“Your Account is temporarily unable to access the Referral Programme”
Discuss today's stories:
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My referral link is back, since 1st Feb. Almost like they wanted to test how it goes without referrals for a few months.
Still no luck here. And it’s being advertised to me amongst my transactions…
A reader got an email from Amex this week saying that his household has exceeded an acceptable number of Amex applications in recent years and so was banned. This was after making a complaint.
A reader got an email from Amex this week saying that his household has exceeded an acceptable number of Amex applications in recent years and so was banned. This was after making a complaint.
Banned from referral or from Amex completely?
A reader got an email from Amex this week saying that his household has exceeded an acceptable number of Amex applications in recent years and so was banned. This was after making a complaint.
Oh, Rob – the amount of stress you have induced to some people with this comment!
A reader got an email from Amex this week saying that his household has exceeded an acceptable number of Amex applications in recent years and so was banned. This was after making a complaint.
Rob is it possible, with their consent, to post background – to help others avoid falling into the same trap. How many cards were opened? How many people? All related? All registered at same address? what were the spends for each card? Were they held for 1 year or flipped after SUB posted.
A reader got an email from Amex this week saying that his household has exceeded an acceptable number of Amex applications in recent years and so was banned. This was after making a complaint.
Rob is it possible, with their consent, to post background – to help others avoid falling into the same trap. How many cards were opened? How many people? All related? All registered at same address? what were the spends for each card? Were they held for 1 year or flipped after SUB posted.
That person is likely a reader and is able to post this themselves if the consent. Given the number of people involved, it is likely to include many people the ‘correct’ side of the 2-year rule, but whom Amex feel have taken advantage. Referring anyone more than once (over any period of time, even >2y) may well fall in to this category.
That’s why I feel it’s very helpful to give context and background to this specific case.
Without knowing more details ascertaining the trigger/s that caused the ban is speculation, assumptions and conjecture.
@Ash if you are seriously hoping via your strange request that you will be provided with a blueprint showing how far you can provoke Amex before they bite, you are delusional. Also, it’s very clear from many different threads and elsewhere that Amex is tightening up in a variety of ways and things are always evolving so today’s policies may not apply tomorrow. There’s also common sense to be applied; if you think you are or may be doing too much, Amex certainly will. A lot of stuff flies under the radar until they look at your account for an unconnected reason only to discover they are being played.
Amex and other card providers shut down a lot more accounts than we hear about in this forum, rather like gamblers’ losing bets.
Moral of the story is…Don’t take the p**s!
I’m risk averse @jdb , find it useful to know the boundaries though. Whomever I have referred have generally ended up using their amex as their main card. So decent spends going through, and we don’t refer back and forth. And all but my partner are at different addresses, mix of family and and non family. Amex has been emailing extra referel bonuses if I refer more people, so I guess they are happy. But, as I say, I’m risk averse, so anything that helps avoid a whiff of a ban, I’d like to know.
Going back to the Rob’s message….Amex referenced Household account…that may indicate a lot of back of forth referring between family members at the same address.
That’s an interesting development, but I’m still banned and can’t possibly have got anywhere near with referrals – I’ve done so few over the years. The revenue generated from my referrals is much more likely, although a friend hasn’t been banned and he’s definitely a worse generator of good quality referrals.
@Ash it’s sort of the point that there are no stated boundaries. If there were, too many people would push up against them and then try pushing further.
Amex is also quite a strange organisation in that some people who one wouldn’t think are good customers get away with a lot, but others get shut down over quite little. Amex clearly turns a blind eye to or tolerates quite a lot of fairly obvious stuff but sometimes it reaches levels they feel the need to address so there is just no way of knowing. Some people have made suggestions such as doing a SAR for really pointless reasons. That’s a great way of drawing attention to your account.
What’s an SAR?
What’s an SAR?
SAR = Subject Access Request, a provision of GDPR / Data Protection Act 2018 that allows you, within reason, to ask an organisation to give you all the data they hold about you within a set time period. It was suggested here when the referral block became more widespread, but there are a lot of carve outs financial institutions can rely upon to avoid supplying the interesting bits. It’s also quite likely to antagonise them as it is costly/time consuming and usually only done when the firm is already at odds with a customer.
What’s an SAR?
SAR = Subject Access Request, a provision of GDPR / Data Protection Act 2018 that allows you, within reason, to ask an organisation to give you all the data they hold about you within a set time period. It was suggested here when the referral block became more widespread, but there are a lot of carve outs financial institutions can rely upon to avoid supplying the interesting bits. It’s also quite likely to antagonise them as it is costly/time consuming and usually only done when the firm is already at odds with a customer.
It does not strike me as an unreasonable thing to do in this instance, particularly if amex have not stated why they have blocked the referrals.
@points_worrier – with an SAR, you won’t discover anything relating to blocked referrals and it will antagonise them but if you think it’s a good idea, feel free.
The way I view it is that Amex are more important to me, than I am to Amex. That way of thinking helps me to toe the line.
After 3 months of being removed from the referral programme, it has just reappeared today!
Just to echo the above, also for the ability to refer back on my account, and it is available for all the cards too.
+1.
They just had to kick out that person that wrote to Rob and problem solved for everyone!
After 3 months of being removed from the referral programme, it has just reappeared today!
+ 1. I’m wondering if these bans are for a fixed period. Three months maybe?
I’ve just noticed that I can also now refer! At 12:30 I couldn’t, at 21:50 I can. So odd.
+1 me and my wife can recommend again in all our cards (previously I could only in my new BA premium, but not my gold, neither my wife Platinum), last Friday, last time I checked it, we couldnt.
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