Short update.
Basically I got diddly squat from Amex. They assigned my case to some specialist in dispute resolution. She gathered all the evidence I had again and then took my story down again, then she did the same with the merchant. She then proceeded to set up some joint phone calls in which we all spoke, in turn, about what was going on and why I believed I should get a refund, and why they didn't etc. etc.
Anyway, on the call the person from the merchant agreed to give me $500 back. I was not LIVID; it was pennies compared to what I paid--but I maintained my composure on the call. Again, she agreed verbally, on a recording to give me $500 back. The Amex rep then told me to sit tight and let's see what would happen meanwhile, while she processed all of this and got some more people involved. It seemed as though the merchant started to budge so we might be able to finally get them to agree to give me my money back.
3 weeks later, when no refund or anything was processed, she called me to follow up and said it was odd and set up another call. This time the merchant rep told her that she DID NOT agree to $500, but she agreed to give UP TO $500 pending manager approval--AND the manager DID NOT approve. This was a complete and total lie from A to Z. The Amex rep called bullshit on her and told her "well listen I can go back and play the recording I know exactly what you said, don't try to deceive me."
The whole time throughout this process I kept pointing out how these people are DISHONEST but they know how to mask it very well and FINALLY the Amex rep saw what I was saying when they couldn't get out of their lie. I was thrilled and thought that wow I might actually get my money back now. The Amex rep was going to escalate this one level to see what they could do.
Fast forward to last week. The Amex rep calls me back and says, listen I know they are dishonest, and so we will credit you back the $500 as a good will gesture for being an Amex cardholder for over 20 years. This was a good will gesture on the part of Amex and the merchant would not be giving anything back. I was very confused and told her wait a minute, what about the whole rest of the amount, you can clearly see how this place was lying the whole time. Her answer was, we would like to give you more of a refund but unfortunately we cannot go against a merchant's refund policy and since she verbally committed to the $500 then that is what we can give you, all the rest I suggest you go to court. I tried hard to explain to my manager the situation but we are bound by the terms of the sale between you and the merchant.
So that's it. Meanwhile I approached two attorneys and told me that in order to litigate this, it would cost well in excess of $10K, so yeah thats not happening.
If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. I went and left the place a bad yelp review and the merchant contacted me about it and was pretty mad and said you have no right to leave a negative review. I hung up in their face.