AMEX Financial Review Info

Quote from sd444 : Have a $25K credit line on a card? FR is coming your way that requires sends AMEX everything you could imagine to reopen your accounts. You may escape for a while. Also don't jump through sign up bonuses because that will also trigger one. My cards are at $24.9K for a reason.

Ugh. Not what I want to hear. I don't have a problem with sending them my finances, but I have auto-pay bills that go on the card, it would be a pain to transfer them.

Be careful with the charge cards from Amex if your income is weak. They will pull taxes and hit you with a pre-set spend across all cards. The credit card side is much more lenient and doesn't care. Blue and Delta total lines were about 35-40k and both dropped to 1k credit lines. I was pissed. They put my entire pre set spend on the gold card. After a year the charge card pre-set dropped off and I've been able to make use for 60k+ in purchases in one go without a review.

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[QUOTE=WildChickenDanc;57683086]Be careful with the charge cards from Amex if your income is weak. They will pull taxes and hit you with a pre-set spend across all cards. The credit card side is much more lenient and doesn't care. Blue and Delta total lines were about 35-40k and both dropped to 1k credit lines. I was pissed. They put my entire pre set spend on the gold card. After a year the charge card pre-set dropped off and I've been able to make use for 60k+ in purchases in one go without a review.

Forgive my ignorance, but any idea why the charge card side is more strict than the credit side? To me it seems intuitive that if the cardholder is paying an annual fee and paying off the balance in full, they would likely be more responsible in repaying the debt than with a credit card.

[QUOTE=k3naa;57719078]

Quote from WildChickenDanc : Forgive my ignorance, but any idea why the charge card side is more strict than the credit side? To me it seems intuitive that if the cardholder is paying an annual fee and paying off the balance in full, they would likely be more responsible in repaying the debt than with a credit card.

This was exactly my thought. Anyways, I sent in my financial info 2 business days ago. Will come back with update once I hear the verdict.

Not 100% sure. If you get the Financial Review then the entire portfolio of cards will get looked at. I had blue cash and delta for years occasionally hitting credit line and just paying it down so I could use it again. They never asked any questions or came after me for tax info. I signed up for Gold car and dropped 12k onto it the first week I got it and immediately went into financial review.

Thank you OP and others for the information they have posted.

What the OP said made sense to me because since OP was an authorized user on his wife's card, his wife still had financial responsibility for OP's charges and if she did not have the income to justify the charges made, bam, financial review. Credit cards have recently switched to asking individual income when applying -- it used to be household income before that, so I guess their financial review departments are going in that direction too. I know it is screwy, but I am starting to understand now.

It is however reassuring that only Amex is doing this at this point. So if you have low income and spend a lot due to legit reasons, such as reimbursable business expenses (even if you have an Amex business card -- in fact, most FRs I have heard about on other venues were triggered by the Amex Gold OPEN Business charge card), do yourself a favor and use another bank's cc.

Hey everyone,

Update, today we received a call from the FR department. Our FR is over. The results are we now have a $5k limit. So just fyi for anyone else having to go through this crap.

We will continue to use amex because the $5k limit doesn't really effect our spending habits but this has still be an ordeal.

Quote from dodtracker : Hey everyone, Update, today we received a call from the FR department. Our FR is over. The results are we now have a $5k limit. So just fyi for anyone else having to go through this crap. We will continue to use amex because the $5k limit doesn't really effect our spending habits but this has still be an ordeal.

What was your credit limit prior to the FR?

Quote from theone007 : What was your credit limit prior to the FR?

None. It's a charge card.

Quote from gloreglabert : None. It's a charge card.

Correct, it's a "no limit" card though there's always a limit. I would have rather them just ask for this stuff when we app'd and then get a hard limit put on at the time of approval but oh well I guess.

To Prior Amex Gold rewards card owner:

I just got approve for 75000 point after spending $5000 in 3 month for Amex gold business card on Thursday but after i read so many thread regard to financial review on flytalk, dandeals and fatwallet. It seem like 90% people who use this business will face the financial review at some stage along the line, which make me worry very much. I enter everything exactly correct regard to my income as like someone suggested on this thread, the only thing that i concern is the "business" part as i put it down as sole proprietorship with no expense and revenue from $0-$49000. .Since i don’t have a legit business and I wouldn't survive at all if they financial review me. So do you think it is best for me to not use this card? If i don’t active the card when it arrive do they automatic cancel my card after 3-4 month for not active? because i don’t want to take another hit to call in and cancel the card after apply for it couple day ago. Or do i just use it and then until they put my account under financial review then just pay off and cancel the account to avoid the financial review process? I have a Chase southwest business card but it seem Chase is more easy to get the point than Amex, which make me very sad i just hate to miss a very nice offer like this, but it will be even more hassle to fullfill the document when they financial review me. Anyone in a same boat with me? thank in advance!

Quote from ytbanhang4 : To Prior Amex Gold rewards card owner: I just got approve for 75000 point after spending $5000 in 3 month for Amex gold business card on Thursday but after i read so many thread regard to financial review on flytalk, dandeals and fatwallet. It seem like 90% people who use this business will face the financial review at some stage along the line, which make me worry very much. I enter everything exactly correct regard to my income as like someone suggested on this thread, the only thing that i concern is the "business" part as i put it down as sole proprietorship with no expense and revenue from $0-$49000. .Since i don’t have a legit business and I wouldn't survive at all if they financial review me. So do you think it is best for me to not use this card? If i don’t active the card when it arrive do they automatic cancel my card after 3-4 month for not active? because i don’t want to take another hit to call in and cancel the card after apply for it couple day ago. Or do i just use it and then until they put my account under financial review then just pay off and cancel the account to avoid the financial review process? I have a Chase southwest business card but it seem Chase is more easy to get the point than Amex, which make me very sad i just hate to miss a very nice offer like this, but it will be even more hassle to fullfill the document when they financial review me. Anyone in a same boat with me? thank in advance!

If you're that worried about it, spend about the same amount for 3 months to hit the bonus, collect your points, use them, then get rid of the card. Try to keep your spending in categories that make sense to your business (ie: home improvement if you are a landscaper, office supplies and meals if you are an accountant/financial adviser).

People that do end up getting FRs often spend a lot of money in categories not normally related to their business. They also often spend a lot more money than what they put down as revenue. Example above applies. Example here is if your business only grosses $24k a year and you are spending $5k a month for $60k in expenses yearly, you can bet they want to know what's going on because in their eyes you are likely to default.

I had a FR and lost 90% of cc lines and had them move all my available credit to the high annual fee cards. My blue cash is worthless. I dropped 12k onto the gold card in a week about 2 yrs ago and instantly got a FR.

Quote from sd444 : Have a $25K credit line on a card? FR is coming your way that requires sends AMEX everything you could imagine to reopen your accounts. You may escape for a while. Also don't jump through sign up bonuses because that will also trigger one. My cards are at $24.9K for a reason.

My total limit across all cards are exactly at that limit for the same reason hehe.