I added authorize user to my Amex and they did a hard pull.

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for your help and advice. I will contact Amex tomarrow about this. This week has been so busy for me at work so tomarrow a day off finally and i will call. Thanks everyone. 

[syeb]

I requested to add my son as an authorized user on my Amex Everyday Preferred card and was shocked to see a hard inquiry show up on my Experian report the next day. What gives? I do not recall authorizing that pull anywhere and nowhere on their sirte . Is this normal for Amex?

Update: A  call to Amex gave me the answer in a backdoor sort of way - I have a 90 day fraud alert that I placed after the Equifax breach. I would asume Amex did a soft pull when I requested the authorized user and received the fraud alert. The fraud alert provides my phone number which they need to call. The rep says that the only way they could actually get that phone number was to do a hard pull and get it from the actual credit report. So it was a hard pull just to get a phone number. 

I added "Warning" to the title of this post as this is something that can cause unnecessary and unexpected hard pulls. 

[Anonymous]

never heard of such a thing....I have boh of my parents as AU and not one hard pull.

[syeb]

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@Anonymous wrote:

never heard of such a thing....I have boh of my parents as AU and not one hard pull.

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Hi - See my edit - this happened because there was a fraud alert. Granted it should not have happened and if I need to I'm sure I can dispute it.

[HeavenOhio]

There was a similar post a few days ago, so this is the second time I've heard about it. I wonder if the circumstances were similar.

[syeb]

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@HeavenOhio wrote:

There was a similar post a few days ago, so this is the second time I've heard about it. I wonder if the circumstances were similar.

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Do you recall where that post was? I would like to read that thread. Thanks!

[syeb]

I started a simliar thread before finding this. I believe I may have found the reason for the  hard pull, at least for my situation. 

To save you a click here it is in a nutshell:

" I requested to add my son as an authorized user on my Amex Everyday Preferred card and was shocked to see a hard inquiry show up on my Experian report the next day. What gives? I do not recall authorizing that pull anywhere and nowhere on their sirte . Is this normal for Amex?

Update: A call to Amex gave me the answer in a backdoor sort of way - I have a 90 day fraud alert that I placed after the Equifax breach. I would asume Amex did a soft pull when I requested the authorized user and received the fraud alert. The fraud alert provides my phone number which they need to call. The rep says that the only way they could actually get that phone number was to do a hard pull and get it from the actual credit report. So it was a hard pull just to get a phone number."

Mods perhaps you can combine the two threads. 

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/Warning-Amex-does-a-hard-credit-pull-when-requ...

[RobertEG]

The proper permissible purpose for their inquiry would be as an internal account review by the creditor to assess current consumer performance.

CRA policy is that such inquiries are coded as a soft inquiry.

It appears that the inquiry was improperly coded as something other than an account review inquiry.

I would contact the CRA and determine the permissible purpose provided for their inquiry.

[Glen_M]

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@syeb wrote:

... The rep says that the only way they could actually get that phone number was to do a hard pull and get it from the actual credit report. So it was a hard pull just to get a phone number. ...

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Sounds like nonsense to me.  You have an account with them, presumably they already have your phone number -- that is usually one of the required fields in an application.

[syeb]

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@Glen_M wrote:

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@syeb wrote:

... The rep says that the only way they could actually get that phone number was to do a hard pull and get it from the actual credit report. So it was a hard pull just to get a phone number. ...

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Sounds like nonsense to me.  You have an account with them, presumably they already have your phone number -- that is usually one of the required fields in an application.

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I agree it is nonsense. However, the one little nugget of logic in Amex's response is that the phone number on my account would not help them as they would be obligated to use the contact information within the fraud alert.

By the way, last week my wife added our son as an authorized user on her account. She also had a fraud alert and the exact same thing happened - a hard pull at Ex.  So this happened twice with the same facts and circumstances and certainly seems to indicate a pattern.