AMEX doing "mass" shutdowns.

Old Nov 13, 2019, 5:20 pm
  #151  
 
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funny how folks here put so much thought into the inner workings of AMEX and MS. If AmEx wants to stop MSers and churing..just limit the cash back to 6k or less..ala BCP. That would stop us all
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Old Nov 13, 2019, 7:03 pm
  #152  
 
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Originally Posted by barrytuneup
funny how folks here put so much thought into the inner workings of AMEX and MS. If AmEx wants to stop MSers and churing..just limit the cash back to 6k or less..ala BCP. That would stop us all
its because this community wants to know "The Number" for every bank related to abuse tolerance levels. why? because we want to play the game right up to the limit without getting banned. its not a secret that greedy banks have had many executive meetings to discuss how our community can be "used" for their benefit and profit before adverse action is required either by law or by internal metrics (aka public company). banks want to turn our game into their own game and can easily cut when necessary.

as you had noted, if banks really wanted to nuke this entire community, they can 100%. the technology/algos needed to wipe us out is trivial. citi AA train is a great example.
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Old Nov 14, 2019, 10:24 pm
  #153  
 
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Originally Posted by krazykanuck
I feel like "machine learning" is just the buzzword of the last year or two. I hear it so much at work, I'm like guys, this is no different than what we did before this term was invented. But whatever.
Except that before we didn't have computing power to perform more sophisticated tree searches and ability to handle large data sets in reasonable time. The underlying statistical methods are more or less the same, ability to run complex simulations is not. The range of objectives set for the "two engineers" (Beavis and Butthead?) is too large to meaningfully speculate about, since you don't need machine learning to just weed out "gamers", but you might need it to figure out their net effect in a larger context. In other words, AMEX might be losing on gamers in one domain but gains more in another, which is a more complex problem to figure out.
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Old Nov 18, 2019, 7:44 am
  #154  
 
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I know there have been issues for self-referrals, but what about spouse referrals? I'm assuming they are fine, even encouraged, given the T&C language. But with all the stringencies lately, I'm now wondering.

"This program intends for you to invite only your interested personal friends, family and known acquaintances to take advantage of the Card Offers above utilizing the referral link and sharing tools we provide."

Last edited by Stgermainparis; Nov 18, 2019 at 8:25 am
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Old Nov 18, 2019, 8:24 am
  #155  
 
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Originally Posted by Stgermainparis
I know there have been issues for self-referrals, but what about spouse referrals?
No issues that I've heard and I don't expect there will be.
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Old Nov 18, 2019, 8:44 am
  #156  
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<quote>Theyre treated the same, those all have different scores but their values affect your overall risk/reward score for Amex. If that overall score reaches a certain threshold (which theyre still experimenting with what exactly it will be), you will get shut down. What theyre doing is based on the same ML models that are used at Amex for AML and fraud prevention. The shutdowns will happen in small waves because one giant hit would be a massive drain on resources and disruption to their overall business, including drawing negative public attention outside of the churning community. That would scare people who are profitable but think theyre winning. They are also incrementing shutdown waves because of the resource usage it takes to identify accounts and assign a score based on the new indicated risk factors. When shutdowns are triggered, they begin combing through the new dataset. Right now, the model only looks back two years.

The clawbacks on self-referrals were a pilot program to this weeks events, not an entirety separate event. The same model that identified self-referrers was used for these shutdowns.<end quote/comment on Doctor Of Credit website>


The Bluebird and Redcard shutdowns had a similar wave pattern. I only know one person who has survived with a Bluebird to this day, and that person actually still does some gc loading. I do think it's strange if Amex focuses on a retro data profile-- 2 years now and then even further back? Instead, you'd think they'd be battening down the hatches for all future gaming activities.

I also wonder if the number of accounts could be so large that "a giant hit would be a massive drain on resources." That statement would indicate a large number of customers, not a few heavy hitters.
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Old Nov 18, 2019, 8:02 pm
  #157  
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Originally Posted by Stgermainparis
I know there have been issues for self-referrals, but what about spouse referrals? I'm assuming they are fine, even encouraged, given the T&C language. But with all the stringencies lately, I'm now wondering.

