Topic Wiki

1)   What is a Financial Review?
In short - American Express occasionally freezes the credit card accounts of individuals with high-risk patterns, or for new account holders.
They request a lot of personal information, such as IRS tax returns, bank statements, letters from Banks ect…

Let’s break it down into 2 different types of Financial Reviews
A)   Mini Financial Review
B)   Financial Review

A)   Mini Financial Review

(please fill in info) This form of financial review, is usually a short process, it could be as short as one phone call. American Express might feel a need to verify your finances for whatever reason, and they could call you to verify information. Your accounts could be suspended from using until you get in touch with them, typically they will restore your accounts after a simple phone call.

B)   Financial Review
This type of Financial Review is very common. It often happens when opening a new account for the first time, usually if you are opening a Charge Card, or a Business Card or if on a new account you start off will a lot of high spending.
American Express will suspend your account/s, they will not remove the suspension until the review is over, which takes around 2 weeks.

If you cannot provide the required information, shut down your account right away.

2)   Triggers

Look below for a list of triggers and links.
 
3)   What will happen?
Your accounts will get suspended. You will be able to log in online, and see account activity, but you will get a message that charging is suspended.

They will contact you via phone and email. Once you get in touch with them, (typically) you will be assigned a specific representative to work on your case.

The will require mainly IRS Tax returns. The point of a Financial Review is to verify your income. They may also require Back statements, a letter from a Bank to verify your address, and other documents. People have reported that they did survive a Financial Review with just bank statements.

As long as you could provide the documents they request you will be fine, they might lower your credit lines, but you should be able keep your account open. Even as low as a $6000 tax return people have been able to survive a Financial Review.

In cases of a Financial Review after opening a Business Card, you will need proof of Business income.

If you cannot provide the required information, shut down your account right away.

As long as you could provide the documents they request you will be fine, they might lower your credit lines, but you should be able keep your account open. Even as low as a $6000 tax return people have been able to survive a Financial Review.

4)   What Steps Should I take?

Get in touch with Amex as soon as you could. Send in the request inform promptly. You will have a rep that will be working with you, and telling you what documents are needed. 4506-t is a transcript request from the IRS for you last tax return. You will need to fill out this form, fax it to Amex, it will take them 24-48 hours until they receive this form, they will request the tax return from the IRS that could take about a week.

Important: you only have 2 attempts to send them the fax, if they reject it after 2 attempts you will get shut down. You don't get more than 2 attempts. (source)
You may be able to get 3 attempts if you ask for a manager.

You need to be on top of it, if you don’t follow thru, they could shut your accounts down.


5)   What to do if American Express closed your accounts?

Once American Express closes your accounts, the only way to get back on is if you have the required information needed to pass a Financial Review. They will require you to request a 4506 form from the IRS (which will cost you $57) before they even approve any of your future applications.


To start you may want to read up here:

F/R triggers:
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Credit line of $25k or more
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=1438.msg10906#msg10906

Family member receiving FR can cause other family members to get Fr'ed as well
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=6223.msg74003#msg74003 http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=8.msg24759#msg24759

Living at same address as someone who was FR'ed
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=8.msg77046#msg77046

Using majority of CL
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=7526.msg87716#msg87716

Large cash advance
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=5908.msg82906#msg82906

Nothing...
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=2723.msg30062#msg30062

Changing name on business card
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=3589.msg38101#msg38101

Mint purchases
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=146.msg22932#msg22932

Amex Gift Card Purchases
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=2422.msg26670#msg26670
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=8.msg40106#msg40106

Unusual spending
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=8.msg7627#msg7627
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=3710.msg39597#msg39597

Amazon payments (possibly)
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=3657.msg88656#msg88656
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=3524.msg42436#msg42436

Using close to reported income
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/2537

Logging in online too much (!)
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=8.msg13741#msg13741

Prepaying
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=1712.msg13732#msg13732
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=3710.msg39725#msg39725

Adding Cardholders (many?)
http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=8.msg49318#msg49318

Refunds exceeding total payments made on the card since it was opened
http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=8.msg845606#msg845606
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Though not exactly F/R, it's worth mentioning that Amex takes returned payments very seriously.
They often shut all accounts without going through the F/R process.

DansDeals Forum > Credit Cards And Finance

Amex F/R Master Thread

<< < (345/1721) > >>

wired41:

--- Quote from: txtmax4 on November 06, 2012, 01:58:28 AM ---I wish you good luck with this FR. Please keep us posted.
Can you please share more info about the AU's you added, such as how many per account and did they share the lastname of the account holder etc?

