rikramer

My wife is having a very discouraging time with Amex Disputes department and I wanted to see if anyone on here could offer some advice..

Summary: My wife signed up for a 5K obstacle race in the park near our home. After signing up and paying for the race with her credit card, the 'company' decided to change the location to one 40 minutes drive from our home and remove the obstacles. Upon noticing this change my wife called the race coordinator and asked for a refund as she had no means or desire to get to this new event. She was told that a refund would be processed the Monday after the event once they confirmed that she did not attend. Well you can guess what happened. No refund was ever applied, the 'company' no longer answers their phone and our posts to their facebook wall get immediately deleted. Further research on this company online shows other fraud warnings including claims that this company has stolen site content and is fraudulently stating that they are making contributions to charity.

My wife filled a dispute with AMEX for the full amount of the registration ($92). We just received AMEXs reply yesterday that the dispute was denied. The reason stated was that the ticketing company "states that my wife registered for the event" and "there is no documentation which indicated that the program was cancelled or postponed". They also claim the "non-refundable policy was already communicated at the time of registration".

This is baffling to me. How can a company get away with this? We have re-opened the dispute and uploaded a screen shot showing that race location was changed. This is equivalent to selling tickets to a non-refundable U2 concert at MSG only to change it to a pool party in my backyard. Sure the event isn't cancelled and the tickets are non-refundable but it remains a scam nonetheless.

Does anyone have any advice for dealing with this situation? Thank You.

mia

How was the dispute filed? Assuming it is a personal card (not a "business" version) it must be done in writing (not on the website , not by telephone) to maximize protection of her legal rights. Even if you have already submitted the claim online do it again by certified mail exactly following the requirements explained here:

http://ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre16.shtm


The fact that the merchant has already agreed to issue a refund is probably the key to persuading American Express to resolve the issue in your favor.

rikramer

The original dispute was done over the phone. No documentation was requested by AMEX. This second dispute was also done today over the phone and they asked my wife to upload a screenshot of the location change to their Document Upload site. We did this. We also uploaded a pdf letter outlining what has occurred.

LAX88

Members with USA issued AMEX cards certainly have the ability to dispute transactions online. Statements & Activity -- Dispute or Inquire About a Charge -- Open a New Inquiry.

dontippet

I would suggest that you show AMEX this thread especially once it gets rolling with lots of comments. I, too, would not let this go. If you call on the phone again, make sure you ask to speak to a manager.

mia

Yes, you can dispute by telephone or online but to preserve the rights guaranteed by law it must be done as explained here:

http://ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre16.shtm

mia

Question about Membership Rewards transfers from a Swiss Membership Rewards account to British Airways has been moved:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...p-rewards.html

rikramer

Well, we'll see how this re-opened case goes. I provided a bunch of documents this time: screen shot showing original race location, screen shot showing changed race location, letter explaining what happened and how this unscrupulous individual promised a refund if only we would wait until after race day. It's funny because I've seen other people complain about getting scammed on the race's facebook page and he is very quick to remove these posts.

I will keep everyone here updated once I hear back. I was very disappointing the way AMEX handled this the first time around; hopefully they now do the right thing.

Often1

1. The dispute process is just that. It does not stand in the way of any other legal right which a consumer has. It is simply an easy, cheap and efficient way to resolve consumer disputes, so most consumers take advantage of it.

2. If the dispute is ultimately denied, OP's wife still has the legal rights which she had before. Presumably, the right to file in small claims court to recover the $92 + whatever fees & costs OP's state provides.

3. However, this one sounds as though there was a lack of information provided initially and Amex, when it reviewed the case, had basically nothing from OP's wife and documentation of "no refund" from the merchant. Even though Amex is great about chargeback disputes, you can imagine which way this goes.

4. OP needs to sit down with the original registration terms & conditions and make certain that his wife fully complied. In other words, did the t&c provide "no refunds" and did the race organizer reserve the right to change location or nature of the race? If so, OP is probably out of luck, both through Amex and in a legal dispute.

5. But, if the refund is not precluded, I would send a very short & concise email with screenshots of the registration and the notice changing the location and nature of the race. I would include in the email reference to the fact that the merchant promised a refund, did not issue the refund and has disappeared.

6. I would keep the email very short (2-3 short declarative sentences) and not make reference to anything before. That way, the individual reviewing the file can see the entire dispute in front of them. I would avoid being judgmental and give them just the facts. The quicker & cleaner, the more likelihood you prevail.

7. It's water under a bridge, but $92 for a local race fee is ridiculous and a warning sign if you get hit up again.

ariyo15

File a complaint against the company (and maybe AMEX too) with the BBB. You'll have your problem solved in 10 days.

rikramer

Thanks. Already took the advice regarding a letter. Uploaded it to the AMEX website. Now comes the painfully long (6-8 wk) wait for their revised adjudication decision.

Often1

Put it out of your mind for the next 6-8 weeks. Nothing you can do to make it go faster and I take it you have a temporary credit, so you're not paying the $92. If it goes your way, you're done. If it goes wrong, none of your other options are affected in the next 2 months.

rikramer

Tried the BBB route and no luck getting a refund. The company that charged my card (active.com) claimed that they are simply a payment processor for events and cannot issue refunds. a few observations:

1. Active.com itself seems to be quite the scam. They have 100's of BBB complaints against them

2. Amazingly, the BBB marked my complaint as: "the company made all efforts to address the concern but the customer remains unhappy". Does anyone at the BBB even read these complaints? I get the sense that this is the outcome as long as the company responds.

3. Seems like anyone can use active.com to run an easy scam. Run a bogus event and use them as the middle-man to collect your cash. When angry customers try to get their money back both you and active.com can point to each other and say that they prevent refunds from being processed.

4. I'm assuming that AMEX will not care that active.com has a 'no refund' policy. The facts are very clear that this was a bait and switch scam and I have provided overwhelming evidence of this to AMEX. I have also included screen shots of FB message exchanges where the race organizer had promised a refund. The dispute is still open so I'm still waiting to hear back on whether or not this will be successful.

4aks

AMEX should have taken care of this the first time around. By not requesting documentation, they were essentially saying that $92 was below the threshold to require a lot of paperwork to be transmitted and handled.

I'd suggest you write a Yelp review of your experience with this event.

rikramer

Agreed, they didn't ask us for any paperwork but accepted a number of documents from active.com (basically my wife's registration details which she wasn't disputing). With this information in hand AMEX simply sided with the merchant and closed the dispute. It was as if they never even read the details related to the basis of our complaint (i.e., we didn't dispute registering, we disputed that the event never occurred as agreed). The AMEX agent we spoke with the second time seemed as shocked by this as we were.

Yelp review has been written.