Account now unlocked
The short version: AMEX unlocked my BB account and things appear back to normal. The issue seemed to be (not 100% sure) me moving money from my bank to BB. The transaction failed for some reason, and this triggered the problem. It took a rather long and detailed set of processes with AMEX to get the account unlocked. The details are below for those interested in data points.
The long version: first, some background. I load BB with the full $5k each month via VR’s and GC’s. I disburse it through bill pay, some bill pay/CC cycling, and swipes. When I first opened the account last fall I did the bank link verification whereby BB sends over a couple of tiny deposits and you verify them. Worked fine. I also did my own test where I sent $50 from my bank to BB, let it settle, waited and week, and then sent it back to my bank. No problems. The only other time I’ve moved money was in late April. I had a bit of an “imbalance” between my bank and BB, so I sent $1k to my bank. I expected issues but there were none – it settled with no alerts, warnings, or problems.
Fast forward to early this week. I tried to move $600 from my linked bank account to BB. I initiated the transaction with BB on Tuesday. I got a pending notice and it said the transaction would settle in up to 5 business days. On Friday afternoon I got an e-mail from BB saying the transaction had failed, call CS. I did and they were of no help. They had no idea why the transaction failed, no notes on the account, etc. I guessed some technical problem and figured I’d try the transaction again another day.
Later on Friday I noticed I had missed a voicemail from AMEX. It was actually a fraud alert call for BB (sounded like a regular fraud call from AMEX) from earlier in the day – about the same time as the above noted e-mail. It provided a reference number. So I called the fraud number (800-660-2454). The AMEX/BB fraud agent couldn’t find anything, saw nothing on the failed transfer, and said the account was not locked.
After this I figured I’d look online to see if I could find any issues but found I couldn’t log into my account. I tried the iPhone app, could login but as soon as I did something a message popped up stating that my account was locked and under review, and to call the fraud line. Then an image of Cardinal Ximenez appeared and my phone went dark (just kidding on this one).
So I called the fraud line again and got the exact same agent as earlier. NOW she told me my account was under review. AMEX wanted to verify a bunch of stuff. First, she needed to verify my identity by calling the phone number listed in my account. She did (it was the same phone number as I was calling her from!), I clicked over and answered, identified myself, read my BB card number, she was satisfied, so I switched back over to the other line and we resumed the “regular” conversation. The agent then wanted to verify my bank account, so she set up a three way conference call with a rep from my bank. The bank rep came on, then the bank rep and I verified a bunch of info – name on account, address on account, account #, etc. The only other question the BB rep asked was if the bank account had been open more than 90 days – it had (like 10 years).
This was the end of the process. The AMEX fraud rep said she had to document some things in my file (my permanent record???) and then my account would be activated in under an hour. I asked the AMEX rep point blank what the problem was. I got the standard AMEX speech – we constantly monitor fraud through hideously complex means that I could not possibly understand, but that everything was fine now. I asked if the failed bank transaction was the problem and got a non-answer. I hung up, waited a bit, and then logged successfully into my account.
Everything appears normal - I guess time will tell. This does reinforce my belief that the sensitive point with BB is bank links/tranfers.