Amex Soft pulls my CRA monthly.... is this normal?

[Anonymous]

Just a quick question with all the Amex account reviews and cld and account closing going on.

As background this is my oldest account (22.5 years) AAoA 11.5 years,  CL 13k.  Never late. current bal 2k and going down.

I use CCT and see that Amex does a soft pull on my CR just about every month and has done so for the last year or so... has anyone else seen AMEX pulling a soft that frequently?

Boy, do I feel under the AR microscope........

I guess if they have been doing this for so long and there has been no CLD or AR on my account to date maybe I have met whatever their "criteria" for no action on the account.

I would be intested to know if anyone else sees this.

[Scamp]

Soft pulls from AmEx are more or less normal - I haven't checked lately, but I think they were softing me every 2-3 months, though it wouldn't surprise me if they started doing it every month or even every day, neurotic as they've gotten over the last several months.

In my case, I can afford not to worry too much because my two cards with them represent only a very small portion of my overall credit availability, so if they suddenly decide to have hysterics over my accounts with them and slash my Blue's already-tiny $1K limit or cancel my charge card, it'd annoy and exasperate me, but that's about it.

I guess how worried you have to be about it is dependent on how big a piece of your own credit puzzle they are.

[Anonymous]

Ok, so it sounds like this is pretty normal....(well at least for Amex )

thanks for the quick response

I am not super worried about CLD it would annoy me but not be terrible - Amex CL is about 15% of total credit available and I could pay off some of the balance if they CLD to keep ultilization down.   I really don't want the account to be closed though as it is my oldest account.

I do feel better knowing that the monthly soft is not just a special thing for me.   

[smallfry]

You see soft pulls on Credit Check Total?

[Anonymous]

No, I thought I did..but when I double check the pulls are showing on the real CR.

Sorry for the misinformation..... I went from never checking credit reports to monitoring every day (Experian,"see report again" feature.......

[Anonymous]

Funny you brought this up... I just got my free annual credit report from experian and I noticed amex soft pulls me every so monthly too... funny thing is.. i dont have an amex account at all... whats that about?????

[haulingthescoreup]

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tkay wrote:
Funny you brought this up... I just got my free annual credit report from experian and I noticed amex soft pulls me every so monthly too... funny thing is.. i dont have an amex account at all... whats that about?????

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That is a promotional soft. (Experian doesn't break out softs for account review and softs for promos.)

Don't worry, they're just giving you a good sniff.

[Anonymous]

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@haulingthescoreup wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
Funny you brought this up... I just got my free annual credit report from experian and I noticed amex soft pulls me every so monthly too... funny thing is.. i dont have an amex account at all... whats that about?????

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That is a promotional soft. (Experian doesn't break out softs for account review and softs for promos.)

Don't worry, they're just giving you a good sniff.

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AMEX actually does AR coded soft on me monthly and sometimes twice monthly and I have no account with them at this time.

[haulingthescoreup]

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VEEnVEGAS wrote:

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@haulingthescoreup wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
Funny you brought this up... I just got my free annual credit report from experian and I noticed amex soft pulls me every so monthly too... funny thing is.. i dont have an amex account at all... whats that about?????

---

That is a promotional soft. (Experian doesn't break out softs for account review and softs for promos.)

Don't worry, they're just giving you a good sniff.

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AMEX actually does AR coded soft on me monthly and sometimes twice monthly and I have no account with them at this time.

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I have a former creditor doing this to me, and I'm collecting the dates. IMO, a lender with whom you are currently not a customer does not have permissible purpose to do an -AR prefix soft, because they are seeing more than they would in a promo soft.

Of course, whether a court's opinion would come anywhere close to mine is completely debatable!

[Anonymous]

I actually am watching this closely, mainly because of the fiasco AMEX made of my credit reports for several months last year by posting a 10 year old charge off to my reports. I was able to have this quickly removed (as soon as I became aware of it!) by a phone call to AMEX. This experience reiterated to me how important it is to be vigilant about checking your reports often. I had totally relaxed and not checked them for 10 months, during which time this was added to all 3 reports.  I can only imagine the damage this might have done to me if left unchecked and will never go so long in between checks again.

So, yes, I am suspicious anytime I see AMEX snooping.