Paying a CC "too fast" ?

[Anonymous]

Lol they're all nuts

[Anonymous]

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@14Fiesta wrote:

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@OmarGB9 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@OmarGB9 wrote:
No, just being cautious with themlol. Since I'm just starting out with them.

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I had a Fraud Alert put on my account when I made three payments within a 72 hour period with Amex. They wouldn't let me make another payment until after the statement cut a couple of weeks later.

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I rest my case. Lol. Was that a new account?

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+1 to question. If it was a new account, especially if you were new to Amex as a whole, they might have thought you were trying to "bust out"

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No it wasn't a new account (just lower activity), and I had three other cards at the time (BCP, ED and Platinum). I was getting the 70K bonus for the Hilton card and made four transactions totalling $5K. The charges went through no problem, but I was limited to the three payments for the cycle. I will mention that I haven't experienced this problem since and can make payments throughout the cycle without an issue.

[Anonymous]

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@jeffery581 wrote:

re: I had a Fraud Alert put on my account when I made three payments within a 72 hour period with Amex. They wouldn't let me make another payment until after the statement cut a couple of weeks later.

That shows irresponsibility imho. Why is the question. 

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Irresponsible?

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Any truth to getting AA for paying a card too quickly ? I just got my Ritz card (CHASE) and the $395 AF hit yesterday. I want to pay it off and begin charging -- it shows my balance $395 and CL $5,000. Will I be ok paying this off today? I've read of people and their scare tactics about getting AA for paying "too soon".

Thoughts ?

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No, I've never heard of adverse action for paying too quickly. Banks love it when you pay quickly.

[jeffery581]

re:Irresponsible?

Yes. Unless you had a huge balance and wanted to use the card some more. It shows lack of planning and management. Did you not know you would be making a payment? Why not just one? Just my opinion. Maybe that's what spooked them.

[Anonymous]

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@PointLager wrote:
"Average size of payment" is a metric Amex uses when doing internal risk scores on you. For this reason any Amex account of mine gets paid once per month only.

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I am not calling you a liar, certainly with your refined lineup you know what you are doing...however...if this was the case....then with all my random tiny charges, amex offers etc.... I can guarantee you my average payment is not even triple digits....and if they really disliked that, then why would they approve me for 3 cards and grant me a 3x cli after 6 months to 15k?

I have no problem waiting and making one large payment I guess. I dunno. Is it really that big of a deal?

[Anonymous]

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@jeffery581 wrote:

re:Irresponsible?

Yes. Unless you had a huge balance and wanted to use the card some more. It shows lack of planning and management. Did you not know you would be making a payment? Why not just one? Just my opinion. Maybe that's what spooked them.

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I fail to see what difference it makes if I made one $5K payment or three payments that equate to $5K. What is so scary about three payments on an established account? Regardless of how many payments I make, I can't see how that is irresponsible to pay off a balance quickly, whether it is with one payment or five, for example. 

[Nova5041]

I honestly dont understand the multiple payments unless your cl is not high enough to justify your spending, I just make one payment before my bill is due, and dont use my card until the new statement releases, which usually is a few days later, so that is reports zero. It seems like Im an oddball on this site for making one payment a month though, Im noticing! lol

[longtimelurker]

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@Nova5041 wrote:

I honestly dont understand the multiple payments unless your cl is not high enough to justify your spending, I just make one payment before my bill is due, and dont use my card until the new statement releases, which usually is a few days later, so that is reports zero. It seems like Im an oddball on this site for making one payment a month though, Im noticing! lol

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Oddball on this site, but I'm pretty sure that your payment pattern is how most people in the "real world" pay!   And it makes sense for maximizing the float.

Some people like paying after every purchase (or nearly every one) because they don't won't to be in debt at all.   Others may have cash flow issues and so pay whenever there is spare cash.

So, different reasons.

On the OP:   some issuers on certain cards certainly don't like positive balances, the Wells Fargo 5x reward card is a good example, when people had their card closed or frozen and were told this was because of positive balances.     This is because WF was trying to limit people MSing and  recycling their CL several times each month (and it;s impossible to time correctly to avoid positive balances with the volumes involved)

Discover, at least initially, can be slow in restoring available credit if you make too many payments (they say this on the website)

I have also heard that some issuers get suspicious with too many payments coming from too many sources, but not sure about that

[NRB525]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@jeffery581 wrote:

re:Irresponsible?

Yes. Unless you had a huge balance and wanted to use the card some more. It shows lack of planning and management. Did you not know you would be making a payment? Why not just one? Just my opinion. Maybe that's what spooked them.

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I fail to see what difference it makes if I made one $5K payment or three payments that equate to $5K. What is so scary about three payments on an established account? Regardless of how many payments I make, I can't see how that is irresponsible to pay off a balance quickly, whether it is with one payment or five, for example. 

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Ok, so now the story begins to show more complete. Johfi you made a total of $5,000 in charges, those posted on days 1, 2, and 3 to the Hilton account. You then started making payments on days 2, 3, and 4 (the 72 hour window) of a total of $5,000, three (3) distinct payments through the AMEX website?

Here's the problem from AMEX perspective:

Those three days of charges of $5,000 are still only just being resolved with the merchant, they were Pending for a day or two, then approved, and now AMEX is funding them per their merchant agreement.

Your three scheduled payments of $5,000, however, are only just getting started, sent out to your checking account or accounts (not clear yet how many checking accounts you asked to pay these three amounts) and the ACH process for them to extract the cash from your accounts can take up to a week.

Depending on how much your CL is at the moment, now they are potentially crossing up with $5k cash out the door, $5k of cash you promise is on the way but they don't have, and if they release your CL it's another $5k that you could potentially charge up.

If it were $1k, probably no issue. But $5k, in a three day machine gun pattern like this starts to look like a "bust out". AMEX reacted accordingly.