This is not true. I've seen many dp's of arrivals getting shut down.....just not recently because I think many of the heavy ms'ers are already busted. I do not have any cards open with them at the moment, but I did used to ms with them quite a bit without issue.

Looks like she had previous travel charges to redeem against. I'm out of luck as I don't so it looks like 1% redemption is my best option unless there is some sort of better GC option.

I forgot about posting this when it happened -- I live outside the country now, but since MSing still works, I did some of it when I came back to the US to visit. In April, 2017 I did a bunch, but since I was mostly staying at my sister's house in IL and my CU is in Madison, WI, I decided to try their smartphone deposits rather than drive to the nearest branch in WI.

It worked fine, but was a bad mistake, because all the $1000 deposits drew the attention of some backroom guy, who contacted me and told me I can't do any more MSing with them. He knew all about the process, and his justification was that it doesn't serve a banking purpose. He did let me deposit the remaining MOs I had, which were over 20K. I've had my accounts there since the early 1970s.

So unless I find a new friendly bank, difficult to do since I don't live in the US, I'm out of the game after four years of GCs to MOs to CU to CC payments.

My high point was May, 2016, when I deposited $147,000. I averaged $86,750 in the first six months of 2016, building up for when I left the country in July.

I routinely cycled through my CL on multiple cards multiple times a month and never heard a peep from any of the CC companies -- Citi, Chase, AmEx, Barclays, USBank and Bank of America. They just kept raising my CLs.

The next time I'm in town, I will go talk to the very friendly tellers I dealt with and see if they've been told to deny me. If not, I'll try a few in-person deposits, using MOs in smaller, non-even amounts to an account I never used for MS (set up as a business account when I was self-employed long ago) and see if the backroom guy catches them. It's worth a shot.

It was a great run, resulting in many, many international trips in C and F to 4- or 5-star hotels. I still have a few trips to go.

Sorry... you can't open a new checking account...why again?

At no point did you consider having multiple checking accounts? Banks pay you to open checking accounts ya know. And never put your deposits through a bank you've had a long term relationship with (and want to keep it that way).

I don't have a US address or a job. I think that makes opening an account in the US a bit more difficult.

I considered opening other accounts many times, but it was working very well with my CU, ever since the GC>MO>deposit>pay MS process became available. That's a long time.

Your "never" runs contrary to my experience -- many here have written of their various banking troubles, but I never had them, and if I had simply continued with my in-person depositing, probably would still not have any.

My long-term relationship still exists, and I will find out if the MSing ban is permanent. It's really not that important, since I can only MS the few weeks in a year that I'm visiting the US. If and when I move back to the US, then I will consider if I want to start up again, assuming the opportunity still exists.

Sounds like this is exactly what happened to you. You couldn't keep both your deposits and the bank account. One had to go.

1. Shutdown by Bank of America (Checking + Savings) 8/21/2017
2. Checking account opened June 2012; savings recently
3. Average account balance 5K
4. Average MS (MO deposits) 30K / month started 2 years ago
5. No cycling CL
6. No BP

I did the 10K savings offer where you get $150 after depositing 10K during 30-days initial period (deposited in mid-April 2017), then keeping the 10K in there for the 60-day subsequent period, and then receive $150 within 60 days of this. I guess they will try to shaft me out of the $150 and I will have to do CFPB complaint.

Two letters dated 8/21 received 8/22 saying my deposit accounts will be restricted in 21 days and permanently closed in 30 days.

I also have Cash Rewards, Better Balance, and Merrill+ CCs which I did not receive a closure notice for, but I suppose I should cash out 53K Merrill points before they take those too. BofA always gave me measly CLs compared to other CC issuers.

One interesting thing to think about is that if I had used a bunch of local CUs instead, I could have been shutdown by all of them even if this volume was spread out.

The letters do not say I am barred from opening deposit accounts in the future.

Why do you think so? If you would spread all your deposits to multiple banks/CU's keeping the overall limit < $5k/month, i don't think result would have been same.

