Thread: Has anyone here had a 'financial review' by their credit card company?

I had a random so called 'financial review' by my credit card company. This is where they contact you and basically require to verify your income, assets, debts, and everything else under the sun. It's pretty invasive because I don't mean just asking you questions on the phone, they actually require your tax returns and other documents only your accountant should ever see. It actually scared me because I didn't appreciate being treated like they had to question me. I've never used more than 30% of a credit limit on any card ever. I have a FICO score of 727. Never a late payment on any kind of bill. There was really no reason for them to do this financial review. I've read some places that certain types of spending at certain places can trigger this. Does anyone know what things will cause the credit card company to flag your account for a financial review? Let me warn you, these things are not fun and if you can't verify everything you lose your account. I could verify it all but just out of principle I won't be using that credit card anymore because I don't agree with them doing that. I think a person's credit record and score should be plenty sufficient. Not randomly requiring tax returns.

Are you certain/sure that it was your credit card co that contacted you? Was the contact by phone or mail?
There are a lot of phone scams - people identifying themselves as employees of a credit card co - just like the email physing scams where you get a legitimate looking email asking you to log into the sccount that is contained in the email. Bingo, they have your username/password - and from there on you are in great danger of becoming an ID theft victim.
If you were contacted by mail call the credit card's 1-800 number and ask them if they really sent out that "financial review" letter.

I had this happen to my brother and yup it was legit. I hear it's rare but not uncommon. Kind of like a tax audit. Most people won't have one but the chance is still there. I know if my credit card company did that to me I'd be so pissed I'd never use them again.

I read an article somewhere about these so called financial reviews. No fan of them here. They should take you at your word based on your credit history. Showing tax returns is going a little too far IMO. I could see that being a real nightmare if you're self-employed too. With all types of different payments from different sources, how are you supposed to show it? Not to mention we all know if you're self employed you may be accidentally forgetting to declare everything on your taxes so your return wouldn't even show your full earnings anyway.

Citi Bank did that to me. They went as far as asking for proof of citizenship.