Wells Fargo Platinum 5X Grocery-Gas-Drugstores(2014-2015)
 

I have the WF Platinum 5X Grocery-Gas-Drugstore card and have run about 30K in VGC. I received a message on my login last night stating that the usage of the card was temporarily restricted and that I needed to call their 1-800 number. Wondering what the best plan of attack would be to work through the situation. Certainly don't want to admit the MS aspect of the card usage. Also, don't want to lose the points I've accumulated.

Literally just say stuff that makes no sense. Confuse the hell out of the operator, but be sure to emphasize how much you like the card and enjoy the benefits.

It's probably just a fraud alert. WF is very fraud-averse. Just call and confirm that was you and say you are stocking up since you just got this card and thank you for such a great card and you love WF as a bank.

Do not call. It is NOT a typical fraud alert. This happened to several people I know personally. One, a relative newbie, called the number and long story short was shutdown. You will ultimately get the rewards you earned if you lay low and sock-drawer the card immediately.

Don't know why other people are freaking out but I received several messages like the OP on my login screen when I had my 5x period with Wells.

It goes to an automated fraud system. You confirm the past few charges, account unlocked, you are on your way. No people involved.

In my total six months with Wells, I never spoke with a live Wells employee once.

I also have not heard of anyone being shutdown except for a friend of mine. But he did overpay the account multiple times.

Most of the time it's automated but sometimes not. Also, try the number on the back of the card. If you've gotten past fraud alerts and noted down the number, try that as well. But if you always get routed to a human no matter what you try, you're done.

Can you please ask him to clarify what exactly he did? Was he spending several times the credit limit? Or pre-paying more than what the balance was?

Yes and kind of. He was trying to ACH pull from BB so the payment would post instant because Wells CL is freed up when you pay. He did this multiple times and all the payments got reversed. The wells fargo system is whacked.

Thanks, good to know. I have a WF checking acct so hopefully payments from there are treated with less suspicion.

It depends actually. If you are doing small numbers it might be OK but if you are doing large numbers I do not believe it is good to deposit a lot in checking and use checking to pay off CC. WF does not look kindly at that ....

Read this thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credi...ds-cap-77.html

It has many stories of why and how people get shut down when using this card.

The few shutdown stories I found only mention frequently paying off the balance, usually from outside sources too. A few people with WF checking said they were able to do 2-3x the CL for a while and only had a warning once. The dominant complain is incessant fraud alerts and the resulting hassle of having to call support.

it's a fraud alert, call to clear

I've had this card for almost six months, coming to end of promo period. I've put through about $50k in purchases per month, on a $20k CL. My usual mode of payment has been through the WF site, pulling from my WF checking account, paying the current outstanding balance, although I have also BP from BB a few times.

I usually got a fraud alert if I spend more than $3k per day, which I tried to avoid. Pretty simple to clear, didn't have to deal with any humans along the way.