Updating income with Credit Cards Questions

[simplynoir]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

The CARD Act (2009) imposed the requirement that financial institutions consider a borrower's "ability to pay" when evaluating a credit application and deciding on credit limits. That "ability to pay" is determined by your reported income and its the reason why lenders will periodically ask you to update your income. You would be doing yourself a disservice by deliberately understating your income.

---

Not if you don’t want to fork over tax documents and you’re dealing with a lender known to request them, like Amex and Citi. A huge increase in income reported is highly likely to trigger a review and if you don’t send off the tax paperwork, you can lose the lines you already have. 

---

IMO AMEX and other lenders get a bad rap because of IV for the wrong reasons. I can't even imagine the chaos every time some gets married, promoted, a trust fund, etc. having to prove the funds' availability. That would honestly make me angry.

[Anonymous]

---

@simplynoir wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

The CARD Act (2009) imposed the requirement that financial institutions consider a borrower's "ability to pay" when evaluating a credit application and deciding on credit limits. That "ability to pay" is determined by your reported income and its the reason why lenders will periodically ask you to update your income. You would be doing yourself a disservice by deliberately understating your income.

---

Not if you don’t want to fork over tax documents and you’re dealing with a lender known to request them, like Amex and Citi. A huge increase in income reported is highly likely to trigger a review and if you don’t send off the tax paperwork, you can lose the lines you already have. 

---

IMO AMEX and other lenders get a bad rap because of IV for the wrong reasons. I can't even imagine the chaos every time some gets married, promoted, a trust fund, etc. having to prove the funds' availability. That would honestly make me angry.

---

Yet they ask for this stuff all the time. And then to top it all off, you have to have your income combined for a year so that you actually have the taxes filed or they can take AA because you reported too much. Thanks but no thanks. SSFCU and Best Egg both asked me for my bank statements to verify my SSA direct deposit and that’s as far as I’m willing to go. 

[simplynoir]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@simplynoir wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

The CARD Act (2009) imposed the requirement that financial institutions consider a borrower's "ability to pay" when evaluating a credit application and deciding on credit limits. That "ability to pay" is determined by your reported income and its the reason why lenders will periodically ask you to update your income. You would be doing yourself a disservice by deliberately understating your income.

---

Not if you don’t want to fork over tax documents and you’re dealing with a lender known to request them, like Amex and Citi. A huge increase in income reported is highly likely to trigger a review and if you don’t send off the tax paperwork, you can lose the lines you already have. 

---

IMO AMEX and other lenders get a bad rap because of IV for the wrong reasons. I can't even imagine the chaos every time some gets married, promoted, a trust fund, etc. having to prove the funds' availability. That would honestly make me angry.

---

Yet they ask for this stuff all the time. And then to top it all off, you have to have your income combined for a year so that you actually have the taxes filed or they can take AA because you reported too much. Thanks but no thanks. SSFCU and Best Egg both asked me for my bank statements to verify my SSA direct deposit and that’s as far as I’m willing to go. 

---

All I'll say is you're proving my point with that statement right there.

[Anonymous]

---

@simplynoir wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@simplynoir wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

The CARD Act (2009) imposed the requirement that financial institutions consider a borrower's "ability to pay" when evaluating a credit application and deciding on credit limits. That "ability to pay" is determined by your reported income and its the reason why lenders will periodically ask you to update your income. You would be doing yourself a disservice by deliberately understating your income.

---

Not if you don’t want to fork over tax documents and you’re dealing with a lender known to request them, like Amex and Citi. A huge increase in income reported is highly likely to trigger a review and if you don’t send off the tax paperwork, you can lose the lines you already have. 

---

IMO AMEX and other lenders get a bad rap because of IV for the wrong reasons. I can't even imagine the chaos every time some gets married, promoted, a trust fund, etc. having to prove the funds' availability. That would honestly make me angry.

---

Yet they ask for this stuff all the time. And then to top it all off, you have to have your income combined for a year so that you actually have the taxes filed or they can take AA because you reported too much. Thanks but no thanks. SSFCU and Best Egg both asked me for my bank statements to verify my SSA direct deposit and that’s as far as I’m willing to go. 

---

All I'll say is you're proving my point with that statement right there.

---

They should not be asking for this when people request CLIs yet there was a post about it just yesterday where they had to ramp down their ask until the 4506T went away. That’s for savvy people here. How many people don’t know any better and just send the info?

[simplynoir]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@simplynoir wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@simplynoir wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

The CARD Act (2009) imposed the requirement that financial institutions consider a borrower's "ability to pay" when evaluating a credit application and deciding on credit limits. That "ability to pay" is determined by your reported income and its the reason why lenders will periodically ask you to update your income. You would be doing yourself a disservice by deliberately understating your income.

---

Not if you don’t want to fork over tax documents and you’re dealing with a lender known to request them, like Amex and Citi. A huge increase in income reported is highly likely to trigger a review and if you don’t send off the tax paperwork, you can lose the lines you already have. 

---

IMO AMEX and other lenders get a bad rap because of IV for the wrong reasons. I can't even imagine the chaos every time some gets married, promoted, a trust fund, etc. having to prove the funds' availability. That would honestly make me angry.

---

Yet they ask for this stuff all the time. And then to top it all off, you have to have your income combined for a year so that you actually have the taxes filed or they can take AA because you reported too much. Thanks but no thanks. SSFCU and Best Egg both asked me for my bank statements to verify my SSA direct deposit and that’s as far as I’m willing to go. 

---

All I'll say is you're proving my point with that statement right there.

