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Old Aug 27, 2019, 2:33 pm
  #268  
radonc1
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Programs: Continental Onepass, Hilton, Marriott, USAir and now UA
Posts: 6,374
Originally Posted by DjRocket
But Serve suffers from the same issue as any other method: as soon as you increase volume, you get shut down. Mine didn't last even two months. Perhaps if you take your time and "break it in" for a few years, that might work, but who has that kind of time when there are opportunities knocking on your door without stop : )
You always have to remember why Serve and BB exist. They are meant to provide banking services for people who either don't trust banks or cannot qualify for banking services in the first place. Usually, for the latter, it means that they don't have enough resources to interest a bank into allowing them to open a checking account or even a savings account.

So that means that if they open a BB or Serve account, they may be depositing their $1400 paycheck (net) every 2 weeks and paying things like utility and rent from it. At the end of the pay period, there usually isn't anything left.

Now we get Mr. MSer into the picture. First of all, he isn't direct depositing a paycheck into the system. He is inputting MOs or GCs, and lots of them. Then, he is pulling the money out within days, paying off credit cards that the usual user of these services never have. The flow is huge and unprofitable for Amex, since they have to keep track of the ins and outs to satisfy the Feds for MLing. Of course they are going to close out these customers for such behavior.

Furthermore, even if your payments and deposits were legit, why would anyone use a service like BB or Serve when they could afford a bank given the amount of money they are passing through the system.

I suspect that Amex and others are becoming much more sophisticated in discovering those who overuse their products and making more rapid closures of the offenders. (just my opinion.)

So, yes, there are people with 5 or 10 accounts and using other people's SS# to sign up (which I do not believe is exactly kosher, but whatever), but they will all be closed eventually and will not be able to sign up again due to banned SS#'s. So I can see how people are using the services to the max right now.
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