The CSR I talked to was completely useless, oh well.

Have you tried an online load?

Amex is probably hurting for cash. Look at their stock price in the last 6 months.

Doesn't AMEX and every other card issuer suffer here too? If tens of millions of $$ in manufactured spend is being run through their cards, they are getting swipe fees on those gift card purchases. Perhaps the fraud losses exceeded the swipe fees, but that seems unlikely to me. The fraud occurs when the gift card is purchased with a stolen credit card number, not when the gift card is loaded to bluebird or serve. And even if the fraud losses were significant, wouldn't AMEX be looking at how to eliminate the fraud, not how to throw the baby out with the bathwater?

I wonder if the Feds were snooping around asking questions about tens of millions in untraceable debit loads. That could easily have caused AMEX to close accounts with those loading patterns out of compliance fears.

Definitely. I doubt that the banks are as aware of the impact of gift card purchases on their bottom line though as a high volume merchant like Simon, or a national retailer with a dedicated analyst for prepaid card products.

Termination Of Funds Loading Capabilities on Your Bluebird® Account
 

I called Amex to inquire. After a 10 minute wait in the queue I got thru, the CSR had no idea why my account was flagged and then put me on hold to get the supervisor. The call got dropped.

I called again, waited 10 minutes and talked to a new CSR. They got the supervisor and said they had no idea but did confirm that my account would not be able to add funds stating that, Amex is trying to protect against money laundering.....

When I asked what can I do to keep my account open for adding new funds she said to write in to Amex as indicated in the email. I said I'm talking to Amex now what is the difference. Reply "I'm really sorry sir, that is the process I'm being told to pass along to you". So I just write a letter and then they reinstate my adding of funds capability?

I doubt its that simple. In 2015 I added maybe 5K worth of Simon Visa GC, that's it and nothing in the past 4 months. They must really be cracking down. I think I'm not going to bother writing them, the game may be over.

I guess there will a lot of "travel" Blogs going out of business.

I guess not.

Hit a lot of our cards with several address so doubt it.

Good riddance to those unethical folks.... Now they'll need real day jobs, and their credit card pimping experience will probably not help them gain employment. I don't feel the least bit sorry for them.

So you're saying Mr. Bowtie, after recently losing his wife, now will lose his business in short order too? That's a rough year.

negative; i dont have anything to load it with in any way at the moment and i dont feel like making technically unnecessary trips for nothing more than a datapoint. i dont believe the csr i spoke with knew ... he was talking about, like i said he was not a native speaker, so surely he would not be able to read & understand the complexities of the situation.. he was just some guy churning calls for amex and collecting a check. i would imagine i am blocked as the email says and as the other poster who called in mentioned above

Still haven't received an email on 1/3 accounts. Not sure how to proceed with that account- try loading or sit quiet for a while to let the storm pass?

I still have one account opened. I'm going to MS as much as I can. No use in playing it conservatively because we all get shut down eventually. If Amex didn't shut us down, it would have been kiosks being removed or $500 GCs being impossible to find/buy with a CC.

Got an email as well but none for the family members in my account. So, i guess i can still load on their accounts?