A reader just got AMEX FR’ed and he let me share the story with you guys. He thinks it’s because he removed a card from Apple Pay! Now first off, I’m sure lots of people remove cards from AP, so that alone probably didn’t do anything. He also put 18K of BBP spend bringing the balance up to 22K on a 25K CL. He told me that he normally spends only 5K a month on the BBP. Now granted the spend alone most likely triggered something in their systems, but he said he had completed that spend days earlier. He said he got the FR 20 minutes after the card removal from AP. My guess is that the ramp in spend triggered a flag in their system and the removal of the card from AP may have been the catalyst that triggered the FR. Maybe the algorithm thinks the card got stolen for the week and the person went on a spending spree… But why not just lock the card right instead of triggering an FR right? Then again, AMEX usually doesn’t “lock” cards; maybe their way of locking cards is via the FR.
Would he have gotten the FR if he hadn’t done anything with AP? Maybe…maybe not. We don’t know if it was just a coincidence that he got the FR 20 minutes after removal or if removing the card “put eyes on the account” and the high spend was the main culprit. Lesson learned folks – if you ramp up spend on any credit cards, try not to do anything else that would trigger an adverse action (like making your balance go negative or reporting your card stolen or removing or adding a card from a digital wallet.