business.
Jul 27, 2008, 11:16 am
#15
Join Date: May 2000
Location: Naples, Florida
Posts: 7,419
....Fourth, how is it reasonable that Amex 'takes' / forfeits my Membership Rewards points in this case? I feel that is obviously unreasonable, and I am so outraged by that that in fact since two of my former students are now class action attorneys, I am informing you that I will be reviewing the matter with them and hope they find this set of facts to be of interest. I have been told by your agents that I will not get my points reinstated, even though my accounts have been restored, unless I submit a special plea and written request. Well, that is simply outrageous, and warrants a common two word expletive as a response. I notice that Amex has not done well on class action suits, and this one seems to me a doozie, and very just and justified; I certainly think any jury would have strong biases, as they should, that such a policy is completely unreasonable and abusive and should be punished....
You should contact this office:
Doria M. Camaraza
Senior Vice President
Card Operations
American Express Cards
777 American Expressway
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33337
Voice: 800-297-6197
Fax: 800-297-6198
I would call them and talk with one of the assistants. I have had great results, those are very professional agents!
When I would be you, I would calm down ... and BTW, reading your "response, open letter", I have "uncomfortable feelings" .. like shouldn't we hear, what the other side has to say ... Sorry, but that's how I feel.