American Express Cheated me.

System

tenchy wrote: »

ajron - I suggest you don't ever come here for "advice" again, but I expect you've already worked that out for yourself. In many respects it really is a bum forum, as evidenced by the arrogant, smug, pompous, gloating responses you received TO YOUR FIRST POST on the forum.

Its happened as a result of being sick of reading first posts by Generation Entitled complaining that they've been ripped off or whatever because something hasn't gone the way they wanted it to and feeling that they have the right to redress usually with some expectation of monetary compensation because for possibly the first time in their lives someone has said no to them.

tenchy

"American Express Cheated me". So goes the title of the thread. Having just run a dummy application though both the eligibility checker and the full application process I would say the title is about right.


There are just three questions in the full application that aren't in the eligibility checker:


Do you rent or own
Time with Bank or Building Society
Employment Status


Nothing else - not even asking for current account details. Now why could these three questions not be in the eligibility checker? I'll tell you why; because AMEX are crap. Pure and simple. Regardless of whether the OP is of "generation entitled", whatever the hell that might mean, and in any case a massive assumption, he is right to feel agrieved. They have done exactly what he said. They've lured him in and then hit him with a hard search when there was no need to do so if they were going to turn him down.


I'd be interested to know what the likes of AMEX see when they do a soft search, compared to what they see when they do a hard search. However, I won't hold my breath on that one, because I'm guessing contributors on this board won't know the answer to that.

BoGoF

Complete nonsense to say they lured anyone in.

From clearscore "A soft search is a preliminary credit check. It means a lender will search for some information about you, but will not see all of your credit report information."

So could it just be that once they see the full report at application stage they see something they dont like. That probably wont stop your conspiracy theory but do you really think they are encouraging applications to decline them? This would cost them money.

cjmillsnun

tenchy wrote: »

"American Express Cheated me". So goes the title of the thread. Having just run a dummy application though both the eligibility checker and the full application process I would say the title is about right.


There are just three questions in the full application that aren't in the eligibility checker:


Do you rent or own
Time with Bank or Building Society
Employment Status

And one of those questions is vital to whether you would give someone a card or not.

tenchy

cjmillsnun wrote: »

And one of those questions is vital to whether you would give someone a card or not.

Exactly. So why didn't they ask it up front?


Also, this from the main page of the eligibility checker, quote:


"Allows you to apply with confidence". Well that should read "Allows you to apply with certain degree of confidence".

BoGoF

From the eligibility calculator T & C's;

"The Eligibility Score does not guarantee that any card application made by you will be
successful. A card application will be subject to further checks including fraud and additional
credit checks as well as affordability assessments."

Too much effort to read them?

Nick_C

tenchy wrote: »

Exactly. So why didn't they ask it up front?


Also, this from the main page of the eligibility checker, quote:


"Allows you to apply with confidence". Well that should read "Allows you to apply with certain degree of confidence".

"a certain degree of" would be a tautology. It says confidence, not certainty. In the case, "the degree of confidence was 95%

jpsartre

tenchy wrote: »

They've lured him in and then hit him with a hard search when there was no need to do so if they were going to turn him down.

What on earth would AmEx gain from "luring" in people to be rejected? That makes no sense at all. As for the OP, needless to say there was no cheating involved.

newatc

The title of the thread is misleading as the Op says he "feels cheated" which is not the same as the title.
Going to the Financial Ombudsman was also way over the top imo.

I do however have some sympathy with Tenchy comments that the Newbie could have received the responses a little more gently.

DCFC79

ajron wrote: »

I applied a credit card with American Express. I did an eligibility check on American express website before applying for credit card with them. The check gave me a result of 9.5/10 chance for getting a credit card from them. Based on the eligibility check. I went forward and applied for a credit card and may application got rejected.

I contacted the American express customer care and enquired why my application got rejected. They replied that I didn't get 10/10 and 9.5/10 is not enough for getting accepted for the card.

I understand there are further checks, like credit score and other conditions will be considered for the application to get accepted. But in this occasion, I feel cheated.

I applied only because the possibility of getting the card was excellent. The lured me in applying for the card by giving me 95% chance of acceptance. Now that i have got rejected, it will be affecting my credit score. It is cheating and fake advertisement.

I contacted the Financial Ombudsman (set up by Parliament to resolve individual complaints between financial businesses and their customers), I got a reply that unless the money lending company offers you 100% chance of getting accepted, they are not doing anything wrong.

So Friends, Beware that even they are offering you 99% acceptance chance, still there is 1% chance that you will get rejected. And that 1 person out of 100 might be you !!

No 1 else checks your credit score, your credit report yes.
It wont effect your score since as I say no 1 can see your score but rejections arent shown on your report, a search will be on your file and thats it, check it yourself.

Yes you got rejected but hey thats what life is like, just move on.

And you definitley were not cheated.