compddd

I had DD into Serve and was shut down anyway.

lonelycrowd

+1 - My account, which gets hit hard on months that I'm in the US, is gone. Wife's account, which has a similar pattern but gets a few tiny ACH deposits from an online ad network, survived.

stupidzbu

it's simple...

they looked at when the Redbird was killed and went after the product changes to snipe the same people.

I had been off of serve for a while, doing other instruments because there were no walmarts around me. Had no qualms shutting down the 5 soft serves for redbirds.

And, like many, went back to serve once redbird died, only because I found out you could load at RA back in Aug and rode that gravy train..

I suspect they are looking at previous history..

maybe change your email & phone number from what you had on redbird account?

kilbornr

I haven't been shutdown. I do mostly online loads and then BP to credit cards. My use has been more sporadic since they started only allowing AMEX cards. I use it to meet sign up bonuses only now. I did $3000 in Oct, Nov, Dec total for example.

m girl

I got shut down as well....

SUCKS. Now I will hurry on over to Plastiq to liquidate as much as I can since I have a full month of loads to do... Are there any other alternatives to bb or plastiq? I am kind of having a mini stroke. I called BB/Amex and they said they could not see anything flagged in my account or why I received that letter. I kept asking if I was hacked and they said my cash was safe with them.

Don't know. this pretty much sucks. I was getting a ton of flack from the various walmart as well. 1 store manager flat out refused a load and the others basically I loaded as quickly as possible because of something they said came out in the booklet in the past two weeks. So, this may be a walmart initiated event. And walmart is, at least in Houston, simply disallowing any load from a debit card unless your name is on it. It really sucks.

At least the cards I do have were bought at negative cost so unloading at Plastiq will not be at a loss, but not at the profit margin that it was.

ElPresidente

Used BB for purchases at WM. Wrote BB checks to pay babysitter. preschool, etc. Only used billpay to pay non-Amex CC like Chase etc. Didn't matter, still shut down.

Spouse Serve used billpay to mail rent check, pay non-Amex CC. Also shutdown.

People that think only blatant MS paying off Amex got noticed, are wrong.

memphian901

Do you hear that Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability. That is the sound of your death.

m girl

I haven't heard from a few of my local MS folks yet but I suspect the shut downs are due to a blanket search on anything that loaded from more than just a few CC.

or it could be that the multi card loads triggered it - one swipe and then put 3 vgc on it.

Of course, this is all speculation.

It appears that is was just a matter of time before they did this IMHO. If they didn't want to have any vgc loads then they should never have allowed them in the first place.

However, one store manager told me that by depositing a vgc WITHOUT your name on it was money laundering -- I don't see how that is possible.

I still consider myself a newbie on this though had just started to get some traction in the MS game... is there another way to liquidate gc other than using Plastiq? I actually can pay real bills...I just need a place to unload these cards.

lobo411

Impossible. AMEX has lost its biggest partners in recent days: Costco, Fidelity, Jetblue, etc... They can't afford to blacklist anyone.

BlueBird was AMEX's attempt to grow by targeting the unbanked low income market, so probably they decided to abandon that failed effort.

It'll be interesting to see if AMEX even survives 2016, given the way they're hemorrhaging accounts!

rylan

Yes they have... go read the megathread of BB shutdowns and there are plenty reports of ppl with direct deposit getting shutdown.

OnTheRocks

Just as a data point for everyone I had my 4 BB's shutdown all of which were used at WM for VGC loads. Mostly in Oct and Nov got busy in dec and had no activity. I did have one serve account that had absolutely no activity for the past 5 months but was being maxed before this at WM every month, this was not shut down.

Well anyway at least I will be able to enjoy one last trip on Singapore Suites!!!!