A few months ago American Express was offering a sign up bonus of 125,000 points and a $50 statement credit on the American Express Business Hilton card, unfortunately American Express was approving people for the personal version of this card. This might have been because a dummy booking was required to get the offer to show. Even after calling in to try and correct American Express representatives would either say no mistake was made or claim nothing could be done.
American Express has finally admitted to the error and sent out the following letter:
It’s good to see American Express admitting to this error and making card members whole, but I don’t understand how it’s taken four months for this issue to be rectified?
I love how they think not sending the welcome kit is a more egregious error than the fact the account wasn’t the original one you applied for.
I was affected by this. I have no idea how much they will send, but I was at 4/24 and this ruined a lot of opportunities for me. Haven’t had success getting it out of my credit report either.
I don’t understand how it takes them so long either. Remember when they failed to issue the bonus for AU last year, it took them more than half a year to send out reimbursement checks.
But yes, at least they are correcting errors.
AmEx messed up my SPG Lux card too. Last week I received a similar letter stating that they had sent me the wrong T&C document with the card. What have their folks been smoking lately?!?!?
they cut IT budget and invested heavily in RAT…
haha i got this too.
Amex messed up on my SCP bonus and fixed it before I even realized it. I received a similar letting stating the error and the bonus posted shortly after. Gotta love amex.
How is this possibly appropriate compensation for anyone? Did they remove the cards from people’s credit history at a minimum? I would have been livid, the CFPB complaint for opening an unauthorized cc (because that’s what they did!) would have been filed approx 5 mins after a phone rep had given me either of those excuses. And they did this en masse? How is there not a class action rumbling beneath the surface here?
Wow, I’m angry & I wasn’t even affected by that debacle….
ETA: actually legit legal question here, is there grounds for legal action when a cc company opens an entirely different cc than what you applied for?
I spent hours on the phone with different amex reps trying to get this account removed from my credit report. No luck.
Did you file a CFPB complaint or complaints with the credit bureaus?
Sure but it was a legitimate error that they’ve now corrected. They might work with you to get the card removed but it’s not like you are due real damages. At best you might get a small claim victory for a minimal amount but you can’t claim harm from ruining your 5/24 status. Plus Amex might burn you for suing (ie no more cards). No class action because not that many people were affected and it was corrected.
Opening a credit card account different from the one you applied for, without your permission… that smacks of Wells Fargo. And they surely saw the big penalty Wells Fargo got hit with, so I suspect AmEx will be working quite hard to undo the damage.
Amex most certainly doesn’t care about your 5/24 status with Chase.
I agree, all this letter says is they’re reimbursing people for interest and fees which none of us should be dealing with anyway.
They should be closing the accounts and having them removed from credit reports then opening the appropriate card that the person originally applied for.
This was a big IT screw up if you applied for the Biz version while under 5/24. I didn’t risk going for the dummy booking and just took the regular 125k offer.
Another reason why I like Amex more than any other financial institution. Regardless of their restrictions and clawbacks on sign up bonuses.