topic Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make? in Credit Cards

Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

cabledude27 — Mon, 05 May 2025 15:53:33 GMT

Probably not your typical post here, but not sure where else to post it. If this is the wrong forum for this I apologize, please let me know where else to post it.

Hey everyone, I hope to find out if others have encountered this.

I'm a longtime Amex cardholder and work professionally in cybersecurity and fraud investigation (15+ years). I recently received email surveys from Amex referencing “phone contacts” that I never made — one in March and another in late April. The emails were legit (confirmed headers, domain, branding, etc.), but when I chatted with Amex support, they confirmed no record of any calls or interactions on my account for those dates.

This has happened twice now with Amex and once with my Apple Card. It raises some red flags for me, particularly around the possibility of:

Backend system errors falsely triggering surveys
Third-party data connections (like budgeting or points apps) are being misinterpreted as customer interactions
Or worst-case, some IVR probing or reconnaissance by threat actors trying to trigger customer activity or profile access without obvious account changes.

I also had a rough support experience with one Amex rep who was condescending and dismissive despite my explaining my background in this field, which was frustrating considering the potential seriousness of the issue. I've contacted their executive team by email about this piece.

I'm just curious—has anyone else received these “phantom” survey emails from Amex (or Apple) without any actual contact? It could be a glitch… or the tip of something bigger.

Thanks in advance.

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

ptatohed — Mon, 05 May 2025 16:40:50 GMT

I know you said the e-mails are "legit", but my money is on "good fakes". What do the emails ask of you?

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

cabledude27 — Mon, 05 May 2025 16:45:46 GMT

Not to sound uppity but for these to be "good fakes" they'd be the best I've ever seen before in my entire career, and as such would have had to have been sent from Amex themselves.

They are asking me to rate a phone interaction they claim I had on a specific date. They don't ask for personal details; they are legitimate post-interaction surveys sent by email. I don't call my CCs; I only use the text or chat options. Their from addresses are not spoofed; the headers show servers that line up with the correct mail servers, etc.

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

bs1234 — Mon, 05 May 2025 18:46:20 GMT

@cabledude27 wrote:
Not to sound uppity but for these to be "good fakes" they'd be the best I've ever seen before in my entire career, and as such would have had to have been sent from Amex themselves.

It sounds like a good IT team on the Amex side could answer this. In particular:

Did the email actually come from an Amex server?

If so, presumably a bit more digging could identify the trigger and determine if this was a bug or something malicious.

If not, probably harder for anything to be done, other than a warning from Amex to be careful blah blah blah which will be ignored.

Obviously your problem is to get them to do the checking and I assume you are hoping that a lot of people here will say "Happened to me" and you can present it as a wider problem to get their attention. Failing that, as you are already talking to the executive office, you can again draw on your qualifications and say this seems to be a potential security concern and discussing it with others in the cyber security field people agree and maybe you need to inform some media..... Or however you want.

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

Gregory1776 — Mon, 05 May 2025 21:27:06 GMT

@cabledude27 wrote:
Not to sound uppity but for these to be "good fakes" they'd be the best I've ever seen before in my entire career, and as such would have had to have been sent from Amex themselves.

They are asking me to rate a phone interaction they claim I had on a specific date. They don't ask for personal details; they are legitimate post-interaction surveys sent by email. I don't call my CCs; I only use the text or chat options. Their from addresses are not spoofed; the headers show servers that line up with the correct mail servers, etc.

that's probably it. 👇

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

cabledude27 — Mon, 05 May 2025 21:43:28 GMT

Yup that's the email

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

KatzNDawgs — Tue, 06 May 2025 00:33:34 GMT

@cabledude27 wrote:
Yup that's the email

Did you have text/chat interactions on the dates indicated?

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

cabledude27 — Tue, 06 May 2025 00:39:33 GMT

No, the only thing that "communicates" to my credit cards are my Copilot, Credit Karma and The Points Guy via pulls to update the information on those apps, and nothing corresponds to the dates in question, these surveys are also specifically saying voice interactions not chat as well.

