mocha

Has anyone experienced this dreaded invasion of all your personal finances?

I've heard many bad things about, and how having both a charge card and credit card with Amex will increase your chances of financial review.

I have a Gold charge card, and been receiving pre-approvals offers for the Blue, which I'd like to get, but I'd hate to be selected for the F/W.

Kyle53719

I have multiple American Express accounts, including both Charge and Credit Cards. In regards to financial review from your credit report, they may review your credit report with more frequency; but, it in no way harms your credit report or FICO score since other creditors are not able to see when they pull your records. I have been an Amex cardholder for many years, and have never been adversely affected by financial review. As long as you pay all your bills on time, you should not have any problem.

mocha

I don't think we're on the same page.

An American Express financial review is where amex will freeze all your cards you have with them, and ask you to mail them in copies of your bank statements for last three month, pay-stubs for last 2-3 pay-periods, and your previous 1-2 years tax returns.

Then after they review all the documents, they'll likely decrease all your credit limits DRASTICALLY, and/or possibly close some accounts, upon creditors grant (which hurts your credit reports.)

BeantownFlyer

And they decide to do this because they don't have anything better to do? I've had AMEX products since 1982, and during the first 4 years I was either in college or graduate school, with no regular job. They never asked for any further information then, nor have they subjected me to such a review in more recent times when my charge activity has exceeded 100% of my gross income (a good amount of it obviously are business expenses reimbursed by my employer). So the suggestion that AMEX would freeze accounts and demand income verification without a legitimate reason is just silliness. They may indeed do this if you are not paying your bill regularly, have slow pays on other accounts on your credit file, seem to be suddenly running up your revolving debt and only paying the minimum balances on your other accounts, or are engaging in other poor management of your credit. And those are all indicators that your ability to pay your AMEX bill be may impaired - so good for them!

mocha

No one care. Besides, American Express didn't introduce credit cards until 1987. I never mentioned any danger of being victim of the F/R for having ONLY charge cards.



How much you spend in one month and your income has no relevance. Your spending habits, however, do. Spend $200 in one month, $25,000 the next, $400 the month after, and a F/R is promising. “But oh wait...I thought my card had no spending limit” – WRONG!!



I never said it was a "suggestions," it's a FACT.
http://creditboards.com/forums/index...nancial+review
Just one of many major forums with members who’ve discussed the F/R.



Incorrect. If you’re paying on time without irregular spending patterns and they’re receiving that annual fee, then they can care less of your other accounts, FICO, utilization, etc. That was a silly suggestion of yours.



Good indicators to force you to submit bank statements, pay stubs, TAX RETURNS!! so you can use their products???....right, good for them

BeantownFlyer

Well I could add that I have also had AMEX credit card products since they were first introduced as well, but perhaps you will also proclaim that no one on the board cares about that either.

It appears that you have already had a bad experience with AMEX and/or have been subjected to what you call the "dreaded F/R" and thus started this thread to grind an ax with AMEX. If that is not the case, and your knowledge is limited to speculation, what you have read on other BB's, and other non-personal knowledge, then presumably the only possible intention of your original post was to learn of the experiences of others here.

I have 20+ years of positive experience with AMEX. I have had bills of $35,000-$50,000 in one month and only a few thousand dollars the next month many, many times. The only thing regular about my spending habits is that they are not regular. Of course if no one cares about this, it is because they are not interested in your thread. If they are interested, here is information that is based on personal knowledge and not second and third hand speculation. Perhaps others have had bad experiences, etc., but your question to begin with seemed to seek reassuance that you would not be targeted, and if that was what you were looking for my personal experience suggest that you will not be.

Mary2e

Something doesn't smell right here...

A brand new poster comes to a board geared toward frequent flyers to talk/get information about a charge card. There are plenty of other boards for that, as he has already found.

Methinks someone got targeted and is now spreading the word to every online community he could find. We're NOT getting the whole story here, IMHO.

BTW - I've had an Amex for 25 years, since graduating from college. I'm the queen of erratic spending patterns and have even received calls to make sure it was me doing all that shopping (it was). I've never even heard of this dreaded F/R, and quite frankly, if it does exist, it must exist for a few select people that are raising all kinds of flags in the system.

PIT_Flyer

Amen that. I've had an AMEX card since 2000 (as a graduate student). Started off with a Blue, my company (in 2002) gave me a corporate card and I now have a Platinum card. Naver had a problem like the OP indicates.

FYI, that is EXACTLY what my spending pattern was when I got my Platium card. No, there has been no "F/R promising". My wife has a supplementary Platinum card and our monthly charges vary from 0 to $40,000, completely random.

