stupidzbu

My wife is a resident and her tuition is sky high. I was racking my brain to try to come up with a good way to deposit MOs that wasn't suspicious and thought of this plan. it may or may not work, but here goes:

Apply for financial aid, start first semester, one month before second semester kicks in and before the 2nd installment of financial aid, start depositing MOs with the college to pay down the tuition.

This will not affect financial aid, so when those funds post, you ACH the excess to your bank account and then pay off the CC

We've done something like this, but with scholarships and ended up with a surplus.

Risks:

1) Affected financial aid for the following year

2) being flagged by the school

3) limits on MO deposited

PROs:

1) Bypass depositing MOs at bank

2) Bypass closures of accounts and SARs

pawtim

It seems like a fine idea, and how much does it affect your wife's financial aid the next year?

If she's going to be a doctor, consider this line from an article about Medicare:

Retina specialists talk of colleagues who earn huge amounts of frequent-flier miles by buying Lucentis using credit cards.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/10/bu...look.html?_r=0

caGALINDO

Or just pay with a CC.....

stupidzbu

Schools have multiple restrictions on this, including but not limited to

1) fee to use CC

2) limits to how much can be charged

3) part time status only

etc

fotoflyer88

This is a pretty decent idea... seeing as a lot of schools will add 3%, only accept MC or debit cards, etc... its YMMV.

Personally, I would just pay the tuition using the MOs, not getting any "surplus back" - and enjoy the free miles for tuition, without risking any financial aid/flagging

sriki

Without going into a lot of detail, I did something this an year ago when I was stretching to do a lot of MS for signup bonuses. I paid my wife's tuition with CC to meet the minimum spend (her aid doesn't depend on what/how I pay). The biggest downfall of this is there is significant % fee for using a CC as opposed to paying through the bank. It only made sense for meeting minimum spent/bonus. For daily MS, this was not an option that was viable. One good thing was I paid a little more than what we owed and once it clears it will show a net balance in her account that can be requested out through ACH to bank account. This moved a good bit for money for meeting the requirements in a pinch. Just one transaction and no trips anywhere. If the fee for CC usage is brought down, this will be a fantastic way for daily MS, though will be shut down easily if abused.

weseh

I pay my kids' preschool tuition (equal to public school college tuition) with money orders every month. I asked them if they minded, and they said no. It's a great way to move MOs for actual spend, though it's definitely not "manufactured spend" in my case, since I'd have to pay it anyway.

cdancer20

Are you using credit cards to purchase pinnable debit gift cards to purchase these money orders?

MasterCharge

I have been working with a similar concept for some time now, my school use a card process service by wex bank and offer a checking account also with them call higherone, theres not cc fees to pay tuition via cc, so every semester i over charge my card(s) and the school simply deposit a refund (ach dd) to my ally account, it takes about 7 business days for the whole transaction, overpay tuition -> school process refund -> ach dd to bank - billpay before statement cut...

benzemalyonnais

Yeah, this is pretty easy - I always overpaid with CCs for the miles and then got the refund when my scholarship posted. It might take a while to process though - make sure to check the dates when the aid will be released.

st7n

This is what I do for my kids' school as well, except I don't have to go as far as the MOs. I've been able to use CC-bought GCs to pay their tuition online with no problems so far. For anyone wondering, the center we use has locations throughout US.

exarkun

Why don't you instead buy GCs or Reloadits and fund a 529 plan?

Unlike many people here (that were shutdown) this would be a valid use of a 529, no?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/529_plan

TheChallenge

I did something similar a few semesters ago when I had to go back for a few classes. The university allowed credit card payments without a fee, but I had a 5% card in select categories. I bought GCs at 5% and used them to purchase MOs, then paid the tuition with the money orders. I actually overpaid because I paid the balance inclusive of non-resident fees, then had the school reverse it to resident after I submitted the paperwork showing I lived in state. I was then mailed a check about a month into the semester for about 3x what my resident tuition was.

I could've used the gift cards to simply pay since there was no credit card processing fee, however the system the school uses refunds any difference right back to the card. Since I paid in MOs they mailed(or could of direct deposited) a check.

Lemma

Don't they charge a fee to pay tuition in installments instead of 100% upfront? That was the case at the university where I attended college and at the one where I went to grad school, but that's not a very large sample so I won't claim this is universal. They advertised the dollar amount of the fee which was added to the first installment, something like $100 IIRC, but it worked out to be a rather nasty interest rate considering the short timeframe of the installments, which was three payments the first of which was made on the regular due date and the others approximately one month and two months afterwards. Even if the cost is small, not worth paying to liquidate MO when you can do it for free with a checking account. And $100 would be an exorbitant cost of liquidation even if you were liquidating $100k in MO in the process. Certainly not worth it if there is a risk of jeopardizing financial aid.

I also think this is a rather complicated solution to a nonexistent problem. If you're worried about account closure for depositing too many MOs, open an account somewhere that you wouldn't mind being shut down by, say at a smaller local bank or CU that doesn't offer any interesting CCs, so that you can experiment freely and win whether they shut you down or not (either you found your deposit bank, or you crossed one off the list of candidates). Tell them the truth about the source of the MO you deposit. Either they will shut you down or they will be happy to have your business. If they shut you down, take your business elsewhere until you find a bank that gives you carte blanche. If they decide to file a SAR, and you told them the truth about the source of the MO, they will probably relate your explanation in the SAR and FinCEN will ignore it. Not all SARs are created equal and while I have no firsthand knowledge of what FinCEN does with SARs they receive, I can't see any negative consequences resulting from a SAR that just said you deposited lots of MO and they were suspicious. There's no way FinCEN isn't aware of legitimate reasons why someone would deposit lots of MO. Banks have a lot more to lose by not filing a SAR when they should have than by filing one on someone who didn't really merit it, so there are tons of reports being filed. Common sense says they investigate people with SARs that describe something worse than depositing a bunch of MO, and leave the MSers alone. I would not be concerned about getting a SAR, but I also think it's much more likely to be submitted by the store where you buy the MO, not the deposit bank. In fact I'm fairly certain that the only SAR I've gotten is from a Walmart that banned me from their money center several months ago for suspected money laundering.

There are definitely banks and credit unions out there that will be happy to enter into a win-win business relationship and take your MO. I opened an account with a local CU specifically to use for MO deposits just under a year ago now. I don't post the exact amount of MS I do per week/month partly because it varies and partly because I don't want to start an epeen measuring contest, but suffice it to say I do many times the volume of anyone who is looking for ways to liquidate MO, and my CU does not care at all, nor do I spread my MO deposits out between multiple financial institutions. This may be YMMV, but so are most of the steps in MS. Given the shutdown risk, I don't know why people would deposit MO with big players like Chase. Their checking accounts are nothing special, except perhaps for the ability to repeatedly churn signup bonuses for them, so why would you risk the gravy train that is Chase CCs for something you could just as easily get anywhere else? Similarly it would be foolhardy to deposit MO with Citi, or any of the big banks that offer even halfway decent CCs, not because you'll necessarily get shut down but because it's a risk there's no reason whatsoever to take. Free checking accounts are a dime a dozen, so consider it like finding a WM that will let you pay for MO with GC, except probably with a higher chance of success. Just stay away from the big banks and there's virtually no risk. Who cares if you're blacklisted by First Regional Bank of Yourhometown?

voisinator

My school doesn't charge an extra fee for payments with credit card. I'm considering paying the full amount due with my Executive credit card. Then anything extra(the full amount of the loan) would be direct deposited into my account and I could use that money to pay off the credit card. Any potential complications with this process?