I sent various letters of complaint to the UK Country Manager, after major fails by the Centurion product. Not only did I never receive a direct reply, but the reply received from the Executive Relations Department was full of errors and pertinent points were ignored.
Further to the difficult situation, I was told I would not be communicated with further and that my messages would only be read and filed from that point forward.

I've shown nothing but brand loyalty for close to two decades - they rewarded me by leaving notes on my account profile that were slanderous, demeaning and clearly a restriction on service was implemented when I was being told all was fine with all aspects of my account when I questioned various signs in service degradation.

The company showed clear written evidence that my past complaints had merit and they even agreed to deal with it by way of compensation and redress, however delivery of this was much harder and years later I was told I had left it unreported for a long period.
Waiting for a redress patiently apparently is rewarded by it being removed for you not chasing it up more than once or twice a month.
Further issues compounded the initial bad taste and instead of dealing with things fairly, they closed my account and blamed me for misconduct and misuse of the card.

When I presented the company with a transcript of the conversation (their own internal notes clearly showed no misconduct ever took place as notes appear accordingly) they would not correctly address the issue as firstly they said the “said” conversations never took place and then when I presented the information obtained through a Subject Access Data Request, they said a new full and thorough investigation would occur on the already full and thorough investigation that had completed.
This new investigation took less than four business days to complete when every other investigation has taken between four weeks and two years.

The issues have been clearly presented to the UK Country Manager – he has never shown me any human or member kindness by choosing to reply, even though I have highlighted to him many sensitive issues surrounding the case.

Centurion is a club that likes you when you apparently behave and kicks you out when you disagree with anything they do.

I have a manager writing a note on my account, when I was apparently told everything was fine and there were no service or marketing restrictions, asking the question if anyone has a way to get rid of me and if they have template letters one could use. This was while this individual was apparently reviewing a complaint where I didn’t receive a service because apparently it was oversubscribed, but in fact a further note was left on my file to say I should not be invited to any event and that was the truth which they failed to ever share. So a complaint was established on their end to create a wild goose chase in order to make me feel happy and make things appear as if they were fine – when I discovered this, further notes were left to say I had discovered their practice of excluding me and they should invite me to some requested events as I was a fee paying member otherwise there could be problems from this. For years I had requested attendance to events and on most I had missed entry because I was apparently unlucky in my attempt. To see such notes from senior management is a disgrace.

To see a Country Manager do nothing when these points were highlighted is a further disgrace.

Companies need to learn that the company is there because of its members – why they believe they can treat people this way is still something that really troubles me today.

I loved my membership and thoroughly enjoyed the process of owning an American Express card - its hard to explain to those who just carry the card for something other than function as they will no doubt critique my comment down to "get over it - its just a card."

To me, it was something I worked hard to attain and used wisely. I built some fantastic relationships at the service level (people who dealt with calls and provided the first level of contact). Somehow I went wrong when I raised a dispute and it never got properly managed and then I had to have a battle with their handling of that along with associated issues.

I have spoken to a few members now and discovered that complaints in the UK rarely get managed correctly if escalated beyond first level support - raising something to management level (something that happened to me because they made an error that resulted in a loss of £1800 to me in travel related services) is a definite trouble zone. Asking for support from management on dealing with another member of staff, and their actions (or lack of it) is another definite trouble zone.

The truly sad part here is that one of their staff members (this department only has a couple of people due to the way it operates and its level of importance at American Express) provided me advice on a recorded line that American Express later tried to cover up and say didn't exist until I requested formal documentation on my account. Then a Senior Manager, within this department, whom I went to for adjudication as a last resort, said to me on a call that if in fact this call did take place then she would review the situation again as the decision of cancellation was all based on a particular flow of facts. This information was requested by the Senior Manager (confirmation of request appear on my internal account notes) but it was never presented to the Senior manager as it was reportedly said to not exist or have taken place - but I seemed to have obtained the details myself quite easily. I was later prevented from communicating with this manager again, even though she was interested to learn of the issue, and was in fact the Senior Vice President of the department that ultimately took the decision to cancel my products. Shocking that staff would withhold information from their own superiors to make it appear as if a decision to cancel was based on good due diligence when in fact it was not.

The above is just a snapshot of what I discovered about them and their practice on my account.

I'm taking the case to court because of the clear evidence they provided my through their own documented evidence on my account over the last five years.

I still feel the brand has a lot to offer and is really good at bringing a product range together - just wish I could have been treated fairly. To have my product taken from me, is to this day, was very frustrating but to force me to remove Centurion Ti supplementary cards from my parents that have enjoyed a product I gave them was hard because of the way it all happened and for the reason that I have never had to take something back from them in this way. I guess that's the fight I must have with a brand that believes fairness is not appropriate for a card member who has never openly spoken about his difficulties until now.