IC6A

Agreed.

But Hilton and Marriott will not let you to register any promo in first place if you are not targeted.

In IHG it is different. It might be IHG's way of operation or incompetent IT department. You may refer to uk1's analyses which is very heavy weighted to explain IHG's responsibilities in the promo code scandel.

spunk_tokyo

+1

Back to OP. You should go to national press and tvs. Let's see what IHG HQ says on this matter.

Dave Noble

If there is evidence, then provide it. Claims that there is prejudice is not evidence that there is. So far there have been only claims. The lack of provided evidence says to me that there is no evidence, otherwise it would be posted.

Regardless, the poster admits to claiming the same 100pt bonus 15 to 20 times on multiple accounts and has had their account closed. If found breaking the rules, then be prepared to accept the consequences, not whine that there is discrimination because others havent.

IC6A

What evidence you want?

More than 30 PCR members with Chinese names were shut down but not a single one with caucasion or others names like you have. Is that not enough?

The members are the evidence. Unless you can give me one example who does not bear the Chinese names were shut down then I have a reason to believe in what the op is claiming.

You did not read the OP's post. He did not admit the same 100 Pts bonus. What he said is that he get 1000-2000 bonus points by registering the code which is publicly available through Radioman's post and other sources. And he does not have multiple account. You are so stereotype in this matter.

Dave Noble

That is not evidence that others havent been targetted, just evidence that these have been caught

I am not the one claiming that there is evidence that they are targetting a particular group, but that person has not provided any evidence


If requiring evidence to be shown when there is a claim that there is evidence is stereotypical, then in this area I m happy to be a sterotype

It's no different to someone visiting 5 friends who have pets; each has a dog as a pet ; therefore all pet owners have dogs and claiming this as evidence

As far as the multiple claims on single promos, the question was asked "did u used any kind of script or lots of multiple entries for 100points bonus?" ... Answer in post 82 "yes, 1.5K to 2K for each of our accounts," . That is an explicit admission of being a script kiddie or manually making 15-20 claims per account

ronaldko

This part is from other Chinese forum http://www.flyertea.com/thread-9392-2-1.html "because Josh is really impatient to every one who ever called him and even used rude languages. Josh also told many members who suffered from this disaster that this action is designed expecially for Chinese members, members from other countries could never encouter such crisis"

Mr. Chris Zoloth and Mr. Josh Ellerman, please prepare to explain this matter properly. Otherwise, i'm ready to boycott PCR program from now.

AP 2010 with over 150K points in a/c

IC6A

I am sorry to call you Stereotype. I would like to give my appology to you.

In this particular case, the only evidence is the closed down account and the witness account of the converstation with the IHG staff.

And unfortunately the victims here are the only witness at this moment.

Before any more details can be traced, I will still be very cautious towards IHG. I just canceled some of my reservations. I hope IHG can step up to explain to public for what reason they closed down the victim's accounts to clarify. Until then I feel that there is a danger that my account may be closed down in the same manner. And I will only stay in IHG again until the intention of account closed down is clarified. I am very worried as radioman did not show up for more than one month now. Well...

Hannibal Lecter

it is certainly no evidence of the reason for closing the accounts
if fraud has taken place in china it is logical that most/all involved are chinese

wpyeh

Yes, this is also what I believe.

wpyeh

Do understand your frustration, and believe that PCR must show some evidence to prove its decision. I am not sure what happening, and until today, there is no official announcement regard is “account closing” issue. Maybe there are some PC abusing but IMHO, using codes from flyertalk should not contribute to account closing.

Dave Noble

However your opinion is not what matters when it is IHG making the decisions; there may be other suspicions on their part on what is going on if they are more concerned about another issue ( e.g. selling of awards ) but if they focus on what is easy to prove ( such as misuse of promotion codes ) they can use that as the valid justification rather than having to prove something that may be a lot harder to prove

It is probably v easy to prove multiple uses of the same code or use of a targetted code that was not targetted at the member

Even so, once the account is closed, it will be up to the member to prove that the closure was outside the rules of the programme if they want to force it to be reinstated rather than the other way round

wpyeh

Yes you are right, the only thing I can hope now is to wish this closure "activities" will only limite to China and NA.

dgwright99

OK, I think that this is a big clue to the source of the problem. We know from other threads in this forum that there were plenty of account suspensions for all kinds of people who gamed the 100 point promo.

As you were using a script, and from other things that have been mentioned by people identifying themselves as Chinese or chinese-speaking, it appears that such scripts were downloadable from certain Chinese-language websites. Such a script waould have a characteristic pattern of registration.

So, it seems at the very least plausible that ICHG discovered the issue, looked at the script, devised a screen that would find accounts that had used that script, and then screened all PCR accounts for use of the script, and closed those accounts. This would explain why Chinese members seem to have been "targetted". While I sympathize, and feel that forfeiture of those points and a warning would have been a more reasonable approach, IMHO using a script to game the system steps over a line.

If this is what happened, then while I sympathize with the posters who have been affected, then up to that point, I don't think that ICHG's reaction is completely unreasonable. However, even if that is what happened, the reaction of the named arrogant and unhelpful CS manager turned this from being a harsh but perhaps defenisble action into something that is not defensible and at the least a PR disaster.

I should point out that those who have named the arrogant, unhelpful CS agent are violating FT T&C, and I urge you to edit your posts before a moderator delets those posts making this thread incomprehensible. It is my understanding that you could refer to him as JE and stay within the T&C and everyone who has encountered him will know t hat it is the same person.

So, JH is eveidently being unreasonable, and seemingly racist, and unless iCHG act quickly and decisively to deal with his behavior, then it is reasonable for Chinese PCR members to feel that they are being targeted as a group, and respond appropriately. However given that this has all happened over the space of a few days, such a conclusion is premature until contact has been made with ICHG through other channels, and more senior management has had the opportunity to disown and make ammends for JH's actions.

[My italics] You don't know that - and can have no way of knowing that, and to make such an allegation damages your credibility.

Indeed it is a fact that plenty of FTers with caucasion names had their accounts suspended for over-use of the 100 point promos - as documented on various threads here on this FT forum.

artemis021

I can imagine the headlines now: customer abuses account, company closes down account, customer claims discrimination. This is not a sympathic story.

Now, you take away using scripts to get extra points and registering for promotions you weren't targeted for, you've got a story.

You're not an innocent victim here. And I doubt it's the name alone. Your PC CC was issued in China; there was probably a link there. I'd be willing to bet there are a number of Asian Americans who are abusing these promotions-with a Chinese last name-who haven't been shut down.

WBOTM

With viral marketing, socal networking websites and travel websites, people often share promotions.

One of the issues, as IC6A pointed out, is IHG does not always deny a member from signing up successfully for a targeted promotion that was not intended for that member. With most other programs, only targeted members can register successfully.