Not upheld: welcome points eligibility, direct debit setup failure, Subject Access Request handling complaint against American Express Services Europe Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs Z complained that AMEX treated her unfairly by not crediting 20,000 welcome points, failing to set up a direct debit despite multiple attempts, and mishandling Subject Access Requests. The ombudsman found that the points were not credited because Mrs Z's eligible spend (£1,700) fell short of the £3,000 requirement and the name mismatch was with partner company M, not AMEX. The direct debit rejections were justified because the joint account required both signatures and Mrs Z uploaded scanned documents instead of original PDFs as required. All Subject Access Requests were fulfilled within appropriate timescales. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that AMEX correctly identified the name mismatch issue and appropriately directed Mrs Z to contact partner company M directly, as AMEX could not resolve the issue itself. Regarding the direct debit rejections, AMEX was entitled to reject the application because the joint account required both signatures and only Mrs Z had signed, and because Mrs Z uploaded scanned copies rather than original PDF documents as required. The ombudsman found no evidence of AMEX error in handling the Subject Access Requests, as all were fulfilled within appropriate timescales and the file opening issue was not attributable to AMEX.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website