Originally Posted by
jsk1973
I know a lot of the manufactured spending people are still in denial after the recent shutdowns, but if MS was profitable for Amex and other CC companies, they would encourage it or at least tacitly allow it rather than discourage it or even penalize people for doing it.
Originally Posted by
isriam
I think the problem is discerning it from fraud requires too much work. I can't imagine they wouldn't like normal MS, because of swipe fees and gift card fee's they earn. If they own the processing network, its straight profit to them.
Assuming a particular set of transactions isn't fraudulent (that is, assuming they are made by the authorized cardholder), there's another problem: It may be very difficult for a card issuer to distinguish charging patters between an MSer that is trying to earn points or cash back, and a cardholder that is in financial difficulty and is using the cash conversion aspect of the charges to do cash advances against the accounts, possibly in great excess of the cash advance limits. People doing the latter are also highly likely to default in short order.