They don't need consent to pull his credit under the FCRA, as they're an existing creditor. They can pull his credit whenever they feel like it. And FYI, a pull is a pull, the difference between "hard" and "soft" is just how it gets coded for score calculation. Either way, the same information is generally transmitted to the receiver, depending on their contract with the provider. I'm sure Amex gets the same information on an AR "soft" pull as they do from a "hard" pull when opening a new account. The only difference is how it is coded on the consumer's CBR.

So, bottom line is, Amex has full access to his credit information on an ongoing basis. And considering this is the exact method used by the entire rest of the card industry to manage risk, who all incidentally have a lower chargeoff rate than Amex, I don't think he's being unreasonable in his expectation that he shouldn't have to jump through hoops like a trained poodle when sufficient information is already available to carry out their task.

Then by your logic, how does a stale 1-2 year-old tax return demonstrate anyone's ability to pay tomorrow either? At least the CBR information is constantly updated, and so accordingly would prove a better indicator than what I earned a year and a half ago, right? By your own logic, Amex's F/R process makes no sense, as it's based on old data that is virtually guaranteed to have changed one way or the other. I don't know anybody who makes the exact same income from one year to the next. Some go up, some go down, either way by the time Amex sees it, it's already changed. And if I just lost my job, how would last year's tax return possibly indicate that?