Bank deposits don't serve a banking purpose? Oh, but in the days of the financial crisis these banks were begging customers for deposits and sticking their grubby hands in the taxpayers pockets to pull out cash. Next financial crisis when the banks stick their hand out, slap it away and tell 'em begging serves no pupose.:D

Sorry to hear loosing your MS channel.
Few points worth considering depend on your risk tolerance and financial institute's pattern you observe.
1. Not all CUs has financial capability to develop sophisticated data mining for Risk and compliance department. Chances of getting shutdown by software alert for MO deposit is relatively less compared to big traditional banks. Do not deposit MOs at big banks.
2. MS is tempting. Keeping your MO deposit volume in moderation along with your daily spend transactions. It will bland your shutdown risk.
3. Follow rule not to deposit MOs where you MS with your CC. It will reduce your chance of getting caught from both end for shutdown.

Let us know what happens with your CC. How long they will be alive after Bank a/c shutdown?

Good luck with your future MS.

Thanks for the tips. I actually did very little MS (avg. less than $500/month) on BofA CCs.

It appears only the Merrill+ card with 53K points has been closed. It vanished from online banking on 8/24. I sent a letter to BofA legal department requesting $680 ($530 points + $150 savings bonus). I should not have saved the 53K points for travel (you can buy certain travel tickets up to $500 for only 25K points)... Surprising how blatant they are, only closing the CC that had accumulated points.

Is there hard data to back this up? I would assume that any financial institution would have some sort of alert system in place to protect themselves. I could be wrong, but I would assume that smaller CU would want to protect themselves since they do not have much a reserve.

Maybe these CUs and smaller FIs dont have the systems that flag our activity?

Shutdown by Santa Rosa County Federal Credit union
Account open for 13 Months
Average account balance for checking is hard to say. Fluctuated quite a bit.
MS volume 80-100k for 7 months. Took a 5 month break and got shutdown for doing 90k this month

Bad news for me today as I got a phone call informing me that I can no longer deposit MOs or checks in my account. The account remains open and I can continue to deposit cash or use my debit card. I had a fairly long and fairly pleasant conversation with the lady. When I asked her why I was restricted she mentioned red flags from auditors for money laundering suspicion. I explained what I was doing and she said she knew I was engaging in MS and thought that I was taking advantage of the credit card companies. I told her that the more MS I did the more the credit card companies raised my credit limits and that is seems like they would shut me down if they didn't like what I was doing. Then I think I got the real truth out of her. She said that my account was costing them money because I move the money out so fast and it cost them to process so many money orders. She said once more that I was free to deposit cash. To me, that would look more like money laundering than depositing MOs. Anyway a bad day for me. I might retire from heavy MS and take up credit card churning. Too much trouble to open multiple accounts and make small deposits to each. I had a good thing going, sucks that its gone. If anyone knows of banks or CUs that will tolerate high volume MO deposits please respond or PM. Thanks.

If you had the same amount of money parked that you were running through might have been a different story.

You're probably right but I didn't have that much to park there. Even if I did, I'd be afraid to park it in an account that I was MSing with for fear that the funds might get frozen.

Credit Card Churning is a dying biz, as more and more banks restrict you to 5/24 and either 1 bonus every 24 months or 1 time ever

Capital One called me a few weeks ago about my Spark card. They asked me about my business and also about all of the transactions to Giftcardmall. Yesterday I logged into my account and it was locked. I used it for MS and also all of my normal daily spending. Not only that one but I have another account credit card that I used sparingly that got shut down too. I'm not sure why that one was closed as well. I've had that one since I was 18, over 15 years ago.

I called them and just got the run around. I have also had my main bank account with them since I was 18. I am going to go into a branch and close that.

what kind of volume where you doing?

were you cycling your CL?

It doesn't matter if you've had an account for 1 or 20 years, a bank will sever all ties if it thinks you're a liability and they won't even think twice.

Barclay arrival shutdown
 

Got closure notice last week saying "Your history of account usage"


1. SHUTdn by Bank, Credit Card info. (brcl@y arrival plus)
2. Length of account before closure and CL? (2 years)
3. Average monthly account balance checking and savings? NA
4. Volume of ms per month and how many months? 10k per month for 18 months
5. Cycle CL? No
6. Did you BP using both options?
- BP by issuing bank (@m3x, chs3, c1t1 and brcl@y) No
- BP by Vis/MC - Yes, but almost a year ago

2-4 gc dot com purchases per month of about $2500 each for 6-8 months and last gc com purchase in feb
5-6 grocery store $500 purchases once in a week when there was a promotion back in April
Putting 2-4 transactions of 2k to 5k at SMN mall for the last 6 months
Did WMT bill pays almost like 2-4 times a month for 4-6 months in 2016 with MasterCard as payee and last bill pay is in 2016 September.
Never exceeded credit limit or recycled credit.
Credit line is 15k and usually spend about 10k per billing period except in the latest period I spent 14k (highest I ever spent and close to my credit limit)
I use this card for all my non category bonus everyday spend. So I have 10-20 regular spend transactions every month.
I make a payment 1-3 times a month during billing cycle through my linked bank account.

