Double my income on my AMEX Profile or no?

[Anonymous]

In this case I don't think it's hurting anyone to report a lower income, especially on a "Charge Card" with NPSL. $60K or $130K doesn't matter much for charge. However, I would update that income at some point in yopur online settings before you ever try to app a Revolver.  Because this is where only reporting half of your income will come back to bite you, when you want to app another card using your actual reportable income. Because almost no one goes from $60K to $130K overnight. 

At least if you had stated $30K then you could have blamed a glitch for leaving off the 1. I suspect that at some point you will have to submit supporting docs to verify it though. Or just leave as is, $60k is enough income level to be approved for almost any card you would ever want.

[Anonymous]

I would honestly just leave it.

Your limit is much more likely due to thin file than it is income. Larger limits will come with time. Updating your income so soon is just going to make them question why you lied about it to begin with. They will figure out ballpark figures for your income on their own and your charging limits will go up accordingly.

[Anonymous]

In the long run it won't make any difference to your spending limit and by the time Amex will be interested in seeing your income again (if ever) enough time will have elapsed to have accounted for the change.

[coreysw12]

The problem I'm seeing is that it's unclear where you're getting the $130k figure from. Have you owned this business long enough to have established that your average yearly income from it is $130k? Or is this a young business and you're basing that figure off your sales goals and a few months (or weeks) worth of profit/loss tables?

If you're going to claim $130k, then you need to be ready to prove that you make $130k. Have you been earning this income long enough to be able to prove that $130k is stable income, (and not, for example, just the result of a single lucky high-sales month)? Do you have any tax filings showing this as your income?

At only 19 years old, my fear is that this income isn't established yet, and that you're basing this number off what you hope or expect you'll be earning, rather than what you're actually regularly earning. If AMEX comes back with an income verification request, and you can't prove that you have $130k in annual income (or worse, you can't even prove that you have the $65k you originally claimed), you could face adverse action.

I remember when I was younger, it was common for my peers to inflate their income when talking to others. For example, they would say they make "$120k/year", when in fact they only made that much during one really lucky high-sales or high-overtime month where they made $10k, while omitting the fact that the other 11 months of the year they only made half that much and were really only barely scratching $70k in total earnings at the end of the year. Not knowing anything about you or your business, I can't assume whether or not your income per year (for the whole year) is really $130k or not, only you (and Amex, if they ask you for income verification) know for sure.

[zerofire]

(scratches head) While I understand what you did, and why you did it, I question the morality of your actions. AmEx really does not care if you have a higher income or not. They care that you can pay off your debts. When they do the application approval they match income to the size of credit line that they tolerate. When you stated a lower number you also got a lower number for that which is not really an issue since the AmEx Gold is a revolver and with time will auto adjust.

Here is my suggestion:

If you want to fix the whole mess while being willing to tolerate any issues that might show up then change the number on the profile. AmEx would be happy that you under reported as their risk is lower.

If you are unwilling to tolerate potentially doing forms proving income then you will need to raise the income gradually. In fact it would take a few years to bump it up to that income.