Originally published at: US Credit Card Guide. Reorganized by ymlulu and republished here

Before We Begin

If you’ve never gone through an FR or had accounts shut down, you can hardly say you’ve really played the US credit card game. I’ve been through quite a few myself:

I also once went through a full “household shutdown combo” — all primary AMEX accounts at the same address were hit with linked FRs and then shut down. I wrote about it in the old Discord community before; I’ll reorganize and repost it when I have time.

We’ve also published quite a few articles on bank or credit card account shutdowns. If you’re interested, see:

About AMEX FR

AMEX FR, or Financial Review, is AMEX’s review of a cardholder’s financial situation. There are several types of FR, generally including “fake FR” and “real FR.” A fake FR usually just freezes all accounts and pushes you to make a payment; once you pay, it is automatically lifted. Real FRs can be divided into three categories:

  • Requesting bank statements or pay stubs
  • Requesting 4506-C to check your tax filing for the most recent year
  • Requesting statements for the bank account you used for bill pay (or business bill payment), or requesting business information

There is also another type of account freeze related to ID verification. In more serious cases, they may require a Notary verification, which is actually easy. I wrote a little about it before and will add more when I have time.

What Triggers It

There are many reasons an FR can be triggered. Based on lots of painful DP, they can roughly be grouped as follows:

  • The bank thinks you are a flight risk: for example, heavy spending right after approval as a new user, spending far above your normal pattern in a short period, frequently clicking Check Spending Power, frequently requesting credit limit increases, or frequently moving credit limits around
  • Unusual spending behavior: for example, cycling money to yourself through PayPal P2P, or too many Cash advance-like transactions
  • Suspected money laundering: no FR at all, just immediate closure of all accounts. See: [Send + bp can easily trigger shutdowns] AMEX | “Send & Split”: credit card transfers with PayPal/Venmo [no interest, no rewards]
  • The account has a large number of bill payments from other people (or you mailed someone else’s business check to AMEX as payment)
  • Your billing address gets dragged into an FR: someone at the same address failed an FR and had accounts shut down, including people who ran up charges and disappeared
  • You failed an FR before and reopened cards later: they may keep chasing you with FRs until you finally pass one

All Accounts Shut Down Without an FR

Be aware: if all your accounts are shut down without an FR, you should deal with your points within one hour. After that, all points may become invalid. Your only possible recourse would be small claims court, but suing makes it easy to get blacklisted by AMEX. If you have Schwab, the best option is to cash out at 1.1. Both links below can be used:

You can also transfer points out; customer service may help by phone. If transferring to DL, there is a fee, which will be deducted directly from your points. Since you only have one hour, cashing out is still the recommended option.

Documents Requested in an FR

If you think you are unlikely to pass an FR, there is one way to avoid AMEX deciding that your finances are weak:

  • Close the account proactively: regular AMEX customer service can help with this

If you think you can pass the FR instead — for example, business bp or repayments may be accepted, while being unable to provide the requested documents is usually fatal — then your accounts generally remain active during the FR. You can also ask the specialist to extend the FR timeline. Even if you ultimately do get shut down, you can still deal with your points within one month after all accounts are closed. AMEX will send you a letter explaining this. Personally, I still recommend handling your points as early as possible.

  • Provide whatever they ask for. If you qualify, you’ll pass.
  • There are plenty of other good cards and banks. If you get shut down, move on. After filing taxes, you can apply for AMEX again (you’ll probably face another FR, but with tax returns in hand, there’s less to worry about).
  • Be cautious when choosing a billing address, especially a rented address. If someone at that address has failed an FR, it is best to change your address immediately or avoid heavy spending for a while.

Some useful tools and DP:

Transfers Leading to Shutdown

No FR — just an immediate shutdown because AMEX send money + BP was used. This kind of shutdown has been happening continuously this year. See the earlier article:

Heavy Spending Triggering FR

The following DP all involve AMEX FRs triggered by a certain amount of spending. In most cases, AMEX will ask you to submit 4506C to verify your tax-reported income. If the numbers do not match your spending or you cannot provide 4506C, your accounts may be shut down directly. If you are luckier, a Charge card may simply end up with a spending cap.

DP1

Only one online banking account and two cards; they only asked for bank statements and a W-2

DP2

Heavy spending on the account; first a fake FR to push for payment, then a real FR requesting 4506-C

DP3

They only asked for a checking account statement; the FR was passed, but a limit was imposed

DP4

FR requested 4506-C. It was provided, but the reviewer did not pass it. Then a biz account was opened right away, instantly approved, and then instantly shut down; more closures followed. After several rounds, the FR specialist — the one handling the shutdown — helped resolve it and revived the cards opened afterward. The takeaway from this DP: after an FR, it is possible to open accounts again, and biz accounts may be a better fit.

DP5

The card was maxed out aggressively. FR requested 4506-C. A checking statement showing a very large deposit balance, along with 4506-C, was submitted. The FR was passed, but a limit was still imposed.

Applying for a New Card Without an SSN

I recently applied for some new cards, mainly the biz AMEX 260,000 all-time-high NLL offer and the biz AMEX 170,000 NLL offer received in online banking (these two DP are from two separate offers, but they triggered the same FR, so this is unrelated to the welcome offer and instead related to the AMEX system).

DP1

The new card could not be linked to my existing AMEX online account and prompted me to create a separate online account. After creating a new online account and spending $10,000, I got hit with FR, while the cards under my old online account were all normal. This is not related to the card itself, but rather to the AMEX system. The system likely has a bug where profiles that should not be associated become cross-linked incorrectly, causing your new card to be treated as belonging to a new user. And when a new user opens a card and immediately spends heavily, of course that can easily trigger FR.

DP2

For cards that could not be linked to the old account Profile, in addition to cases where spending had already occurred and FR was triggered, there are also DP-9 cases where no spending had occurred yet but the card still could not be linked to the old online account:

If you are in the same situation as DP7-9 and your newly approved card cannot be linked to your old online account, my suggestion is:

  • 1: Chat with AMEX customer service and ask them to add it to your old profile. Under normal circumstances, they should be able to do it. If they cannot, that is useful feedback for them to escalate and fix the issue.
  • 2: If you already created a new Profile, do not rush to spend on the card. Wait for AMEX to fix the system bug, or remove the card, and then refer back to item 1.

Account shutdowns due to Bill Pay

Here is a fresh DP: an account had a large volume of bill pay transactions that were not payments for the account holder’s own bills. The account was reviewed and AMEX requested supporting documents from the BP sender (the BP sender’s statement and article of incorporation). Those documents were not provided, and the account was shut down outright without FR, taking down all accounts. My personal suggestion is to use AMEX less for receiving billpay from others (this is no longer the era when you could casually accept BP from anyone). The BP sender may not be willing to provide their business account information to you. And if you have too many BP sources, collecting business account information from all of them becomes very troublesome. That said, do not panic too much: if you can provide the BP sender’s documents promptly, you should be fine. But there is always a chance that a business simply will not provide anything to you. If the BP is from your own bank account to your own credit card, then naturally there is no issue.

In addition, there have been several similar DP in the community, on Discord, and in WeChat groups (though in those cases the shutdown came after FR). In all of them, the AMEX FR specialist asked about the source of the BP and requested related documents. If you cannot provide them, then even if you submit 4506-C, your account may still end up being closed. In short, if the specialist asks whether you can document the source of the BP and you cannot, then the account is probably gone. Even having income and tax returns may not save you.

Recently, quite a few of my friends have also been put under Review for receiving other people’s Bill Pay, so I suggest everyone be careful.

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