Why?

As Falstaff said, The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.

I'm glad SAR is filed for you then since you don't seem to understand. It certainly look structuring using a single store multiple times a day or whatever you do.

Others mention Structuring here, but they may not know that Publix limits MO to $500 / ea. Thats why he/she did it this way. The MO costs .89 which is why the amount is $499.11 ($500 + .89).

Right off the bat you're drawing attention to yourself dropping $3k on money orders in one visit when frankly the most common users of money orders don't earn $3k in 3 months and most transactions are less than $100. Opening GC packaging in line just makes it even more obvious that you are not an intended or target customer.

You've red flagged yourself into getting SAR filed on you / straight up banned from the store and doing so in front of store management is a great way to drive management to decide risk > reward and stop accepting debit for money orders all together to ensure compliance with money laundering and other laws. I push more MO than most people on this forum - $60k+ a month - but I do so at more than 15 local stores across multiple grocery chains and never more than $1k at a time. If they ask what it is for or make small talk, I'm paying rent or student loans.

It would be more time efficient for me to push more at more convenient stores and higher dollar volume - but I spread it around to not draw attention to myself and to ensure that the methods involved continue to be available, both for me and other people.

So? That doesn't really matter from "their" point of view. And, "their" point of view is all that matters.

Wow.. didn't really think about it that way. I do plan on spreading it a bit more since I (now) have three Publix stores within walking distance. Do you know if Winn dixie sells MO with debit?

Regarding banks: What's a "safe" amount to deposit via the app into each account monthy assuming I mix up the MOs to not be sequential, etc?

Well the fact that the DM just smiled and make the remark is somewhat comforting..

That's nice, but if I was a DM, I wouldn't care of what you say or what you are doing really. All I would care is protecting the business. Criminals lie about what they do.

you, sir, are admitting to structuring on a public forum. I hope that doesn't come back to bite you.

I guess you deposit all these $60K in MOs at 15 different banks?? Or more? Wow! This is what I call structuring. Very dangerous.

I would love to know if anyone here has ever been prosecuted or even accused of structuring. In addition, does anyone even know anyone that has been.

Back in the US Mint days, cash was used and people operated much like they do with MO and there were no issues at all.

By the way, I use Publix all the time for MO and the Customer Service Desk people know me. When I walk in they ask how many, they know what the amount is for. The most I do is $2500 usually in one stop. If I have more, Ill hit another Publix or Winn Dixie for the MO. Not to avoid Structuring but to avoid Manager Overrides and inconvenience. I only use one bank account, the same one I used since the Mint days.

Yes, and they are .75 per $500. Publix is .89 per $500.

No, he isn't.

There is no consensus as to whether the structuring rules are applicable to either the deposits of money orders or the purchase of money orders with prepaid cards / debit cards. Several posters have done some research indicating that these rules are not applicable to the deposits of money orders, and the preamble to much of the written guidance from Treasury notes the difficulty of applying these laws to prepaid and debit cards, since those instruments were largely nonexistent when the rules were enacted.

Plus structuring is arranging one's transactions to avoid having the other party prepare certain paperwork. There are a number of legitimate reasons that many posters on this board purchase and deposit in relatively smaller quantities. Two obvious ones are the safety of not carrying large amounts of cards / money orders at one time, and the fact that many debit cards have low daily minimums.

In the dollar coin thread, the mods prohibited any poster from accusing another poster of committing a crime. That was a good rule.

Of course there were issues with depositing coins during the US mint days. There are quite a few reports on Fatwallet. In my case, Chase has closed my checking account because of depositing large amounts of $1 coins during the US Mint days and reported me to Chex Systems. "Account closed for suspicious activity." 2 weeks later, Wells Fargo closed all my accounts because of that report in Chex Systems. I was not able to open a new checking account for about a year! I had to fight Chase in small claims to have the negative mark removed! Lesson learned.