Complaining To American Express - Again!

Just written this!



Ian Hayward,
Executive Customer Relations Administrator,
American Express Services Europe Ltd,
Department 333,
Amex House,
Edward Street,
Brighton BN88 1AH.


Dear Ian,

I note that you have not replied to my letter dated March 18. I am not sure if there was a technical hitch or if it is yet another example of the poor service that American Express now offers its customers.

Whatever the reason I enclose a copy of my letter dated March 18 and would be grateful if you would address the issues that I have raised.

Yours sincerely,


Stephen Leather


Here's my original letter of complaint, the one that he ignored!



Ian Hayward,
Executive Customer Relations Administrator,
American Express Services Europe Ltd,
Department 333,
Amex House,
Edward Street,
Brighton BN88 1AH.


Dear Ian,

You wrote to me on February 4, in response to my letter to Julia Charman dated January 20, to tell me that you pride yourselves on your high quality products and customer service.

Unfortunately the next letter I received, from Martin James, was definitely not representative of good customer service. In fact it is one of the worst customer service letters I have received in many, many years.

Rather than try to resolve the issues that I raised in my letter to Julia Charman, your Mr James simply listed parrot-fashion my transactions and phone calls, then without giving me any details simply says that Amex’s actions ‘were fair and reasonable’. Then he tells me how to complain to the Financial Ombudsman. He fails to answer any of the issues that I raised in my letter of January 20, 2010.

I am not sure if Mr James is deliberately being evasive, or if he simply didn’t understand my letter, but I am not satisfied with his reply at all. I still want answers to my questions.

1) I want to know if the double-charging of £289.11 through Hertz was an American Express fault or a Hertz fault. Initially they blamed you.

2) I want a list of benefits for Gold cardholders that are not available to holders of the regular American Express card. All Mr James did was to supply me with a copy of what the gold card offers. In his letter Mr James says ‘please note however we no longer promote the American Express green card.’ What does that mean? Does it mean you don’t have a green card anymore, or that you have it but don’t offer it? Is he saying that the gold card is now the basic card? Considering how standards have fallen in recent years (I have been a cardholder since 1984) that wouldn’t surprise me.

3) I still need an explanation of why such bad seats at the Miley Cyrus concert in Manchester were offered to American Express cardholders. Mr James says that I should have looked at the seating plan. Actually I did but it didn’t have the downstairs area marked off in blocks so there was no way I could see that my block was furthest away from the stage. But that’s not the point. I trusted American Express to offer me good seats and you didn’t, you sold me just about the worst seats in the arena and I want to know why.

I would also point out that he says ‘On 5 February 2010 we attempted to contact you by telephone but the telephone numbers we hold on file no longer connect.’ What does that mean? I am out of the country at the moment but so far as I know all my phones are working. Please tell me what numbers he tried. And you might want to find out what ‘no longer connect’ means.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Leather