"This program intends for you to invite only your interested personal friends, family and known acquaintances to take advantage of the Card Offers above utilizing the referral link and sharing tools we provide."
The Reddit thread has reports on shut down from referrals between spouses. Though the posters have done multiple, like 4 or 5 such referrals.

Some private groups do A to B to C to D to A that kind of referrals and nobody has suffered.
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Old Nov 19, 2019, 1:04 pm
  #158  
 
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Originally Posted by Stgermainparis
I know there have been issues for self-referrals, but what about spouse referrals? I'm assuming they are fine, even encouraged, given the T&C language. But with all the stringencies lately, I'm now wondering.

"This program intends for you to invite only your interested personal friends, family and known acquaintances to take advantage of the Card Offers above utilizing the referral link and sharing tools we provide."
Who else would you normally refer? Your friends, family .... why would referring your spouse create a problem? That is porbably the intended use (beside adding the spouse as AU)
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Old Nov 19, 2019, 1:05 pm
  #159  
 
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Originally Posted by Happy
The Reddit thread has reports on shut down from referrals between spouses. Though the posters have done multiple, like 4 or 5 such referrals.

Some private groups do A to B to C to D to A that kind of referrals and nobody has suffered.
Multiple referrals for the same card etc. is probably the problem here.
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Old Nov 19, 2019, 1:34 pm
  #160  
 
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Originally Posted by blitzen
Multiple referrals for the same card etc. is probably the problem here.
They specifically cap earn on each card for this reason...like 55k points on AMEX Gold Biz
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Old Nov 19, 2019, 4:16 pm
  #161  
 
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Originally Posted by lax01
They specifically cap earn on each card for this reason...like 55k points on AMEX Gold Biz
yes blyhat is for referrals to multiple people but here it could be 3 times Gold for the significant other
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Old Nov 19, 2019, 7:56 pm
  #162  
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Originally Posted by blitzen
Multiple referrals for the same card etc. is probably the problem here.
No.

Unless you have read the actual posts, I would not speculate what you have done so.

On Reddit at the beginning of the wave, posted in the Discussion thread among many other things not just AMEX shut down, the posters said they referred DIFFERENT cards when others like you speculated they were doing same cards. What the posters suspected were they have done so 4 to 5 cards between spouses. They got both claw backs followed by shut down.
My theory is, AMEX does not think referral between spouses are kosher. I further suspect if you use different address then you may escape the algo for spousal referrals.
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Old Nov 19, 2019, 8:07 pm
  #163  
 
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Originally Posted by Happy
No.

Unless you have read the actual posts, I would not speculate what you have done so.
???
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Last edited by mia; Nov 22, 2019 at 3:40 am Reason: Formatting
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Old Nov 19, 2019, 8:11 pm
  #164  
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Originally Posted by Happy
No.

Unless you have read the actual posts, I would not speculate what you have done so.

On Reddit at the beginning of the wave, posted in the Discussion thread among many other things not just AMEX shut down, the posters said they referred DIFFERENT cards when others like you speculated they were doing same cards. What the posters suspected were they have done so 4 to 5 cards between spouses. They got both claw backs followed by shut down.
My theory is, AMEX does not think referral between spouses are kosher. I further suspect if you use different address then you may escape the algo for spousal referrals.
Also, someone posted A->B->A was likely to cause problems but A->B->C->D->A was not likely to cause problems.
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Old Nov 20, 2019, 7:01 am
  #165  
 
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Originally Posted by Happy
No.

Unless you have read the actual posts, I would not speculate what you have done so.

On Reddit at the beginning of the wave, posted in the Discussion thread among many other things not just AMEX shut down, the posters said they referred DIFFERENT cards when others like you speculated they were doing same cards. What the posters suspected were they have done so 4 to 5 cards between spouses. They got both claw backs followed by shut down.
My theory is, AMEX does not think referral between spouses are kosher. I further suspect if you use different address then you may escape the algo for spousal referrals.
I'm on reddit more than I care to admit and have not seen these DPs you are referring to. AFAIK, everyone who was shut down by amex had self-referred at least once and I have not seen anyone have points clawed back for spouse referrals, which I believe is an intended use.
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