American Express Membership Rewards - AMEX not living up to offer in mailing

Received a mailing in December solicitating me to apply for business card from American Express. The card would provide 5,000 miles for first purchase and a bonus of 5,000 miles if I spent $5000 before April 2004. They state in the offering that the card was fee free for first year. Applied, received card, now the first bill shows up and I am charged an annual fee of $55.
Sent email stating above to customer service. Their response just received today is "Thank you for your e-mail regarding your annual Membership Fee. While I appreciate your position concerning this matter, we are unable to waive the Membership Fee charge."
I have sent an email back asking for a fax number to send the offering so their legal and customer service department could examine. Has this happened to anyone else and what suggestions for how to proceed do you have.
Much appreciated.

I would just call customer service and explain what you have in front of you, and how there was obviously a mistake. They should either be able to help you, or at least get you in touch with whoever you should talk to. If you really have something that clearly says the fee will be waived, it doesn't seem like it should be too hard to get them to honor it.

This post might be most appropriate for the American Express forum.

Or, if it was a branded card such as Delta or Starwood (I'm guessing not Starwood due to the size of the fee), you might post it in that forum.

Given the post mentioning only AmEx, I'm going to move this over to the American Express forum for further comment.

If it was a Delta Amex, and you don't get the responses you need over there, you might consider re-posting later in the Delta forum.

I'll also add a thought -- Do you still have a copy of the mailing? You might fax it to them and show where they offered the card at no fee. I do my best to keep copies of offers until they've been fulfilled by the vendor. (This helped alot with the 25k signup bonus from US Bank for a NW visa.)

Your profile does not indicate where you are located, so I'm going to presume your within the US.

I agree that you should call and not email. Call AMEX CS (Customer Service) and make your case. Be sure to have the mailing in hand. Look for an identifying offer number on the mailing, as this may held expedite the process.

If you still don't get satisfaction, call AMEX Corp HQ at 800-297-6197. This is available from within the US, 9-5 Eastern time, M-F. This goes to the executive offices. Someone there should be able to resolve it, although you may have to fax a copy of the mailing for verification.

Good luck.

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Michael Steinberg
Editor
BizTrip
www.biztrip.com (http://www.biztrip.com)