Not for long.

Probably not

Well, for what it's worth, I have 2 cards, both active, and both less than 2 months old. I loaded one today to the max and cashed out. Both are still active.

I'm not sure what to make of this. I'm guessing everyone who's putting any money on these cards will ultimately get their accounts closed. I suspect the profit-maximizing strategy is to just go whole hog until they shut you down, but I'm going to go relatively slow, observing limits similar to Bluebird. It probably won't matter but, to me, it feels like the right thing to do. Otherwise, playing this game becomes more like a job than a hobby.

The biggest question on my mind is whether anyone is ever contacted by the Feds about this. Incomm seems to know that what people are doing isn't illegal, but I'm not sure that matters.

I agree. I've been relatively cautious with my spend. This month I pushed it a bit due to the amount of spend I needed to hit. As of now I'm still active.. We'll see if it continues through next month though.

So you loaded on a Saturday and cashed out on a Saturday and expect a department that operates during the business week to do something about it on a Saturday?

I wouldn't get too concerned about the last question, in my opinion.

http://blogs.wsj.com/corruption-curr...-time-in-2011/

There are a lot of SARs filed, as you can see from this article. The government is not stupid, and it is not going to take someone too long to figure out that the loading and unloading of MVD cards was a mechanism to earn miles, points or cash back rather than a money laundering scheme. SARs have description sections for the "suspicious" activity that occurred and it is going to be pretty obvious what happened if this bank files a lot of them for these transactions. I would not be too certain that this bank will even issue SARs since they will eventually figure out that nothing suspicious occurred. They offered a program that allowed users to purchase cash with a credit card and earn benefits from doing so. This is contrary to the intention of their program and contrary to the terms and conditions of the credit card issuers, so they are closing accounts - which they have the right to do.

While some of the SAR and structuring posts from various attorneys have been good, I personally dislike most of the posts and I deleted most of mine. Too many posters post information that is not accurate and seems intended to alarm those who are earning points and miles in a manner that they disapprove of.

And how do you know when their "account closure department" operates?

I sure don't know. But I did think my chances of "having a problem" were less on a Saturday. Seems like a viable strategy to me.


Wow -- you sure can't investigate 1.5 million SARS. And I agree with you that you wouldn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what's going on with the MVD card here.

Does anyone know the link between SARs and the IRS? I agree that the odds of an FBI investigation of a Flyertalk MVD user is remote, but does the filing of a SAR trigger anything at the IRS? It certainly seems possible that it would.

The IRS takes 45 minutes to answer the phone just to fax a form over that some customers of mine need. It is, at most levels (unless Jeff Novitsky decides chasing PED users in athletics isn't interesting and decides to come after miles and points crazies for our Points Enhancing Devices) a bureaucratic organization. Right now, their focus is the spring rush, processing everyone's tax returns (especially those with refunds owed). Tax fraud, and underpayments, amount to twelve figures annually. We are small players compared to some of the outright tax cheats out there.

After expressing my frustration with posters who post on this topic after staying at a Holiday Inn Express last night, I seem to be doing the same thing! The bottom line is that no one knows for sure because IRS audit selection techniques are confidential.

The IRS has full access to SARs, but here is a complication. SARs are filed with FinCen for the purpose of assisting the government in conducting criminal investigations that result in imprisonment and asset seizures. The IRS civil audit section does not initiate civil audits with the intention of the audit turning into a criminal investigation. It happens sometimes that a civil audit turns criminal, but it is a pain for all of the parties involved because the whole process has to change departments and they have to make sure that the taxpayer has been informed of his Fifth Amendment rights. It ain't like the All in the Family episode where the civil auditor finds Archies's unreported taxi cab income and tells him he will be imprisoned for several years.

So I am a little skeptical that the IRS uses SARs heavily in civil audit selection. I absolutely do not know for sure since no one knows for sure. But I suspect that SARs are used most heavily by criminal investigation groups including the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, and they would gather a lot more information than just a few SARs before initiating the actual investigation. If a lot of SARs are filed for similar activities (like depositing dollar coins) they are going to determine through sources like the internet what is going on and they are relatively unlikely to devote precious resources to doing investigations that are unlikely to result in convictions and asset seizures, at least in my opnion.

That having been said, a civil tax audit requires that a taxpayer prove that deposits are not taxable income (if those deposits were not reported as taxable income), so it is extremely important to keep receipts and documentation showing that effective transfers from one financial account to another financial account are just that.

I got the DC today - i guess shouldnt bother using this??

Not only are we small players. We're not even doing anything illegal. Any investagation will turn up worthless. IRS likes those cases where they "catch and penalize"

I think account closures alerts are auto programed/computer generated, they would be 24/7 on.

the feds? really? jesus fing christ. let it die.

Well, if YOU want to "abuse" this card, and aren't worried about the Feds, you'd want other people TO BE afraid!

So today, I opened an account for someone else and bought an MVD card for $500. I also bought a VR for $500 to load the MVD with. When I processed the VR into my MVD, it said error twice!! The third time was a charm, however, my MVD account now has $2K! What should I do?! Help!! I don't want to call since its going to a mess! Should I just wait for them to figure that they have made a mistake and remove the money from the account?