Last June I wrote an Install Guide for American Muscle and in return received $200 store credit. There is no where on their website that states they have the right to take back their payment if I didn't spend it in time. Like most people, I was saving up for a larger item, probably a one piece driveshaft, so I was waiting until I got more gift cards to spend the money. I already had a $50 gift card in my account before receiving the $200 credit from my guide.
One week after i received the credit I spent $23, which just came out of my $250 total account balance, there was no way to know if it was from my $200 credit or $50 gift card. Today I go onto my account and see that all of my payment from the guide is no longer in my account. I get on the phone and am told by the manager that the money was only good for six months (again, nobody ever told me that) and that since I made that $23 purchase after I got the $200 credit, that counted as me using the credit and they are no longer able to give me the remaining $177 that I earned.
When on the phone, he said this all should have been outlined in an email when they notified me of the credit. The guides department was in the middle of heavy turnover so it already took 3 months for them to accept my guide, as opposed to the usual 8-10 days they state on their website. Clearly they were already undermanned and someone didn't send the email letting me know. Well I finally get an email from them in response to my guide only saying "thanks for your patience, we are experiencing turnover so things are pretty crazy. Your guide is in the "pending" status currently." That is the last email I got from them before have the $200 credit show up in my account. No disclosure of an expiration, no disclosure on anything. For all intents and purposes, I was lead to believe that this $200 was essentially a gift card that I could use at my discretion until I had spent all of the money.
So now not only do they have the rights to my install guide, but they also took back their payment for the guide without ever informing me that their was a time limit on my credit.
This behavior is very shady and honestly i'm not sure someone could legally justify taking back payment and saying tough luck without letting the customer know that was even an option. If they don't fix this issue (and maybe compensate me for the trouble) they are going to be hearing from me every single day until it gets fixed. This is ridiculous.
One week after i received the credit I spent $23, which just came out of my $250 total account balance, there was no way to know if it was from my $200 credit or $50 gift card. Today I go onto my account and see that all of my payment from the guide is no longer in my account. I get on the phone and am told by the manager that the money was only good for six months (again, nobody ever told me that) and that since I made that $23 purchase after I got the $200 credit, that counted as me using the credit and they are no longer able to give me the remaining $177 that I earned.
When on the phone, he said this all should have been outlined in an email when they notified me of the credit. The guides department was in the middle of heavy turnover so it already took 3 months for them to accept my guide, as opposed to the usual 8-10 days they state on their website. Clearly they were already undermanned and someone didn't send the email letting me know. Well I finally get an email from them in response to my guide only saying "thanks for your patience, we are experiencing turnover so things are pretty crazy. Your guide is in the "pending" status currently." That is the last email I got from them before have the $200 credit show up in my account. No disclosure of an expiration, no disclosure on anything. For all intents and purposes, I was lead to believe that this $200 was essentially a gift card that I could use at my discretion until I had spent all of the money.
So now not only do they have the rights to my install guide, but they also took back their payment for the guide without ever informing me that their was a time limit on my credit.
This behavior is very shady and honestly i'm not sure someone could legally justify taking back payment and saying tough luck without letting the customer know that was even an option. If they don't fix this issue (and maybe compensate me for the trouble) they are going to be hearing from me every single day until it gets fixed. This is ridiculous.
