There are entire threads on a lot of boards, WSJ and NYT articles, as well as recent anecdotal accounts here on myfico of FR's occuring. While its good that your experience with AMEX has been clean, it doesn't negate the fact FR's do happen and the paranoia is due to the fact that there's no real set pattern to them(as visible from the outside). As is always the case, each individual's personal experience is unique and the best advice is to be on top of your accounts.
@Anonymous wrote:That there are entire threads about financial reviews doesn't mean anything. When BofA pisses you off, you're much more inclined to google "screw BofA" and find a huge group of people to kvetch about it with. Conversely, when you have nothing to say about BofA and you think "eh, BofA is whatever" you're not going to actively search out people to commiserate with. So sure, hundreds (thousands?) of people who've been subjected to financial reviews obviously do get upset and take to the internet to talk about it. But on boards like these, where the topic is credit, people lose their perspective and when a few dozen people complain about it (against MILLIONS of customers), it ends up blown entirely out of proportion.
And you also have to bear in mind that some people who complain about getting financial reviews are not as credit aware (obsessed?) as others, so carrying a $2,000 balance for a month might not seem like a big deal to them, but it could very well have jacked up their utilization to a level that's unacceptable to AmEx...but good luck getting people to go through their credit reports at the time the decision was made to figure out what caused it.
I'm sure there's a handful of them that are totally ill-warranted, but I'd be willing to bet that's a small percentage of cases and that those people are way more inclined to scream loudly about it, thus blowing it out of proprtion.
@sandsanta wrote:There are entire threads on a lot of boards, WSJ and NYT articles, as well as recent anecdotal accounts here on myfico of FR's occuring. While its good that your experience with AMEX has been clean, it doesn't negate the fact FR's do happen and the paranoia is due to the fact that there's no real set pattern to them(as visible from the outside). As is always the case, each individual's personal experience is unique and the best advice is to be on top of your accounts.
There are actual newspaper articles written on the topic, one of which has Amex confirming on record that they've done FR's based on the economic status of geographical areas. I'm not inclined to search them for you, however the countless thousands of posts on the topic has tons of information linking those articles.
I believe my first charge on my Zync was at Chick-fil-A....and the thing I probably buy most with it is food items, whether it be fast food, sit down restaurants, late-night runs to Walgreens for candy, etc. 
And I work at a discount store...people use AMEX all the time. I don't think where you use your card really had anything to do with the FR process, but that's just my opinion. I would imagine it's more focused on your overall spending habits rather than "OMG he eats at Taco Bell! FR! FR! FR!"
For reference:
A letter sent to Gilleland by American Express, one of the nation’s largest credit-card issuers, includes these reasons why the spending limit on his Platinum Card was reduced:
- “Our credit experience with customers who have made purchases at establishments where you have recently used your card.”
- “Our analysis of the credit risk associated with customers who have residential loans from the creditor(s) indicated in your credit report.”
Amex has a proprietary method of scoring risk and is a fan of first purchase modeling. It's really not worth being paranoid about, though.
I think it's more or less a fear about one's perceived credit status being taken away.
Personally, Amex meant a lot more when all they offered were charge cards.
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