--- End quote ---

5 AU on two, 4 and 6 on the other. But I made a mistake on the card I received 2 weeks ago. Somehow the same AU's got added twice (today I received the second set of cards with different numbers). There were different last names on some of the cards, but they were all family members and I used social security numbers. Will update when this gets resolved.

yoyo6713:
So my SO's AMEX cards are still showing "charging suspended" (started from Oct 29th) and today I received a form/letter from IRS indication my 4506-T was rejected.  Since I sent the same form twice under both her card number and mine I suspected the 4506-T for her didn't get through.  I have her called 1-800-678-0738 as instructed on the AMEX website to get an update.  After entering the necessary information the message said her cards in good standing and can be used freely even though the website still said "charging suspended", in addition to that she was connected to AMEX collection agency (no one picked up the phone after hitting 0 for operator).  I thought that was strange so I added some money from her AMEX card to her serve account and it went through fine.  She now has the extra money in her serve account from her AMEX card.  However, the AMEX website did not show any pending transactions which is very strange.  Also she did not receive any message or indication the FR was done (unlike mine I received an email to say FR is finished).  Anyone has similar experiences?   So I guess the nightmare is over?   No limit increase (or decrease), very strange.

Armadillo:
My FR trip report:

Trigger- probably opening AU's on all of my cards and my wife's cards (just one, some two AU's per card). I think it may have been b/c I did it online one at a time going in to each card and ordering in a span of 10 minutes or so. I was adding myself to all her accounts and her to all of mine. A couple I added her under both her maiden and married names.

FR- Within a couple days we both received phone calls (messages) to call them. I was told I'd be getting an email with a 4506t to fill out and send back within 5 business days. I told the guy that I didn't file my own taxes could I send bank statements. He questioned me on my business account and basically told me there's definitely no way to clear a business account without tax returns. I told him it was a nonprofit (it is) so there's no profit for taxing. Bottom line, after a couple HUCA's and preemptively closing my two business cards, I convinced the lady I was talking to that I really didn't have tax returns to prove anything (don't file, family supported, studying, wife income, etc.) and isn't there something else we can do and after checking with a supervisor? back and forth a couple times IIRC, she told me that they will accept my most recent 3 months of consecutive bank statements from the two accounts that I pay my bill from, and that I had 10 days (or thereabouts) to get it to them.
(Btw, contrary to what has been said by previous posters, I wasn't assigned a specific case manager and was repeatedly told just to call and speak to whomever.)

I faxed it all in adding my savings account as well thinking it would help for them to see I have money there. Aside from כל המוסיף גורע (it appears that it just throws them off to get extra papers unrequested), it seems they just want to ascertain cash flow - that there is regular money coming in. (I don't think it was said מפורש, but it was pretty clear.) I called to make sure they got all the pages b/c the fax was interrupted and I sent the rest from where I left off. They only had the first batch on my file and I was told they wouldn't piece faxes together so it should be sent all together in one fax, which I did.

Almost there: A few days later I got an email which said:
Dear Armadillo:
 
We are writing to you today because we have taken an action on your account and wanted you to be aware of this change as soon as possible.
 
We have placed a spending limit of וכו...

A few days later the my accounts were still frozen, so after calling twice and being told I'd hear from them when the system updates with the new limits on my accounts (it was a weekend - the email is something they automatically spit out by law whenever there's a change in credit limit, but supposedly the overhaul takes time) I called again 4 or 5 days after the email and after being put on hold for a while was told she removed the freezes, wasn't sure why they were still there (they should have been gone), and she was submitting a request to investigate and I might still hear from them to give me an explanation for the extended freeze.

We are BACK IN BUSINESS! WHOOHAA! Not a minute too soon for Small Business Saturday with all my new AU's ;)

Postscript: Still waiting for a response on my wife's account.

Special Thanks to all previous posters who's helpful tips helped me make it through what to do and say (from preemptively closing and how to do it w/o ending up by FR department, to pushing for bank statements and anything else including stuff I didn't need to use or just got chizuk from).

Further questions welcome. Sorry for the length of post, hopefully someone gets something out of it.

AJK:
Glad you made it through!

How badly were your limits slashed?

sky121:


Oh man. I hope I wont be sorry for adding a couple of AU's.

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