I Survived an Amex Financial Review AGAIN: Mistakes to AVOID

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My second American Express financial review - what is an Amex financial review? What should you do if your account is under review? My personal experience.

Timeline
0:00 Start Here
0:36 What is an American Express financial review?
1:21 What causes an Amex financial review?
4:29 Cards to consider for large purchases
5:28 How can you tell if you're under financial review
6:23 What documents do you need for Amex financial review
8:45 What to do if you get an Amex financial review
12:29 My financial review experiences

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[Rolo]

$100k in 6 days on a credit card????

Dave Ramsey is boiling mad !!!

[OperationNonsense]

the worst thing that could happen is financial review during tax season, what a nightmare that would be fighting a two-front war between IRS and Amex.

[markplymale]

I’ve manage to avoid the dreaded review so far, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened at some point. I appreciate this insight a lot!

[rafaelm.]

Amex is more thorough in their financial review than other banks who would not bother with a time consuming task. I'm sure the reason for a financial review is because by banks are required to know their customers. When you charge and pay off your account in excess of what is normal for your stated income, that would raise red flags. I can tell the IRS that my income is from illegal activity and they will gladly accept my tax payment on those gains. If I tell Amex the same thing then they will close my accounts due to reputational risk. Chase does this if they find out you are a defendant in a high stakes court case, if you have had excess cash deposits, or simply by earning a living by being an escort. Amex does not want their brand in the same news story when you get arrested for criminal activity.

[thinkpadupes]

Hey Sebby

I have had two AMEX personal cards for the past year (Plat / Gold - both standard) and just opened two AMEX business cards (Blue Plus / Gold). I listen to you guys talk about different card concepts in the US as "podcast" material, but this is the first I heard of account reviews and what triggers them. I've used that tool to test the "limit" out of sheer curiosity a few times without actually planning to spend ... good thing that I know now not to be too playful with it.

Thanks!

[oregonflatland]

I had a review with them just last week. They sent me an Orwellian email saying they've been monitoring me, my spending, credit score and other things and made a demand for payment of over $5, 000 within 3 days or they would reduce my credit limit. $5k in 3 days is absurd and I couldn't pay it. They reduced my limit by about $3, 000. This was mostly the result of tapping other credit from other lenders, not Amex - so be aware! Not the worst thing that can happen at all though. Something similar happened to me with Citibank but they gave no warning at all and just reduced my limit. I paid off the entire balance and then they raised my limit several thousand above what it was before!

[sourcingsailor]

Here's an idea, if you know you are about to make a huge purchase, and you don't want to trigger your card(s) being locked out, at best or a financial review, at worst, what's wrong with calling the card issuer's fraud/security department, making them aware that you plan to make a huge purchase, essentially giving them a heads up?

[gordonmccracken]

"Sebby is balling too hard, we've seen the vacation videos." - Amex

[ClickyBezel]

Exactly! A random purchase from a Rolex boutique isn’t so random when you get the call haha. Glad to hear you mention this 😂

[SamuelDantowitz]

🗺 re: 13:23, YES I have been saying this! You are one of the few Youtubers that actually talks the talk and walks the walk, with lived experiences to provide valuable context for these cards. Thank you Sebby!

[iMonsieurAnthony]

In New Zealand they are doing Financial Reviews on customers who were approved cards between 2021 to 2023. The reason being the country has implemented tougher lending laws which impact the lender more than the borrower and Amex is relatively easy to get approved here so they never delved into accounts, income, wealth, spend etc. Now theyre going back and rechecking

[KohanaCoyote]

Made purchases on a credit card, but paid them off at the end of the month. One time, I took advantage of a 0% interest promotion for a special purchase, then they hit me with the financial review because of utilization of that promotion offer, despite my making significant payments towards it. They still ended up reducing my limit despite me showing that I’m MORE then capable of wiping my balance to 0. What the heck, Amex?

[raykirven]

When I first received my Amex gold I used the spending power tool and was told to stop checking (I did it 3 times In a row with slightly higher numbers each time). Quickly realized how stupid that was after, and now I will refrain unless absolutely needed lol

[pdxshredder]

The flowchart you showed is not correct. You only get shutdown if you don’t submit the documents they request. The financial review is to determine if they should lower your credit limit and by how much. This is what the reps told me when I went through this. I was in college and had basically zero income and had put like $100k or something in the application (since I was claiming my parent’s income, which I used for expenses). I sent in my 4056-T that showed like $3000 for the year from some random part time job and they were like ok cool and just gave me a $5k credit limit. So don’t worry if you were in a situation like mine. And by the way, the trigger was spending $10k in a month on “groceries”.

[matthewmckenzie]

One of the major historical selling points of the charge card products was that you did not have to disclose income, only that it met a threshold. Credit was allowed as they "learned" of your ability to pay. Even today income is a "forward looking statement". There is no way II would submit to a review. I did once get a call asking why my patterns changed after an office move.

[franciscomerino]

What a great video Sebby, I learned a lot, even when I don’t have AMEX, anyway, where can I find one of “don’t snooze” toys 😆👌🏽

[englishbars]

hell, they just canceled me and said i asked for the cancel. took my million membership points away. repeated calls got me nowhere. then a rep said point blank those points are lost forever and you will not get them back. i am like wtf - you think i will cancel a card and leave a million points on table? finally got someone to listen after multiple calls, letters, and 4 months. still no reason why. probably had $30k revolving each month - meaning spending and paying $30k month....so i had to pay that off. that was tough but did it...because spending stopped and balance was due. this is still a raw thing to me....and i moved my $300-500k a year to other cards. still got the plat but i was shocked how unresponsive they were.

[SledgeIncTeam]

I literally just posted about my experience with this for the Hilton Business. I just recently had to send in 4 months of Business checking Statements to a secured link. It took a week for them to send the link but they approved it the day after they got my statements. I already had the Business Gold, Green and BBP

[luegi]

Why would you not call ahead of time b4 a big purchase

[roachtoasties]

Remain under the radar, don't do something crazy, and they won't bother you. I had my Everyday card cut in half because I wasn't using it much, but that's OK. I'll live.