Amex insisting on having my annual income and occupation

Mike337

When applied to an EXISTING customer, the sections of the FCA handbook mentioned above oblige the CC company to demand updated income details ONLY if there's a significant increase in the credit balance or a proposal to increase the limit. As a longstanding customer, just tootling along, repaying in full every month, and never using more than 20% of my never changing limit, I do not expect to be bullied into revealing my income by being otherwise banned from accessing my online statements.
The (overseas?) Amex phone rep was not helpful this evening. Tomorrow (when hopefully the UK office are manned) I will escalate my complaint, and ask them to cite the paragraph(s) they are relying on for this intrusion.   

[Deleted User]

Mike337 said:

Tomorrow (when hopefully the UK office are manned) I will escalate my complaint, and ask them to cite the paragraph(s) they are relying on for this intrusion.   

There's not much point, as they won't be able to tell you and won't be citing anything. You'll be speaking to a call centre, not anyone who's managing risk.

If you don't wish to give the information, you can just close your account.

Or wait for them to close it for you.

paul_c123

Mike337 said:

When applied to an EXISTING customer, the sections of the FCA handbook mentioned above oblige the CC company to demand updated income details ONLY if there's a significant increase in the credit balance or a proposal to increase the limit. As a longstanding customer, just tootling along, repaying in full every month, and never using more than 20% of my never changing limit, I do not expect to be bullied into revealing my income by being otherwise banned from accessing my online statements.
The (overseas?) Amex phone rep was not helpful this evening. Tomorrow (when hopefully the UK office are manned) I will escalate my complaint, and ask them to cite the paragraph(s) they are relying on for this intrusion.   

What complaint? What Amex account? What request for income details? You're not the OP and this is your first post, do you have a similar issue with Amex too?

As said previously, some people sprung to the defence of Amex rather quickly, and were misguided into thinking there is an underlying regulatory requirement. There isn't - but there is a requirement that they assess affordability with much more discretion over how they choose to do this. 

A few things might have happened:
1) A change to an external credit report changes the risk significantly - banks check this regularly
2) Your spending pattern alters significantly, enough to raise a risk flag - eg cash wd, forex transactions, etc
3) Amex have had their wrists slapped recently by some kind of internal or external review on these matters so are focusing on it, or doing a mop up of previously missed data gathering
4) Amex have, for some reason, altered course on their risk appetite or details of it
5) They have a time limit beyond which they consider the old info 'stale' and its simply your time to be asked

It is ultimately up to Amex if they decide the knowing of employment/salary/affordability/risk info outweighs the worth of retaining a customer.

jonesey1985

andyeyeam said:

It is great my post has attracted a lot of comments. It fascinates me the way people miss the point by such a distance. Anyone who understands the nature and working practices of financial institutions will always have a healthy mistrust of them. This forum is great and has really helped me on this topic. Thanks.

As someone who has worked for a financial institution and knows their inner workings I know exactly why they do what they do and certainly do not have a distrust for them when it comes to KYC checks.

If I was going to point fingers at anyone it would be the regulator who has been used as a political tool to bash banks over the head because the public wants blood after 2008.

Mike337

Deleted_User said:

Mike337 said:

Tomorrow (when hopefully the UK office are manned) I will escalate my complaint, and ask them to cite the paragraph(s) they are relying on for this intrusion.   

There's not much point, as they won't be able to tell you and won't be citing anything. You'll be speaking to a call centre, not anyone who's managing risk.

If you don't wish to give the information, you can just close your account.

Or wait for them to close it for you.