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

Gregory1776 — Fri, 16 May 2025 22:56:57 GMT

@cabledude27 wrote:

Yup that's the email

Yeah I think it's legit. I remember getting them, checking and completely forgetting what it is that was talked about so I ignored the survey. lol

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

Varsity_Lu — Tue, 06 May 2025 23:38:22 GMT

I get those emails when I have a chat interaction with AmEx. I don't really read them but the seem to pop up in my inbox a day or so after I do a customer service chat, so I always just ignore them.

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

Turbobuick — Thu, 08 May 2025 17:25:17 GMT

yep, I got one after an online chat. I filed it in the round receptacle.

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

cabledude27 — Thu, 08 May 2025 17:45:03 GMT

That's my point. I had no chat or phone interactions with them. I'm a chat, email, or text-only customer; I only call if there's an emergency, and there are very few credit card emergencies, lol. I got a response from my email to their executive team, and they are investigating and addressing the agent handling.

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

Gregory1776 — Thu, 08 May 2025 18:12:54 GMT

@cabledude27 wrote:
That's my point. I had no chat or phone interactions with them. I'm a chat, email, or text-only customer; I only call if there's an emergency, and there are very few credit card emergencies, lol. I got a response from my email to their executive team, and they are investigating and addressing the agent handling.

Glitch? Idk. They are legit however.

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

cabledude27 — Thu, 08 May 2025 18:16:44 GMT

Yeah, those are definitely legit emails, so either it's the survey server/vendor glitch, like you said, or the worst case is someone potentially harvesting data via IVR, unknown internal threat actors, other previous unknown means, etc.

The executive representative said she'd get back to me on Monday with an update.

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

Turbobuick — Thu, 08 May 2025 18:24:55 GMT

Glad I'm not an IT fraud expert. Ignorance is bliss. lol

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

cabledude27 — Thu, 08 May 2025 18:27:51 GMT

Internet and cybersecurity jobs are never dull, lol. They can also be a lot of fun if you're into digging into things and learning stuff, with a wee bit of pressure to boot.

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

mp — Thu, 15 May 2025 01:22:28 GMT

just found this thread via google

I've had this happen twice in the last week or two, with separate banks -- one with Amex, another with Chase. No real interactions. Like you i called and asked the rep for the dates of their last interaction with me that they have a record of, and it did not line up with the survey emails.

My best guess is it's some sort of targeted attack on their phone system. I've been getting an increased number of phishing texts as well, which makes me think it might be part of some larger effort.

Did you hear back from the exec team last Monday? What'd they say?

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

cabledude27 — Thu, 15 May 2025 01:34:54 GMT

I got an email Monday, and the executive rep, who's awesome, by the way, said they were still researching and investigating and would get back to me no later than May 16th. She asked if I had the emails to share with her. I had the recent survey email and provided it.

Scammers are VERY ACTIVE right now, I've got many AI Coinbase scam calls (Truecaller and it's AI assistant are worth the cost), numerous scam texts that start very benign (Hey we haven't talked in a while, I had your number in my phone but forgot who you were, etc) and LOTS of gift card scams (no, no legit business will ever ask you to pay them in Target gift cards lol)

It's odd that this survey isn't super prevalent, and that makes me nervous. Bad actors doing bad things to probe systems like this if indeed what's happening implies some sophistication and targeting. I'm very curious to hear what they find and what they can tell me.

Out of curiosity, are you someone prime for targeting (influencer, exec in a big company, etc)? Just a yes is fine no need to detail.

Re: Has Anyone Received Amex (or other credit card) Survey Emails for Calls They Didn’t Make?

Gregory1776 — Thu, 15 May 2025 02:46:05 GMT

Ngl, I was willing to walk away from this thread chalking it up to a glitch but if there is someone behind this and it is legit fraud, we all owe you a beer for your Grit.

I'll be pissed.

because I'm getting spam calls / texts and I'm just about fed up with it.