Interesting? What did they ask and what did you tell them? Did they freeze your accounts until they called you?
I don't know about the freezing (I hadn't checked my account online or tried to charge anything that day).
I was new to this; the triggers were obvious and confirmed by the rep: I activated a new SPG Business. I made a $450 AP charge to it the next day. A few minutes later I made a $500 AP charge to my PR Gold (which had been open for almost a year). These were the first times I ever used AP.
F/R rep called me a couple of days later after the charges to "ask me a few questions". Basically what the nature of my business was, why I charged so much to Amazon Payments in a short time, what my income was, what my intended use of my SPG Business card was, how much I intended to spend on it and my other cards, my auto loan, and why did I have so many AMEX cards (Delta, Hilton, PR Gold, PR Plat, a pending SPG Consumer, and SPG Biz ($3k limit)).
For the biz questions, I told him I operate an EBay business. My nature is that I buy season tickets for sporting events and resell most of them on EBay. I told him I would get 4 equal charges for the entire season for Basketball tickets, 5 equal charges for baseball tickets, and 3 equal charges for NFL tickets. That really was my intent, but I ended up not renewing my NBA or NFL tickets (the resale market for CLE sporting events now blows). For the AP charges, I told him it was payment for purchasing new computer equipment for the business (not entirely true). He asked how much I would be spending on the SPG Biz in the future and I told him not more than $1k/mo.
For my spending patterns, I told him that in my past I didn't have personal AMEX charges total over $2000/mo, and I pay my balance in full each month on all of my cards with all issuers. As for the amount of cards, I told him my job frequently has us staying at Hilton branded hotels and Delta flights since we travel to small cities that typically have Hiltons and are serviced by Delta (all true) and the benefits I get by having those cards all help. In areas were Starwood is convenient, we stay there. He asked me to verbally verify my annual income and I did. I mentioned my auto loan was almost paid off and that I've never been delinquent on any of my accounts.
I was able to fire off answers immediately without hesitation. The entire process took 10-15 minutes. In the end, he thanked me for my time and that was it. None of my cards were closed and none of my credit limits were cut.
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