I am sure this has been covered before, but I think it bears repeating.

I was at Walmart today buying money orders with my MVD and PP MC. I had bought 3 and was giving the clerk the amount of m/o #4 when she said "I'm going to need a bunch of info from you in order to complete the transaction". After a bit of back and forth, which included a lot of lines like "I can't tell you who I am reporting you to" and "I am not allowed to disclose the $ amount that triggers my report", I learned the following:

$3000 and over worth of money orders bought per day and they have to do a possible suspicious activity report. I know this because I saw the form that she was going to fill out. I am not sure if this is per store, or across the whole chain. I do know that the register prompted her to start the report process. I have bought about $12,000 worth of m/o over the last 30 days, so this may also have something to do with it. However, my last visit a few weeks back had me buying over $4,000 worth in one visit.

They ask for your name, address, dob, ssn, occupation, etc.

The write all of this down on a form that they keep in a binder for this purpose that anyone behind the counter can access. According to the form they are supposed to keep it on file for 5 years.

I was able to not buy the 4th m/o and avoid having the report taken, but you may not be so lucky, so keep the limits in mind.

You may say "I have nothing to hide, all of my money is legit and documented", but really why take the risk? I would not want to explain all of this to a bureaucrat from the IRS who may not get what we are doing. Not to mention that your info in a binder at Walmart is seems like a recipe for ID theft.

The interesting thing is that I have had to go through this process at the bank before when cashing checks for more than $10,000 in a single day, so I always kept that limit in mind. $3000 is a new one for me.