So I phoned them this morning. The first rep basically stuck to a script, and was unable to cite the regulation that obliges them to ask intrusive questions of a longstanding customer displaying no significant changes to the CC's exposure. But he put me through to a manager. She explained that if I continued to withhold updated details of income and occupation, they would not only block online access to my account, but then soon close it.
It is disappointing that Amex are applying the new rules so zealously, with no degree of flexibility. It also strikes me as appalling customer communications that the first the customer hears of this new policy is an unexpected pop-up that interrupts their login page. The senior Amex rep agreed that they tell customers not to give out personal information on unexpected webpages. But couldn't reconcile this with their generating just such a page, involving me in having to phone them to check its veracity.
She did however assure me that they won't use the information supplied for marketing, and never [knowingly] forward it to a third party.
She remarked that the Occupation box could be filled in with any old rubbish. So I'm tempted to enter "Owl Strangler", partly out of mischief, and partly to see if I get a knock on the door from the RSPB    

paul_c123

You could enter rubbish answers if you like, but beware of a system called "National Hunter" which holds information such as job title/salary. Its primarily for the prevention of application fraud, so I'm not sure if Amex would (or are allowed to) report to it for an existing customer in its KYC process.

[Deleted User]

Mike337 said:

Deleted_User said:

Mike337 said:

Tomorrow (when hopefully the UK office are manned) I will escalate my complaint, and ask them to cite the paragraph(s) they are relying on for this intrusion.   

There's not much point, as they won't be able to tell you and won't be citing anything. You'll be speaking to a call centre, not anyone who's managing risk.

If you don't wish to give the information, you can just close your account.

Or wait for them to close it for you.

So I phoned them this morning. The first rep basically stuck to a script, and was unable to cite the regulation that obliges them to ask intrusive questions of a longstanding customer displaying no significant changes to the CC's exposure. But he put me through to a manager. She explained that if I continued to withhold updated details of income and occupation, they would not only block online access to my account, but then soon close it.

Darn. If only someone had told you this before you phoned....

Mike337

Deleted_User said:

Mike337 said:

Deleted_User said:

Mike337 said:

Tomorrow (when hopefully the UK office are manned) I will escalate my complaint, and ask them to cite the paragraph(s) they are relying on for this intrusion.   

There's not much point, as they won't be able to tell you and won't be citing anything. You'll be speaking to a call centre, not anyone who's managing risk.

If you don't wish to give the information, you can just close your account.

Or wait for them to close it for you.

So I phoned them this morning. The first rep basically stuck to a script, and was unable to cite the regulation that obliges them to ask intrusive questions of a longstanding customer displaying no significant changes to the CC's exposure. But he put me through to a manager. She explained that if I continued to withhold updated details of income and occupation, they would not only block online access to my account, but then soon close it.

Darn. If only someone had told you this before you phoned....

So people can't ever phone up Customer Services to make a query or initiate a complaint, just because the first rep you encounter is too junior to resolve the issue themselves? As I made clear, I wanted to escalate the issue and speak to someone senior; which is what I achieved, via the only gateway available.
I can't see the problem with asking Amex to personally discuss my concerns with me, rather than my relying solely on third party forum postings, however useful and helpful the latter are.
In this case, the senior rep never really explained the absence of any advance notice over the new policy and pop-up, other than to imply that most people wouldn't have read any letter or email anyway. She did however assure me that the Update information is never [knowingly?] shared, or used for marketing. 

[Deleted User]

Mike337 said:

Deleted_User said:

Mike337 said:

Deleted_User said:

Mike337 said:

Tomorrow (when hopefully the UK office are manned) I will escalate my complaint, and ask them to cite the paragraph(s) they are relying on for this intrusion.   

There's not much point, as they won't be able to tell you and won't be citing anything. You'll be speaking to a call centre, not anyone who's managing risk.

If you don't wish to give the information, you can just close your account.

Or wait for them to close it for you.

So I phoned them this morning. The first rep basically stuck to a script, and was unable to cite the regulation that obliges them to ask intrusive questions of a longstanding customer displaying no significant changes to the CC's exposure. But he put me through to a manager. She explained that if I continued to withhold updated details of income and occupation, they would not only block online access to my account, but then soon close it.

Darn. If only someone had told you this before you phoned....

So people can't ever phone up Customer Services to make a query or initiate a complaint, just because the first rep you encounter is too junior to resolve the issue themselves? 

Why can't they?

andyeyeam

I logged a complaint with Amex and spoke to someone who told me they would not uphold the complaint because it was their obligation to check I could stand the credit limit that they had just uplifted me too without my asking. Although by then I had complied. It is hard to warm to a company that acts like that.