Has anyone else heard about AmEx's reporting 'lottery' system?

[Scamp]

Because I'm having probs with my AE Gold charge card reporting correctly on all 3 CRA's, I called AmEx the other day to ask when my account gets reported each month.

CSR was very nice but said she really couldn’t give me an answer ‘because it’s so random’.

That was an unexpected and odd-sounding response, so I asked her to elaborate.

According to her, negative stuff of course is always reported promptly, but for those of us whose accounts are in good standing, who gets their account info reported any particular month is entirely up to chance – they do a a sort of lottery, apparently – each month, a computer randomly picks  which accounts will get reported.

She went on to clarify that every account will get reported ‘at least once a year’, but that other than that, whether or not my account would be reported was strictly a matter of chance, each month.

For the same “it’s so random” reason, she said she wasn’t even able to tell me what day of the month my account would be reported if it did win that month’s ‘reporting lottery’.

Somewhat bemused, I thanked her for her time and hung up.

If this quirk of AE's reporting methods is common knowledge, then apologies for posting old info, but I hadn't run across it in any of the old AE-related posts that turned up in searches I've run on AE on here.

...has anyone else heard something like this from AmEx...?

[Creditaddict]

I seem to think this is possible if you have a $0 balance. But any month I have had a balance it's always reported. but I just tried to look at my credit reports I had filed and none of them go back over a year which I was hoping I had an old one I could reference on this.

[Anonymous]

This is news to me.  Mine reports every month.

[Scamp]

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cheddar wrote:

This is news to me.  Mine reports every month.

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That's been my experience, too, which is why I was so fuddled to get the answer I did from the CSR.

Weird, if true.  And might explain some of the posts I've seen on here about AmEx accts. taking forever to update with CRA's...(?)...

[Anonymous]

Boy is that CSR wrong --- federal law (FCRA) require that if they report they must do so no more than every 60 days) Chevron does the 60 days (before GEMB acquisition which I hope will change it to 30 days).  Perhaps the 'lottery' is for when within the month.....

[Anonymous]

I opened my Blue account on February 5 and it hasn't shown up on my CRs yet.

[Anonymous]

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FretlessMayhem wrote:
I opened my Blue account on February 5 and it hasn't shown up on my CRs yet.

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That's not surprising, due to the way they report.  It took a while for mine to show up, too.

For me, they report on the 29th of each month, and they report the balance on the statement generated during that month, even though by that time that balance is about three weeks old.  My statement date is the 3rd every month, because I opened my account on the 3rd, so yours will probably have a similar schedule as mine.

Here's how I think yours will go, based on my experience:

Feb. 5: Opened account

End of Feb: No reporting because no statement yet

Mar. 5: Statement #1

End of Mar: Reporting of new account and statement #1 balance

Apr 5: Statement #2

End of April: reporting of statement #2 balance

Etc, etc.

So I would bet they've reported for you already (end of March) and now you're just waiting on the CRAs.

[haulingthescoreup]

OK, that just HAS to be an ill-conceived April Fools joke by customer service's, or a CSR working out her notice. Even J.Crew isn't that lame. They claim to report to all three every Friday, which is a complete falsehood, but at least it makes it look like they're Hot Stuff.

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

That's not surprising, due to the way they report.  It took a while for mine to show up, too.

For me, they report on the 29th of each month, and they report the balance on the statement generated during that month, even though by that time that balance is about three weeks old.

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I got an e-mail on the 31st that I now have charges, but when I go online, even though I see the charges, there's no balance due, no statement date, and no due date (for the $0 balance due.) This is different...

[Anonymous]

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@haulingthescoreup wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

That's not surprising, due to the way they report.  It took a while for mine to show up, too.

For me, they report on the 29th of each month, and they report the balance on the statement generated during that month, even though by that time that balance is about three weeks old.

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I got an e-mail on the 31st that I now have charges, but when I go online, even though I see the charges, there's no balance due, no statement date, and no due date (for the $0 balance due.) This is different...

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Welcome to the Cult.

Amex is currently showing an 11.99 charge (for CS) with avail credit at 977.  When I called yesterday the guy told me for some reason my avail cred is reduced by the pending and posted transactions -- WHICH ARE ONE IN THE SAME.   I'm pretty sure there wasn't a panty party where every pair got together and charged something on my amex. 

Yet another reason to leave it in the drawer.