@eagle2013 wrote:Seems to be a good way instill customer loyalty. Why this is something unique to AMEX?
Hey eagle2013!
Amex was grand fathered in before the new laws took affect. They have been issuing charge cards to individuals since 1958 and actual letters of credit since 1891. The saying, membership has it's privileges isn't just a saying. Because of the grandfathering of the laws, once a member, always a member holds true even today. So if you became a member say in 1989 (or any date for that matter) and can prove it, you can be backdated to your original membership date and it is reported as such. This is my understanding of it all as I read it. Very unique benefit indeed. 
edit for grammar and missing wording . iPhone
Starting Score: 642
@enharu wrote:
Because it would defeat the purpose of even keeping track of account age.
During a manual review, analysts / underwriters can also see the actual age of the account by reviewing payment history. If every lender is to backdate, lenders will then work around this by simply reviewing payment history. That way, backdating is essentially useless as well.
True all this but first and foremost- they legally can't backdate. Only Amex is allowed to by law. I suspect they would if they could.
@improvingmycredit wrote:
@enharu wrote:
Because it would defeat the purpose of even keeping track of account age.
During a manual review, analysts / underwriters can also see the actual age of the account by reviewing payment history. If every lender is to backdate, lenders will then work around this by simply reviewing payment history. That way, backdating is essentially useless as well.True all this but first and foremost- they legally can't backdate. Only Amex is allowed to by law. I suspect they would if they could.
Sorry, improving, but could you tell more about that law? I tried looking up Amex grandfathering, but my google-fu isn't very good this morning.
@Gunnar419 wrote:
@improvingmycredit wrote:
@enharu wrote:
Because it would defeat the purpose of even keeping track of account age.
During a manual review, analysts / underwriters can also see the actual age of the account by reviewing payment history. If every lender is to backdate, lenders will then work around this by simply reviewing payment history. That way, backdating is essentially useless as well.True all this but first and foremost- they legally can't backdate. Only Amex is allowed to by law. I suspect they would if they could.
Sorry, improving, but could you tell more about that law? I tried looking up Amex grandfathering, but my google-fu isn't very good this morning.
+1 fascinated by this too. Certainly Amex isn't the oldest bank issuing credit, so I'm curious about how they got the go ahead to backdate.
@Gunnar419 wrote:
@improvingmycredit wrote:
@enharu wrote:
Because it would defeat the purpose of even keeping track of account age.
During a manual review, analysts / underwriters can also see the actual age of the account by reviewing payment history. If every lender is to backdate, lenders will then work around this by simply reviewing payment history. That way, backdating is essentially useless as well.True all this but first and foremost- they legally can't backdate. Only Amex is allowed to by law. I suspect they would if they could.
Sorry, improving, but could you tell more about that law? I tried looking up Amex grandfathering, but my google-fu isn't very good this morning.
I remember reading this in an earlier post, and was deeply suspicious then. AFAIK, fair credit laws are all about being anti-discrimination, and would not descend into detail about which issuers could and could not update an entry in credit records held by private entities. You need to be able to see the record once a year at no cost (more in some states), have a dispute mechanism, and the scoring and decisions of issuers must be unbiased. Pretty sure backdating isn't part of this. Same with HP/SP differences, some issuers choose to do HP, others SP, whereas the clear intent of recording inquiries is that all inqs should be visible.
Now, I don't know why some other issuers don't, but I doubt if it law. Possibly some arrangement with CRAs.