Jun 28, 2013, 3:20 pm
Last edit by: ChrisFlyer66
Moderator note: A new thread for 2016 is here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/manufactured-spending/1738030-gobank-greendot-online-banking-debit-card-2016-a.html
Do NOT let Rite-Aid scan the GoBank barcode. You will be charged, but your funds won't load. It is a PIA to get your funds back.
Want to stay active? Be sure to only load when your balance is at or close to 0. Continuing to load when you have funds in there seems to be a no no. Swipes are recommended, but there are folks active that don't swipe.
Lots of $200 loads can get you shutdown. GoBank does not like paying load fees on low denomination loads. Two $500 loads is better than five $200 loads.
Shut down reports:
Please list your load/spend/billpay details (in a single statement/lifetime?) e.g.,
type of load, number of loads, denomination of your gc or mp, amount of your billpay, any actual swipe/dd?
lad2 (closed) - May: $2.7K 9 loads 5DDs - June: $5.5K 5 loads 6DDs - July: $4.6K 6 loads 1DD - August $9.9K 19 loads 1DD - no swipes
TheDapperDon (open) June $4.5k 5 loads. All GCs. 1 swipe. Everything else BP to CC. 1500 most loaded in one day .July - $3489 5 loads. All GCs. Several swipes. No load until below $20 or so remaining.
raghu455 (closed) May $2k 4 loads, june $7k all GCs. All BP to CC.
drdrew450 (closed) 17K in loads, unloaded all through bill pay, less than a month
cuebert (closed) $4.5k in 9 MP loads, BP out. That was fast.
sgideons (closed) May $7k 17 loads, june $17k 27 loads, july $5k 6 loads, september $3.5k 4 loads. Unloaded 90% ACH pull, 5% PP to self, 5% bill pay tool. Closed on September statement date.
MDWCommuter (closed): June only, $8k in 60 loads, all GC. $2k is most loaded in one day. Wrote 2 BP to CC checks, no ATM, no MP loads, no ACH pull, no DD, always carried at least a $1k balance
ArtemK (closed): 1st month - 5/21 - 6/21 - loaded $6,700, 6/21 - 6/30 - $4K loaded, all via GCs. Unloaded all via BP to Citi and Chase. No ATM, no MP loads, no ACH pull, no DD, no swipes.
rdover1 (Closed): 1st month - $23.6k loaded (WM GC), ~$1k spend, rest bill pay (mostly to CC)
rdover1 2nd card (closed): Closed mid cycle, survived 1st month. No bill pay, only MO. Never loaded over ~$4k. Total activity ~$12k.
T3pleShot (closed): 7k in loads at WMT, 10 loads, mostly $500, some $200, $4k billpay to CC, 5 swipes totaling about $25.
ctbarron (open): Month1 - $3.8k loaded, all bill pay out, 1 swipe; Month2 - $3.7k loaded, all bill pay out, few swipes and an ATM WD; Month3 - $4.2k loaded, all bill pay out, few swipes and an ATM WD. Zero membership fee, usually a balance of under $150.
americanindian (closed)- closed after 3 months today. had about 7.5k deposit each month, with lots of small value(<$20) purchases each month. liquidated mostly using bill pay.
rodsren (closed)- the dapperdon warned me. I was closed today after less than 5,500 or loaaing in less than 3 weeks (was going to try to keep it to 7,500 - 10,000 but didn't luck out.)
binnycode (closed, re-opened) - 7x $200 loads + 1x $700 load + 3x $500 over 2 days got me shut down. Called CSR and they re-opened my account, letting me know that "direct deposit would reduce my number of trips to walmart" lol!
Do NOT let Rite-Aid scan the GoBank barcode. You will be charged, but your funds won't load. It is a PIA to get your funds back.
Want to stay active? Be sure to only load when your balance is at or close to 0. Continuing to load when you have funds in there seems to be a no no. Swipes are recommended, but there are folks active that don't swipe.
Lots of $200 loads can get you shutdown. GoBank does not like paying load fees on low denomination loads. Two $500 loads is better than five $200 loads.
Shut down reports:
Please list your load/spend/billpay details (in a single statement/lifetime?) e.g.,
type of load, number of loads, denomination of your gc or mp, amount of your billpay, any actual swipe/dd?
lad2 (closed) - May: $2.7K 9 loads 5DDs - June: $5.5K 5 loads 6DDs - July: $4.6K 6 loads 1DD - August $9.9K 19 loads 1DD - no swipes
TheDapperDon (open) June $4.5k 5 loads. All GCs. 1 swipe. Everything else BP to CC. 1500 most loaded in one day .July - $3489 5 loads. All GCs. Several swipes. No load until below $20 or so remaining.
raghu455 (closed) May $2k 4 loads, june $7k all GCs. All BP to CC.
drdrew450 (closed) 17K in loads, unloaded all through bill pay, less than a month
cuebert (closed) $4.5k in 9 MP loads, BP out. That was fast.
sgideons (closed) May $7k 17 loads, june $17k 27 loads, july $5k 6 loads, september $3.5k 4 loads. Unloaded 90% ACH pull, 5% PP to self, 5% bill pay tool. Closed on September statement date.
