Describe your "business" and ask your banker point blank if your "business" works for them - if not, take your "business" elsewhere. Have only had one bank ever decline my "business" activity - Frost Bank in Texas. That was after hauling in a box of coins from the mint and mint statements and such and asking the bankers if they could handle 1.2 million in coin deposits a year. Our activity may be unusual, but it is not irregular.:cool:

That's exactly what I did. Told them about the game, gave them the receipts and asked them if they would be OK with it. Compliance said she would check with her boss. The disabled functions on my accounts might have been because they forgot to turn them on or they decided to leave them off permanently. The reason I try to stick with this one is because they have fantastic rate on loan, immediate fund availability and same-day ACH transfer.

I get more headaches on the obtaining side than the disposal side- two of my local POSs have politely declined to provide services based on a call from 'Central Office'.

With the banks, one has asked- and I answered- and was belatedly asked to move my activities elsewhere. My other financial friends have not asked.

So, with my remaining POSs, I'm debating giving them the clear info (when we reach that volume and they start asking).

Yeah. But with Chase/BofA, once you're on the radar, you'll almost be shut down. The advantage of a local bank/CU, IMHO, is that when you have their whole headquarter fit into a small office, you can easily explain to them what you are doing and get a green light from everyone. I had one problem with BofA risk before and got it resolved only after numerous phone calls + a few trips to a local branch manager. The branch manager told me blankly that he cannot do anything if it's from their risk department.

Just explain how you were using the account and we'll just clear this whole misunderstanding up :D

Is it ok to pay off Chase credit cards using MO instead of depositing them into Chase checking account?

No, don't send in MOs to pay your CC - that will get the ire of the Mandarins.

Depositing MOs into Chase might not be the wisest choice either. I'd consider smaller regional banks and CUs.

Yes, but DO NOT go nuts with it. I received a call from someone from Chase Credit Cards in Arizona that started off very unpleasantly, and others have reported receiving a similar call. He noted that the money orders of around $1,000 each were in sequential order and he aserted that I was buying them in a manner designed to avoid reporting requirements. He mellowed significantly when I explained that WalMart has a maximum of $1,000 per money order which necessitates buying multiple money orders and I was buying them with a debit card (instead of with cash) in order to obtain frequent flier miles, and that debit card had a limit of $2,500 a day. Nonetheless, he informed me that it creates too many compliance problems for the Chase Credit Card department and I was ordered to cease paying with money orders. Another poster reported almost the exact same call with the same instructions. The funny thing is that he told me to just deposit the money orders into my Chase banking account and use that balance to pay the credit card balances - in other words he just wanted the issue moved out of his area.

That having been said, their credit card statement allows payments via money orders, so I think small occasional payments are okay (I was running some big monthly charges when I was making the payments). No one knows the amount or timing that flags something in their system, and no one knows if just using WalMart Check Free bill pay would trigger the same issues.

Also, no one to my knowledge has reported any credit card company other than Chase raising an issue with this. I believe that many FTers do make money order payments of $1,000 or so each to other credit card companies on a constant basis. The credit card companies consistently tell customers to enclose only one payment in each envelope, and many customers prefer to make several payments a month to avoid a high credit utilization percentage. That is what is so frustrating about the structuring laws. Someone can be doing an activity for true business purposes with no thought at all to avoiding the reporting requirements, but if the recipient of the money orders does not understand why payments are made in a certain manner, the recipient can come to the wrong conclusions.

Just p/u some MOs today and I saw the WM, but I didnt realize it was actually "WM" and not spelled out. I highly doubt any teller anywhere will see the WM and bingo Walmart will come right into their head. I thought you used WM for short and were saying that WM was spelled out on the MOs.

I wouldnt worry about just WM

You're better off with WM= "WalMart" than "Washing Machine" :D

When your bank starts asking questions about what is with all of these money orders and you then give them an answer, do you guys slow it down for a little with that bank? This way, when the bank's review people go back and look at the situation, say a week later, it'll look a little better to them?

I think it could increase suspicion, as what legitimate business (in their eyes) could suddenly shut down as soon as questions were asked about it?

Do you know if branch pay matters or not? I don't know how they process the MOs for the branch pay.

I do not know. There was a period of several months that I deposited 2k of money orders at a time at Chase (that was the amount I would buy each time at WalMart because that was my debit card limit and that was all I felt comfortable carrying around) and they did not bat an eye. Of course this was the same branch that I deposited dollar coins at so the tellers knew I was in the mileage game and I explained that the money orders were a new mileage technique. Then I started using my Chase credit card a lot and decided it would be more convenient to just use the money orders to pay the credit card balances and I got the phone call I described. I do not do much with money orders any more, preferring CheckFreeBillPay. Sorry I can't be more help. Maybe someone else can chime in.

Thanks!

I was staying away from CheckFree because nobody seems to know how the payment appears to the CCCs (or CCCs even care the source of payments). I might try a Barclay card sometime since they seems to tell the source (at least the name of who made the payment from a regular checking) under transaction history.