FrankMS

For me, the convenience of WMBP outweighs the risk. If I had a WM that did over $2K, I might think twice, but that's not the case. If and when I get shut down, I'll post my DP here for all to see, but I still won't be 100% certain it was WMBP that got it shut down.

Superorb

WMBP is anonymous right? Banks probably see WMBP and think there's fraud involved and cut their ties.

Happy

Actually it is CheckFreePay, and it shows up so if the receiving bank would show the payment path. Not all receiving banks would show the payment path. AMEX for one, does not. There is no difference from when you push payment from your real bank to pay bills if your bank uses CheckFreePay system. As far as I know, BofA uses CheckFreePay, so as PNC and TD and many other banks for their Bill Pay service. You can see the interface of it, is identical on any bank that uses the service. My guess is, the set amount of WMBP could trip wire. Using a real debit card that has amount far exceeded the 2K limit probably would not cause anything.

Using too many payment accounts actually has greater risk. Some banks actually limit to only 3 Payment Accounts.

NoonRadar

Speaking of multiple payment accounts, have there been issues using one payment account/statement period but not the same source pay from month to month?

I've generally tried to keep the same source/bank per credit card for at least a few months, but when ramping up MS (like the last couple of weeks during the OM/OD deals) it often involves extra steps & pushing the money around to get it to the same old source payment checking account. Likewise, when Serve & Redbird were alive & well I had made notes on my spreadsheet and tried to use the same Serve/Redbird account to billpay the same credit card, i.e. Redbird1 > ccX.

FrankMS

Prediction: With the next credit crisis, services like Redbird and Serve will rise again.

Happy

The birds are AMEX effort to get into the very lucrative prepaid accounts market. Not really tied to what the economy has been doing. As its introduction was long after the financial crisis in 2008/2009.

There are the equivalents have long exist BEFORE AMEX tried to get into the market with their birds. AMEX is too late as the existing players have long been established and are still thriving. Of course having been taken advantage by the users NOT belong to the targeted market does not help AMEX at all. Hence the final house cleaning act.

The well-established prepaid accounts continue to thrive. You can ask Mamibear about it as she seems to have really good knowledge on those and their household owns a few of those.

cbn42

This is just speculation on my part, but CheckFreePay is normally paid with cash. Unless the receiving bank can see that debit cards were used, they may assume that the bill was paid with cash, which is untraceable and therefore could be used for money laundering. If I were trying to launder money, taking it to Walmart or Kmart and using it to pay off a credit card might seem like a good way to do it, so perhaps banks are cautious about this.

kingofkingsforu

In my Citi account shutdown i suspect , multiple payments from 5 diff checking accounts is the reason . The WMBP payments were posting to my accounts quickly, whereas checking account payments were put on hold for 10 days, before the credit limit is increased . When called , they told checking account payment was considered more risker to the comp algorithm then the electronic payments from wmbp, since it was coming from diff banks.

So my theory would be , if you follow 1 single pattern of payment(checking or WMBP) , you should be good. If you mix it , irrespective of volume the computer flags it.

Also continuous purchase of similar larger amounts also are red flags, gc.com/simon.

Happy

Dont know how the receiving banks see the payment. As I said, MANY banks use CFP to process their Bill Pay services.

I am sure you agree on that EVERY BANK wants you to use its Bill Pay service as that make you keep your money in the bank's account as everyone has some bills to pay regardless the amounts.

I have seen BofA PUSH Payment shows up as from CheckFreePay.

Now how can CFP being identified as Cash Payment when the money is from a BofA account?

MileageGoblin

Well, that's not how ML'ing is done. You haven't changed the source of the funds, only the type. Thieves are more likely to be using VGCs with stolen CCs.

Happy

I agree with your speculation on using the 5 checking accounts. But the excuses about electronic payments given to you are TOTAL BS.

The Pull Payment method from the card issuer's site, is an ACH payment - the money is pulled from your linked bank via the Automatic Clearing House system that virtually ANY and EVERY financial institution in this country is a member.

Using both linked checking accounts AND WMBP, does NOT cause issues. Using more than 3 linked checking accounts seem inevitable get payments being put on hold until the same account has been used a few times. Just think about it, most people would not use more than 2 bank accounts to pay bills. Why there is a need to use so many bank accounts? That naturally raises flags.

Using 5 linked accounts definitely could trip wire based on the tidbits heard over the years.

Many payments within a billing cycle also is a flag raiser.

Citi only allows 4 payments in a billing cycle when it is pull from the linked bank account. Although you certainly can push additional payments in to bypass the limit.
The counter act from the bank is NOT to release the payment amount to your Available Credit. So no matter how many times you pay, you are not going to "increase" your CL in a rapid fashion.

kingofkingsforu

I am not exactly sure what was the payment limits , but if i use wmbp , the cl increase is immediate and if i use the checking account , it it put on hold for 10 days.

So my suggestion would be , stay with single mode of payment ( wmbp or checking account ( max of 2) ) to dodge 1 bullet.

To escape the 2nd bulled , avoid similar purchase patterns , like buying 2492$ gc.com purchases / 1011.92 from gcm.

Mix up the purchases , dont mix the payments with any banks.

AlohaDaveKennedy

Much of the whole premise of MS activity in the banks looking like ML activity and thereby being risky is TOTAL BS. If you take a close look into the ML activity the major banks were into in the cases where they got caught, none of it closely resembles MS-like activity. It would take centuries to launder the drug money that flows into Miami through MS-like activity. Which is why the feds wanted disclosure on the foreign buyers here paying all cash for high end properties. Have we learned nothing since the days of Capone's Palm Island Hideaway? Real estate is where you want to go to launder your money! For example, Bashar al-Assad's uncle was recently caught in Spain with 500 properties involved in money laundering.

NoonRadar

You're looking at it from the point of what's most likely to be ML. Banks aren't gonna devote time and resources to play detective with us, a very small % of their customers who perform highly unusual activities (by comparison to most of their consumers) like regularly buying and liquidating thousands of dollars of VGCs > MOs/WMBP. The well run banks, like Chase, will put some low-cost & easy to implement barriers like 5/24 and have some other protocols for what they see as risky and/or not very profitable behaviors passed that. The other banks might struggle more or less based on their competence and business & risk models, but bottom line is they don't care to and have no reason to dedicate time and resources to verify that our MS activities are indeed safe for them and not at all illegal.

Also ML isn't the only criminal activity with credit cards and gift cards. Ask any store manager where we buy said Visa & M/C gift cards and they will tell you.

AlohaDaveKennedy

So banks play Kabuki AML for the Feds with the MS folk while still MLing out the wazoo? I'm all for low cost entry barriers to keep out the reddit riff raff, but Chase 5/24 only keeps out the little mice, while the big rats win the limbo game by having the private bankers raise the bar above 5/24.

As for the statement "Also ML isn't the only criminal activity with credit cards and gift cards" you seem to be calling MS a criminal activity. Weez MS folk are offended and say that gaming LIBOR rates, illegally foreclosing on homes, redlining and money laundering are criminal activities, all of which have been condoned and undertaken by our esteemed banksters. And let us not forget that the same banksters enabled criminal Visa & M/C gift card activity by failing to chip and pin their credit cards. Now we have Kabuki credit card security which is a fraud in its own right.

Perhaps we need our own credit union dedicated to the MS folk, where we can take in unlimited money orders, pool the cash, KIVA loan the money abroad and best the banks' meager deposit interest rates. Should we later decide to go bankster evil, we can give United Mileage Plus points instead of interest and have any users dragged from the aircraft when they go to use the points to improve our breakage rate.