MDWCommuter (closed): June only, $8k in 60 loads, all GC. $2k is most loaded in one day. Wrote 2 BP to CC checks, no ATM, no MP loads, no ACH pull, no DD, always carried at least a $1k balance
ArtemK (closed): 1st month - 5/21 - 6/21 - loaded $6,700, 6/21 - 6/30 - $4K loaded, all via GCs. Unloaded all via BP to Citi and Chase. No ATM, no MP loads, no ACH pull, no DD, no swipes.
rdover1 (Closed): 1st month - $23.6k loaded (WM GC), ~$1k spend, rest bill pay (mostly to CC)
rdover1 2nd card (closed): Closed mid cycle, survived 1st month. No bill pay, only MO. Never loaded over ~$4k. Total activity ~$12k.
T3pleShot (closed): 7k in loads at WMT, 10 loads, mostly $500, some $200, $4k billpay to CC, 5 swipes totaling about $25.
ctbarron (open): Month1 - $3.8k loaded, all bill pay out, 1 swipe; Month2 - $3.7k loaded, all bill pay out, few swipes and an ATM WD; Month3 - $4.2k loaded, all bill pay out, few swipes and an ATM WD. Zero membership fee, usually a balance of under $150.
americanindian (closed)- closed after 3 months today. had about 7.5k deposit each month, with lots of small value(<$20) purchases each month. liquidated mostly using bill pay.
rodsren (closed)- the dapperdon warned me. I was closed today after less than 5,500 or loaaing in less than 3 weeks (was going to try to keep it to 7,500 - 10,000 but didn't luck out.)
binnycode (closed, re-opened) - 7x $200 loads + 1x $700 load + 3x $500 over 2 days got me shut down. Called CSR and they re-opened my account, letting me know that "direct deposit would reduce my number of trips to walmart" lol!
Gobank by Greendot - online banking with debit card
Oct 15, 2015, 12:28 pm
#2056
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Dallas
Programs: AA, Southwest
Posts: 175
Does a GB have any advantages at all over a Serve/BB? Back when WM accepted Vanilla, I got the GB thinking I would scale up, but now that Vanilla is no longer accepted and I acquired more RB (soon to be converted to Serve), I won't do that much MS. Any reason to use the GB if I'll have more than enough limit on my Serves?
Oct 17, 2015, 9:06 am
#2057
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: MSP
Posts: 330
Similar to you I signed up a few years ago but haven't used it in 18 months or so. Haven't been charged a monthly fee either.
Oct 21, 2015, 9:59 am
#2058
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 145
try play catch up from my redbird closure, and with 2.5k load and make my cc bill pay after third day of loading, account got locked , so I called in and she explained that the card was not for intended use and warned next time would be account closure....EFFF this..
Oct 21, 2015, 1:25 pm
#2059
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: NYC
Posts: 415
It's so easy to build in the limits. If they don't intend for this kind of use, WHY don't they just install limits to what IS accepted?
Oct 21, 2015, 1:39 pm
#2060
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 145
I've asked them the same question, and rept stated what flagged the system was the multiple loads of 500, and once they see the loads goes to bill pay , they locked you down for suspicious activity.
Nov 19, 2015, 1:20 pm
#2062
Join Date: Jun 2015
Posts: 65
I did ACH from checking last thrusday. I showed in my acccount on Monday as DD, but today It is not showing there in list of transactions. But it is reflected in Balance. Something is weird.
Nov 24, 2015, 7:47 am
#2063
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 201
So I thought about it... and it made sense.
Compare the Serve/BB business model to GoBank's business model:
Serve and BB are products originally developed for people who DON'T have bank accounts. Consider the people you see at the Walmart customer service counter paying their bills and wiring money home to Ecuador. These are people who start each month with no money, put a pile of cash they've recently received into the account, then quickly take it all out and are back to a zero balance for the majority of the month. From a coarse "pattern recognition" standpoint, the behavior of a Manufactured spender looks a lot like that of the intended customer of the Serve and BB products.
GoBank, on the other hand, was not developed for the so called "un-bankable" customer. It was developed for normal people to be used like normal people use a normal bank. (Duh!)
Normal people don't deposit $500 in cash at their bank's counter and then stop at the ATM in the lobby on the way out the door and withdraw the same $500 right back out again. Normal people don't make $1000 payments to the same credit card account fifteen times a month. Normal people don't do every transaction of their lives in even, round numbers, certainly not in multiples of $500 dollars. Such activity looks suspicious, indeed.
But, if you give it just a little bit of thought, it's actually quite easy to make your GoBank activity look very normal from a coarse "pattern recognition" standpoint, If you do that, you can push $10k - $15k a month through each of as many GB accounts as you want.
Nov 24, 2015, 8:51 pm
#2064
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: S Cal
Programs: AA Lifetime Plat, United Silver, Marriott Plat, IHG Plat
Posts: 1,142
You raise a second question that I haven't thought of. Do people have more than one GB account per person? (Feel free to PM me if you prefer.)
Nov 25, 2015, 6:49 am
#2065
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 3,688
Do people have more than one GB account per person?
IME, GoB is very sensitive to ACH pull from payees; I got a warning that this will not be tolerated so I quit pulling payments from my account. I don't think their B/P sends quickly as am3x, I just use this as back up when I've filled up all my other reloadables per calendar month.
Nov 29, 2015, 3:14 pm
#2066
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 201
Nov 29, 2015, 6:44 pm
#2067
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 559
How come you are loading 14000 ? 3000 is the max limit for the cash/debit load at walmart . So are you doing MO deposit for the remaining ?
Dec 1, 2015, 2:09 pm
#2069
Join Date: Oct 2013
Programs: Hyatt Globalist No More..., Hyatt Explorist, Hilton Diamond, SPG Platinum, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 4,375