Amex CLI Response

[SSR]

Seems as though everytime I request a CLI from Amex I get a denial with the following reason. 

To many credit request or inquiries from debt settlement companies?

Anyone ever recieved this response? I've never requested or talked to any debt settling companies. My debt is around 9% and my score is 

Equifax: 766

Trans: 779

Exp: 746

[FicoMike0]

Are they talking about soft inquiries on your credit report? I never even look at those.

[SSR]

I guess they could be but I don't really have any control over those so not sure how to correct that. They give my wife the same reason on all her accounts with them.

[Creditwiser]

How are you requesting the CLI's ?  Have you tried calling them to discuss/inquire ?

[xiuxiuejar]

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@SSR wrote:

I guess they could be but I don't really have any control over those so not sure how to correct that. They give my wife the same reason on all her accounts with them.

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Only you can see who soft pulls you.

[SSR]

Maybe it's too many inquiries and it's just the wording in the letter that's confusing. Rep at Amex wasn't much help. I think I have 8 inquiries in last 6 months. 

[SouthJamaica]

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@SSR wrote:

Seems as though everytime I request a CLI from Amex I get a denial with the following reason. 

To many credit request or inquiries from debt settlement companies?

Anyone ever recieved this response? I've never requested or talked to any debt settling companies. My debt is around 9% and my score is 

Equifax: 766

Trans: 779

Exp: 746

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I think you need to get a copy of your report and find out what's in there. Something must be triggering that code.

[Zosimus]

Sometimes you end up talking to debt settlement companies without knowing it. I recently got a personal loan, and I had a lot of companies say they could refinance or balance transfer away my debt. Yet, their offers were often for debt settlement. I told them to pound sand but, for all I know, I have some debt settlement inquiries.

Or, perhaps there's another database (not the big 3) that debt settlement companies look at and AMEX is keeping an eye on. As for how many is "too many" — I'd say that even one inquiry with a debt settlement company is too many from an underwriter's point of view.

[NAVYCHOP]

American Express can be quirky.  For many years I had a $35k POT CL and had a $18k balance for about 12 months (argh!).  In 2019, AMEX lowered the POT limit to 18.3k saying I was using my credit line too much.  Recently I requested online to raise it back to $35k because I have had a score over 800 for a couple years and no outstanding debt on any credit cards.  My PIF spend some months is over $40k.  AMEX came back with a denial stating that they could not increase my POT limit because I am not using the credit line.  So you are **bleep** if you use the credit line, and **bleep** if you don't use it!