As a matter of fact, AMEX has never frozen my card, apart from one time when the Corporate card was locked for a weekend because of some apparent fraudulent charges (an online purchase in the UK followed by a few online US purchases. Set off alarm bells, all sorted out on Monday am, since AMEX Corporate CSRs were unable to "unlock" the card without the approval of a manager, who was unavailable for the weekend. ).

Mary2e

I think the OP went to the wrong community to spread this stuff... as a group, FTers are better traveled, better educated and generally more well off than the general population. Something like what he posted simply will not fly, because IF it happens, it surely would have happened to someone here.

Perhaps he should have done a bit of research first

Kyle53719

Sorry for my initial misunderstanding about Financial Review. I was under the impression it was just a regular credit check on your credit report. I have been an American Express cardmember for many years and my spending has fluctuated between a few thousand some months to just over a million in others and have never been subjected to what you have described. As I have described earlier, I do have multiple accounts and I have never been targeted or harrassed about my spending habits.

PIT_Flyer

That's exactly what Mary2e & BeantownFlyer stated - the OP apparently has had a bad experience with AMEX and is trying to "spread the dirt" about the so called financial review. Your understanding is accurate - it's more a regular credit check than a lock on your account, pending documentation. The only probable case of a review is if people obtain a card by providing fraudulent information (like misrepresenting annual income). I've seen that happen to people while in grad school. AMEX occasionally has merchants call in for verification for hefty charges that seem out of the ordinary (like the first $xx,xxx charge to the card) - happened to me and all AMEX did was speak to me to verify the purchase. No problems since then, for even heftier charges.

l etoile

I actually found the link the OP provided to the information on this on creditboards.com pretty interesting, and could see the poster's question as being relevant here - a place where there are people who sometimes open lots of cards to get the bonuses.

If you read that thread this is not at all about regular reviews of your credit report, but about asking you to send in W2s and pay stubs after you've already had the cards. From the other thread it appears to be triggered by having a mix of charge and credit cards from Amex, usually more than three, used fairly heavily, and opened all within a short period of time (<1 year).

I don't have any experience with this, but don't see any need to attack or second guess the poster's motivations. It's fairly interesting and certainly could be of interest to anyone considering getting more cards for any bonuses.

BeantownFlyer

The problem is that the OP began with attacks first. In response to what could have been a legitimate post, seeking information on the experiences of others here at FT, I responded with my personal experiences. That triggered the "no ones cares" about your personal experiences post from the OP, and everyone, myself included, concluding that the OP did not really want to hear about others experiences, and learn more about this type of review, but was trying to grind an ax with AMEX and stir up trouble.

You will notice that the OP - who clearly is not a novice at posting on BB's as demonstrated by his ability to create an artfully formatted response - but is suddenly new to FT - has been silent, further evidence that his motives are, at best, questionable.

I too read the link he supplied, and have no doubt that AMEX may request further credit information. What I said originally, is: (a) it hasn't happened to me; and (b) AMEX is certainly not going to do it without reason. And from the posts I read in the link (including one by someone who was subjected to the review, and understood and sympathized with AMEX's approach) I still feel the same way. As others have noted here, it apparently hasn't happened to any of the FT clan - no doubt a testament to their creditworthiness and sophistication.

l etoile

BeantownFlyer: I could point to another post prior to that where I think this thread went awry, but there's little point and I'd much rather see the thread get back to the original topic. As for him being silent, he posted today. Give him time, I doubt most newbies check the boards hourly as many of us long-time addicts do.

I think there has actually been a fairly large misunderstanding on this thread about what the OP is talking about with regard to a financial review. From reading creditboards (and I did a search and found similar stories on other sites), everyone (and it's not a lot of folks) subjected to this has paid their bills and handled their credit well. As I said, the triggers appear more to do with how close together one gets multiple cards and the mix of cards. It sounds like it's mostly just a hassle and that Amex is doing a check on those who get lots of credit in a relatively short time to make sure their credit lines are appropriate. This is a group where there are a likely to be folks who get many credit cards for all the bonus offers, so I see this as a resonable place to ask if anyone has every experienced the financial review and to ask if getting another card might trigger one for him too.

I hope we can get away from attacks and focus on the issue in the original post, and for those who want to understand what the poster is referring to, take a look at that creditboards thread. Here's the link again: http://creditboards.com/forums/inde...inancial+review

Steve M

I have a Starwood Amex. I was told that I'd have to voluntarily submit to one of these financial reviews if I wanted the credit limit above $25,000. I said "no thanks - leave it where it is."