---

They should not be asking for this when people request CLIs yet there was a post about it just yesterday where they had to ramp down their ask until the 4506T went away. That’s for savvy people here. How many people don’t know any better and just send the info?

---

Then that's their perogrative both on the part of the creditor to ask for it and the customer's willingness to comply. Just because you don't agree with creditor's decision to request them and/or for the customer to provide said tax information does not make it wrong either way. I understand both sides of the fence on this issue so I can see why one person would balk at that and another would just shrug their shoulders and send it in.

[Anonymous]

---

@simplynoir wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@simplynoir wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@simplynoir wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

The CARD Act (2009) imposed the requirement that financial institutions consider a borrower's "ability to pay" when evaluating a credit application and deciding on credit limits. That "ability to pay" is determined by your reported income and its the reason why lenders will periodically ask you to update your income. You would be doing yourself a disservice by deliberately understating your income.

---

Not if you don’t want to fork over tax documents and you’re dealing with a lender known to request them, like Amex and Citi. A huge increase in income reported is highly likely to trigger a review and if you don’t send off the tax paperwork, you can lose the lines you already have. 

---

IMO AMEX and other lenders get a bad rap because of IV for the wrong reasons. I can't even imagine the chaos every time some gets married, promoted, a trust fund, etc. having to prove the funds' availability. That would honestly make me angry.

---

Yet they ask for this stuff all the time. And then to top it all off, you have to have your income combined for a year so that you actually have the taxes filed or they can take AA because you reported too much. Thanks but no thanks. SSFCU and Best Egg both asked me for my bank statements to verify my SSA direct deposit and that’s as far as I’m willing to go. 

---

All I'll say is you're proving my point with that statement right there.

---

They should not be asking for this when people request CLIs yet there was a post about it just yesterday where they had to ramp down their ask until the 4506T went away. That’s for savvy people here. How many people don’t know any better and just send the info?

---

Then that's their perogrative both on the part of the creditor to ask for it and the customer's willingness to comply. Just because you don't agree with creditor's decision to request them and/or for the customer to provide said tax information does not make it wrong either way. I understand both sides of the fence on this issue so I can see why one person would balk at that and another would just shrug their shoulders and send it in.

---

Right but OP wanted to avoid triggering any sort of inquiry so I said to not report the full new joint income and somehow we ended up here. *shrug*

37K to 100K is a massive income increase. 

[UncleB]

For what it's worth, I don't recall ever reading or hearing about a situation where someone triggered any kind of verification by updating their income with a creditor.  I've always viewed the routine requests as a 'check the box' the card issuers are required by law to complete. 

Anytime I've seen 'required' income verification (required as in accounts are locked/suspended until it's provided) it's been because of significantly higher usage or some other event that made the account/person stand out (in the case of Synchrony, adding an AU has triggered a 4506-T for some, but that's another conversation).

TL;DR:  I would be extremely surprised if @Anonymous were to have any issues due to providing her new household income.  In fact, it might even help with auto-CLIs.

Just my 2¢.

[Anonymous]

---

@UncleB wrote:

For what it's worth, I don't recall ever reading or hearing about a situation where someone triggered any kind of verification by updating their income with a creditor.  I've always viewed the routine requests as a 'check the box' the card issuers are required by law to complete. 

Anytime I've seen 'required' income verification (required as in accounts are locked/suspended until it's provided) it's been because of significantly higher usage or some other event that made the account/person stand out (in the case of Synchrony, adding an AU has triggered a 4506-T for some, but that's another conversation).

TL;DR:  I would be extremely surprised if @Anonymous were to have any issues due to providing her new household income.  In fact, it might even help with auto-CLIs.

Just my 2¢.

---

So updating your income by $63K and then immediately asking for a CLI won’t trigger a FR? I don’t buy it. So many people who haven’t just updated their income go for a CLI and get the 4506-T request. Obviously it may make a difference depending on how much of a CLI you request but if anything should trigger one, updating your income to more than double (almost triple in this case) and then asking for a higher limit should do it. 

[UncleB]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@UncleB wrote:

For what it's worth, I don't recall ever reading or hearing about a situation where someone triggered any kind of verification by updating their income with a creditor.  I've always viewed the routine requests as a 'check the box' the card issuers are required by law to complete. 

Anytime I've seen 'required' income verification (required as in accounts are locked/suspended until it's provided) it's been because of significantly higher usage or some other event that made the account/person stand out (in the case of Synchrony, adding an AU has triggered a 4506-T for some, but that's another conversation).

TL;DR:  I would be extremely surprised if @Anonymous were to have any issues due to providing her new household income.  In fact, it might even help with auto-CLIs.

Just my 2¢.

---

So updating your income by $63K and then immediately asking for a CLI won’t trigger a FR? I don’t buy it. So many people who haven’t just updated their income go for a CLI and get the 4506-T request. Obviously it may make a difference depending on how much of a CLI you request but if anything should trigger one, updating your income to more than double (almost triple in this case) and then asking for a higher limit should do it. 

---

You're free to feel however you want, but even with the people here being outliers when it comes to 'normal' credit habits there's still no evidence that a simple income update will trigger a financial review by a lender (FR). 

Even the 'big bad' Amex FR is rather rare around here, and again that's considering how many people on this site are anything but 'normal'. 

That said, it's fine if you feel otherwise, and I'll never disparage someone for feeling the need to be exceptionally cautious.  However to say that updating one's income often leads or should lead to a FR just isn't true.

Side note:  A FR is not the same as income verification... there are other threads that cover the difference.

[Anonymous]

I guess with how much Amex monitors transaction activity, it doesn’t matter if you have the limit until you use it. Learn something new every day here. Thanks UncleB.