Originally Posted by
VegasGambler
It was a combination. Although I did not purchase any mailers, I did have some given to me (for free) by people who had no interest in opening the card. I'm aware that some people were selling the codes (eg, on Reddit) but I never participated in that.
Yes, I did change the prepopulated fields on the Citi landing page. Citi allows that change for these particular mailers (and not for others) so it's safe to assume that they are ok with it in this particular case (ie, changing the fields did not involve any hacking or anything shady -- they simply present the fields to you and you free to modify then as you see fit). Citi clearly has the ability to prevent these changes (as they do for the other mailers) -- they choose not to for these mailers. That may well be a poor decision on their part, but it's their decision to make.
After entering my correct personal information, Citi then chose to allow me to open the credit cards, and gave me the bonuses when I spent the agreed-upon amount of money. Several times, when messaging or calling customer service to request additional miles as well, they would give them to me as a customer service gesture (generally, 15k extra miles on each new card). I never lied or misled them during these interactions -- I simply said that I had heard that there were offers with higher sign-up bonuses (which is true -- I did hear that) and they would offer me 15k extra miles as a "match" or "customer service gesture".
The key here (in my mind) is that I never acted fraudulently. Everything I ever told any Citi representative, or entered on any Citi web page, was 100% truthful. Citi had complete and correct information at all times, when choosing to extend credit to me, and when choosing to grant me the miles. If they made poor business decisions, that is their fault -- it was not through any misleading action on my part.
I understand this is what you feel these conclusions are the ONLY way a rational person could view the conduct, but you have to realize you are not going to be the one making that determination (a judge or jury will) and you would more or less have the burden of proof. I tell my clients every day that even a contract with what appears to be crystal clear language is never a slam dunk. I often find that my clients are also to personally involved to be able to open their mind to the other ways a fact finder might interpret a given set of circumstances. Bottom line, you are convinced, but that’s never how litigation (or even a threat of it) works in practice. You seem to heavily rely on the fact that Citi/AA could have imposed technical controls to prevent you from doing what you did (like deleting prepopulated fields on forms). I think there is just as much chance a fact finder would determine provisions in the AAvantage program terms provide AA with a basis to lock or terminate these accounts. In other words, your “they could have prevented this” is not necessarily the strong hand that you portray it to be. I know you think it is, but a fact finder might well find it irrelevant. In fact, go have a look at the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and its case law to see how often people who have used clever hacks to access a protected computer tried unsuccessfully to claim as a defense that owner of the protected computer should have done something more to fortify the computer. I’m not saying the CFAA would apply, just that your strongly held belief about Citi/AA not imposing the technical control you point out may not not in fact “exonerate” you here.