Dan is facing the dreaded American Express Financial Review and asked me for some advice. I have not had the experience, but told him I would ask all of you through the blog for your comments and suggestions. Here is Dan’s email:

Rick,

I was hoping you could help me out with this, I got the dreaded Amex Financial Review phone call yesterday. They were asking about my US Mint purchases and what their purpose was. I said I used them for the intended purpose as stated on US Mint. Wrong Answer.

Apparently, using the coins for cash is in violation of American Express credit card agreements and any other answer would be in violation of US Mint intended use.

Bottom line: After asking me to verify some information on a recorded line, annual income, rent or own home, place of employment and employer street address, they said I had to fill out a Form 4506T and send it back to the IRS within five business days. In the meantime, my Amex credit cards are frozen. To say the least I am not to happy about the situation. Not only did they get me, they got my wife as well with the same Financial Review. She already wanted to kill me  for ordering the coins. Now I’m in the cross hairs. I guess I can pay her back with first class travel at Five Star hotels.

Any suggestions on how to handle this? We were ordering less than once every 10 days but we used multiple Amex Starwood Preferred Guest personal and business credit cards and Amex Platinum for our orders.

I would warn the readers that they should really use extreme caution when ordering coins with Amex credit cards.

I don’t think we should have a problem since I stated our personal income correctly on our application, I am just worried about having our taxes pulled. Red flags with American Express is one thing, but red flags with the IRS is a whole other ballgame. That is the last thing any of us would want.

I was hoping you could provide us advice. It would be greatly appreciated. By the way, they spoke to me on Friday, but they have not spoken to my wife yet and will do some on Monday or Tuesday. So any suggestion on what to say regarding her coin purchases would definitely help.

Thanks for all your help. Been following for a year and half and have earned a boatload of miles.

Dan

Anybody been through the American Express Financial review? I know Dan would appreciate your comments today.