Introduction
Yesterday’s post about recent American Express shutdowns said that one of the reasons for recent shutdowns includes payments from a third party to an account holder’s cards. That statement led to a bunch of follow-up questions, and most of them were even relevant, so that was a plus. Let’s discuss the subject in a wider, more public context to help spread the love.
The Law, AmEx Style
Let’s start with the American Express payment rule, which is effectively set in stone:
American Express will shut down your account if they learn that it’s being paid with a deposit account not owned or controlled by the account holder.
If American Express figures out that a payment came from an account where the holder isn’t a signer or owner, American Express will shut it down. It doesn’t matter if you’re paying your spouse’s account from your own checking with your consent, your account from another player’s bank account with their consent, or an ACH pull from an account that you control but don’t own, if American Express finds out, they’ll shut down the cardholder’s American Express account.
The Wiggle Room
This rule isn’t particularly well known because American Express usually won’t know if you’re paying from another account, especially for routine ACH transactions. Plenty of churners have been doing this for years and are fine, so the nuance is often lost. So, how might American Express find out?
- During a financial review, American Express may ask for proof of bank account ownership for recent payments. They’ll want to see a statement or do a three way call with a bank to confirm.
- For more manually processed payments, like personal or business checks, the account holder information is often listed right on the payment method itself and American Express may notice if it doesn’t match. Recently, they’ve proven that they’ll look back years after the payment was made too if they’re suspicious about something else, so time isn’t necessarily the cleanser that it feels like.
If you do want to make payments for another player from your own bank account, add them as a joint account holder in case American Express ever comes knocking, then everything’s above board and you can worry about other stupid American Express things, like how to get yourself in charge of hiring at a big company for only a week to help liquidate 22 Indeed credits.
Happy Thursday!
Next time: Decoding AmEx’s secret comma laws.