HELP: Surviving AmEx Financial Review

[Anonymous]

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@core wrote:

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@redpat wrote:

Business returns shows gross revenue and expenses associated with the business and therefore would give Amex the ability to see the spend needed to run the business.

You may think it's not black and white but in their world it is.

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Sure, Amex may see lots of expenses on his transcript and that might justify a large amount of spend on his business cards.  But when his own taxable income says $0, what do you think is going to happen to that guy after he honestly put down say $95k on his initial Amex application?  He'd be lucky to escape with any cards left at all.

Yes, I agree, in their world they see it as black and white.  He "lied" about his income (according to them).  That's the PROBLEM...  It's not black and white, but they want to believe it is.

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Maybe I missed it, but I'm not seeing where the OP stated his tax return is a business return.

[Anonymous]

OP, was this unusual spending for you?

I've been able to get to about 90k without any FR on my Amex Business Platinum. I recently had a hard limit of $50k imposed after a large payment was returned. My bank had put a fraud block for something else. I called them the very next day to have released but it took them 24 hours and the Amex payment came through while block was still on. I called the bank with Amex and they processed a new payment but the hard limit is still there. I can manage just fine with 50k so I haven't called them about that. I don't want to trigger an FR.

I am just trying to understand if FR is related to change in spending pattern. 

[ojefferyo]

I don't think it has anything to do with spend pattern. Awhile back I would let a few months past and not even put any spend on my charge card then the following month would run 30-50k on the card a month for a couple of months then back to zero spend. I did this at least 5 times and nothing came of it. 

[Anonymous]

From my experience after you have amex for a while they seem to ease up. A new customer with big spending seems like a fast way to get one.

I do the check spend about once a week to see where I stand with amex on my spend power. Gives me an idea of what is considered pushing it in their eyes and gives me some warning if I'm spending too much.

My favorite thing about amex is the card (no matter which card) will grow with you. If things get worse for me they'll lower my spend power. If things are better they'll raise the spend power even if things were rougher a year or two earlier. The opposite of my first cap one card that wouldn't go beyond a 300 limit regardless of how good things got.

[Anonymous]

Forgot to mention, when my credit tanked after a divorce my gold card that normally was no preset limit starting listing an available credit amount. If I spent under that I had no issues. My gold card hasn't had that spend limit on there since (at least visibly shown) but it showed me what amex trusted me with.

[sjt]

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@anm688 wrote:

It finally happened. I'm being financially reviewed by American Express to see if my income justifies my spending.

Trigger of AmEx Financial Review: Spending $75K this month.

Here is my problem with their process. The representative said I cannot provide bank statements as my savings grace, and that they can only do it by pulling my IRS tax returns.

Has anyone else survived a financial review with a low taxable income and high spending? Any recommendations?

NOTE: I pay off my AmEx card in full every month. So they should see a history of me being able to cover my expenses.

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iWork's send copies of your bank statements in addition to your Tax Form.

[RonM21]

I would think that if you are paying every month and nothing is incorrect, like how much you told them you make, etc., it may not be an issue.