AMEX Soft Pulling Randomly w/out Any History?

[Anonymous]

I thought this was interesting.  I was reviewing my annual credit report from TU and under "Promotional Inquiries" I saw AMEX had soft pulled me once a month from March through July, every month, unprovoked.  I had never owned an AMEX card, nor applied for one during this time period.  Also when I applied for my BCP a few weeks ago I got an instant approval.  The only thing that happened was I got my first credit card with BoA in January. 

Is this common with credit card companies, to randomly SP people they have no ties to?  Seems a little invasive to just check people's credit without them knowing or requesting anything at all. 

[09Lexie]

If you've 'opted in' that's exactly what lenders will do-sp for promotional purposes.

[SnackTrader]

My understanding is that a promotional inquiry, which is what you are referring to, is of a different nature than an account review soft.

The way I understand it, a promotional soft wont actually show the lender your credit history, but will rather show up on your report just to tell you that a lender received your name as a qualified candidate based on the criteria the lender looked for. So, if I was a CC company, I could call up Experian and ask for all people with credit scores over 720, with a utilization under 20%, and at least 5 existing tradelines and then I would get a long list of potential customers to send per-screened offers. Now I'm probably over simplifying, but I don't think your report comes pre-packaged in a promotional inquiry. I just think that your name, address, and other information are provided to help the lender market their product.

[JonStur]

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@09Lexie wrote:
If you've 'opted in' that's exactly what lenders will do-sp for promotional purposes.

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+1... If you're being softed, it's a sign that you're doing things right and creditors are interested in doing business with you..don't worry there's nothing nefarious going on, you may just be a little unfamiliar with how the process works. You can however choose to opt-out as Lexie suggested or freeze your reports at any time.

[Anonymous]

Oh ok cool, that makes since.  Just made me a little... uncomfortable at first, but that's not bad I guess.  Except for the whole thing with a company profitting off of my information without my knowledge, but I suppose that happens all the time in this age, haha.

I guess if anything, it probably helped my getting an instant approval from AMEX since they had 5 months of info on me prior. 

[TheConductor]

Yep, it's just like SnackTrader describes it.

Lenders send a "screen" - a set of criteria to target the type of customer they are looking for - to the bureau, and in return they get a mailing list to use for marketing.

Or, alternatively they can send a mailing list they already have and ask the bureau to flag which people on the list match their search criteria.

Either way, some of the more cautious lenders (such as Amex) may track a potential target for a few months to make sure they don't have any sudden changes.

[SuperKirby]

I got rejected by the Amex Clear many, many years ago. Every once in awhile i got SP'd by Amex. I figured when I got rejected, I had also "opted in" to get SP'd for promotional purposes as Lexie said. But I never questioned it or cared because I also got SP'd by a bunch of different banks I had never heard of. 

I did get an instant approval for my first Amex years later.