Why did American Express view my Employment Report?

[Reincarnated]

"Organization Name:American Express - ALERT

Date of Request:08/19/2014"

I was just surprised to see that American Express had requested to view my data from TheWorkNumber. It's basically a website which stores data from your employers about your wage, income, length of employment, etc.

It annoys me that they checked this out of no where. I have nothing to hide, because the income I put when applying for their cards are going to be the same as what they were able to view in my report. I thought that AMEX only verifies income when you have a credit line of 25K or more.

Any thoughts? 

[bada_bing]

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@Reincarnated wrote:

"Organization Name:American Express - ALERT

Date of Request:08/19/2014"

I was just surprised to see that American Express had requested to view my data from TheWorkNumber. It's basically a website which stores data from your employers about your wage, income, length of employment, etc.

It annoys me that they checked this out of no where. I have nothing to hide, because the income I put when applying for their cards are going to be the same as what they were able to view in my report. I thought that AMEX only verifies income when you have a credit line of 25K or more.

Any thoughts? 

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I have a pull from Amex on my "Work Number" report listed from Nov 2013. Nothing was changing with my Amex account at that time - limits, utilization, new apps, etc. I guess they must occasionally pull a work number report similar to how they do soft pulls. I also noticed in the fine print of the report I pulled you can freeze your work number file similar to how you can freeze a credit report. Does someone you do business with - like Amex - have a permissable purpose to pull a work number report even with a freeze in place similar to how they are allowed to soft pull the frozen credit reports of a current card holder ?

I'd never even looked at "the Work Number" before reading this post. Interesting 

[lhcole77]

How were you notified of this alert?

[AirlinerDudeB6]

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@Reincarnated wrote:

"Organization Name:American Express - ALERT

Date of Request:08/19/2014"

I was just surprised to see that American Express had requested to view my data from TheWorkNumber. It's basically a website which stores data from your employers about your wage, income, length of employment, etc.

It annoys me that they checked this out of no where. I have nothing to hide, because the income I put when applying for their cards are going to be the same as what they were able to view in my report. I thought that AMEX only verifies income when you have a credit line of 25K or more.

Any thoughts? 

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I too have a "request" from 8/19/2014 from American Express - ALERT on my Work Number report.

In addition, I see that Capital One gets request happy too.  I have 2 "requests" from them as well.

I applied for Ford Credit last year and there is a "request" from that date too.

Very interesting...It seems like pulling employment data is the next big thing!

[wmweeza]

Slightly related; Since they allow household/ joint income to be used on applications now how the heck would they verify income if only one half of a couple applied? If I apply for AMEX and they check household income it would primarily be from my husband