There are few scams that I find more disturbing than those in the name of good, charitable causes. American Express, to promote how wonderful it is for humanity and to suck in as many people on the internet as possible to vote for the causes that are near and dear to their hearts, has just pulled off a whopper with its “Member Projects” promotion.
Members Project is your chance to join a community that’s passionate about making a positive change in the world. Show your support and vote on which projects get $2.5 million in American Express funding. The possibilities are endless. The decision is yours.
Well, no. The decision is theirs. According to the promo, Am Ex is giving $2.5 million, not exactly a huge sum for a company like AmEx, but nothing to sneeze at for many of the projects that serve to eradicate disease or misery and are in desperate need of funding. But it’s a sucker game.
The promo purportedly works this way. Projects are proposed and then voted on by the public to see which the public believes to be most worthy of support. Based upon these votes, the top 25 projects are then voted on again, with the top 5 to receive funding. Or so they say.
I followed this scam closely, because a project was proposed that I strongly supported, to find a cure for Fragile X Syndrome.
Fragile X is the most common inherited cause of mental impairment and the most common known cause of autism.
In my book, this is a very worthy cause, and the Fragile X Research Foundation is possibly the single best-run charity there is, with 97% of all money raised going directly to research to find a cure.
Back to the AmEx scam. Cure Fragile X was submitted as one of the proposed projects in this contest, and the voting began. At the end of voting, Cure Fragile X was number 5. That’s right, NUMBER FIVE. By most accounts, number 5 falls within the top 25 projects. But not by AmEx’s accounting procedures, apparently.
When the Top 25 were announced the next day, Cure Fragile X was nowhere to be found. It simply disappeared from the list, as if it never existed. Poof.
I will not, and do not, denigrate any other project on the list, whether it made the top 25 or not, as all are worthy. But within the universe of worthy causes, there are some that are more dire, and some that are extremely close to being cured/resolved/fixed, but for completing existing research. Fragile X Syndrome is one of those that, with one more decent push, is so close to being cured. But it won’t get that final push from American Express, because it no longer exists on the AmEx list even though it was voted number 5.
So where did it go? AmEx hasn’t responded to inquiries. My best guess is that it wasn’t somebody’s pet project over there, and based upon the top 25 list, the whole deal has been skewed to make sure that this whole contest turns out to be one big scam promotion, with the end game being to fund pre-ordained projects while enjoying the benefits of appearing to be benevolent to all.
While it might appear that AmEx shouldn’t be called out because it’s just doing a good deed, this is baloney. This is hard-core self-promotion, using $2.5 million from its advertising budget to paint itself as some wonderful benefactor while spreading its advertising as far as it can.
I don’t begrudge AmEx taking advantage of self-promotion by this method, provided it really ends up helping some good causes. I do, however, take issue when the promotion turns out to be a scam. And the Member Projects promotion by American Express is a scam, and it should blow up in their faces.
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Isn’t the word “scam” slang for “fraud” which has a legal definition? I guess they have the same meaning but never thought out it before.
Scam may have the broader connotation of deception, notwithstanding the legal elements of a fraud. But no matter what word is used, the smell remains the same.
Thank you for exposing this. I linked to it on my blog. I wanted a way to tell the world what they did and you expressed it better than I ever could. I have two fragile x kids and my heart is very close to this.
I also have two sons with Fragile X. I clicked through FXSMom’s blog. I will link this article from my blog as well to get as much traffic for you as possible.
Definitely a scam. Great reporting, Scott.
It was a great feeling for a moment that I could help raise much needed funds for Fragile X Research. I feel a phone call to American Express is in my future along with a pair of scissors to cut the card up.
AmEx to Disabled Children: Drop Dead
Literally, given the nature of some of the projects that received the most votes in its scam “Members Project” contest.
I was with a group that was looking to cure SMA (Lou Gerrick’s disease)in children. It is underfunded and debilitating for the children and the families.
We were in the “top 25” too and were deemed not exciting enough to be in the fine vote. We were replaced with soccer for aids children in Africa.
All the causes were worthwhile, but if Amex committed to let the people decide then they should stick with that plan.
I think its fraud. I think its disgusting and I think they need to be exposed.
You’re absolutely right. Sorry to hear that your cause as well was booted by AmEx. This was a disgrace.
I was with cure SMA. Also voted into the top 25. I was so disappointed to find out we did not make the board nominated list. I thought the rules were we vote, not the AMex board. I do not understand how a board can make a decision of what cause is more worthy than another. They may feel our “grass root” efforts will not touch enough people but maybe if they understood these illness better they would find out that finding a cure/treatment for this one illness could impact too many others to name.
i am sorry to see Fragile X did not make it either, makes you wonder, what they had against childhood illnesses?
Have you noticed that AmEx has started a massive PR campaign, ranging from TV commercials to popups, to promote this? Don’t think that you project was unworthy. Indeed, the AmEx spokesperson expressly stated that “all the projects were worthy,” putting to rest any claim that projects voted into the top 25 somehow failed to meet the criteria of the promotion.
So if the projects were worthy, met the criteria and were voted into the top 25, there is no rational basis to explain why they were excluded from the top 25, except that his is a pure PR scam.
You ask what AmEx has against childhood illnesses. That’s a very good question. Apparently, they either aren’t the illnesses that the child of any top exec at AmEx suffers from or doesn’t fit within their PR scheme. Either way, this promotion has been a scam.
It is ironic that AmEx discounted a cause that impacts on so many of its own customers.
The odds are that around 1 in 250 of its female customers are carriers of Fragile X Syndrome as well as a smaller but still significant proportion of its male customers. Numerous children of these customers suffer from Fragile X.
Their carrier customers also suffer from effects of the syndrome, albeit in a different way to those who are fully affected. For example a cure could also prevent their male carrier customers from developing a degenerative parkinson’s type illness called FXTAS and their female customers early menopause and higher risk of osteoporosis.
I am a carrier who will now not become one of their customers.
Hi, I’m Luisa from Italy and I’m very sorry to read about that.
I’ll try to involve as much people in Italy as possible, emailing the X fragile Italian Association and talking to people I know about the behavior of American Express executives
Hello.
I am in the process of being scammed by Amex. I am a 20 year customer of their travellers checks. I had stolen or lost 2500 euro worth of checks in December and they refuse to replace them. I am looking for anyone else who has been scammed by Amex and hope to file a lawsuit against them. If anyone has info I would be happy to talk with you.
Daniel
Wondering if this is a scam? Try wondering about the motives of a company that told its employees a number of years ago that by hiring Indian outsourced resources, they were actually promoting employee job security. The reasoning? Well, if and when they needed to reduce operating costs, they would simply cut those outsourced people. Despite the deafening protest of employees that this strategy would put the company’s technical expertise in the hands and heads of cheap non-employees, it was aggressively executed. The result: AMEX eventually was forced to hire countless outsourced resources as full-time, onshore employees in order to secure the availability of the technical expertise required to keep the big machine running and at the same salaries as the buffaloed employees they replaced. The other result: these people enter with their third-world cultural beliefs that dismiss civil rights and make women second-class citizens. RIP American Express. Hello Indian Express.