I redeemed miles for transactions twice so far about a year ago and they have been building up for little over a year. Now I have points worth $1100

I used to have two AA cards for 4-6 years too and closed one a year ago and another one just a month ago.

I used the card when I was traveling internationally in multiple countries. I traveled 2 weeks ago. I added my travel info in online portal but when I tired to use it once outside of US, it got declined. So I used citi card for rest of my trip.

Called bclay and they did not provide much info other than advising me to send any inquiries through USPS mail. Just sent them a mail.

So not sure what triggered the review and closure. Could be foreign transaction or getting close to credit line in the latest month?

Questions:
1. What is the best way to get my $1100 points back. That's lot of money and effort.
2. Will they let me apply again for this or any other cards? I am thinking of trying again in 6 months.

AA had her BA card shut down also. You can read her blog about it here. It seems the trigger for both of you was a foreign transaction. She was able to use her points after the shut down, so if you have any travel purchases, you may be able to redeem them.

That's surprising and disappointing. Given your activity I wouldn't expect a closure.

I was shut down last February (2016) for a similar level of MS with Barclays. In my case I was loading Serve and Buxx cards. I had made a few foreign transactions, although it never occurred to me at the time that it was a factor. I applied for a Barclays card a year later and they denied it without even pulling my credit. Their denial letter mentioned my previously adverse relationship. I'll probably try again in another year.

I didn't get to keep my points, although I didn't put up much of a fight because I only had about $80 worth of points.

yowza, who was it that called from capone? Was it a client manager? Or was it someone in some secret dept?

Yes it is sir. So is MS unless you want to run around town depositing a handful of money orders into 20 different banks. If you know of any banks or CUs that will tolerate high volume or semi-high volume MOs please post or PM. It took them awhile but they are tightening the screws on all avenues of profiting from credit cards.

Whatever you do, don't post it here or that avenue will be shut down quickly.

Yep. Totally right. Pretty soon all profitable avenues will be closed: prolly not even safe to do it any more....

No, what happened is that I used the smartphone deposit method that I had never used before and that drew the attention of someone I wasn't on personal friendly terms with. Remember, I did this for years without a hitch because the people I dealt with in person had no problems with it, including managers.

It remains to be seen if I can or cannot deposit MOs again using the in-person method. There was never any threat to close my accounts.

I'm not sure. Probably an investigator of some sort. I obviously hit some radar.

The thing is I really hadn't been doing much lately. Maybe $7000 in spending per month for the last few. From November to March during the 5back promo, I probably put $100k on the card with no problems. I'm going to close my checking account with them that I've had for 15 years out of protest. Probably won't matter though.

My local credit union appears to be too "local" for MS, even though locality was supposed to be a good thing. Essentially, they refuse to accept more or less sizable deposits of MO. First, when I opened an account, the manager refused to accept $1500 in MG MO saying they "were not good". A week later I successfully deposited a $100 MO, yeay!

Today I tried to deposit $1000 and they called "compliance department". Since it's Saturday no one replied, so they turned me down and said I should try to get back on Tue. I can't do that because I work in a different city and the union opens for business leisurely at 8:30 am. I'm not sure what to do with them. Complaining to upper management will only attract attention. I guess I will try to deposit $300 next Sat. At least, I seem to have set a record of the fastest checking account shutdown in history.

In the Miami area our Spaced Out Coast CU has the same problem with MOs. So does our local Wells-Fraudo.:p

Most CUs are part of a network called shared branching so you can go to a CU in your city and ask them if they are part of the network. If they are part of it, just present your CU member number (which also serves as your C/A number for most CUs) card and you can make a deposit to your CU. They also scan your DL. This doesn't mean you'll avoid the risk management group of your CU because they will still see deposits you're making.

When I opened an acct with a local CU that is only in my state, I got a call from the risk management group on the second month asking me about the regular MO deposits. I must've given satisfactory answers because from then on, they allowed my deposits averaging $15K to $20K per month for the last several months. I allow my deposits to sit on my account for at least a week before I use their B/P feature to pay bills so they must be agreeable to that.

Do you have other CU options in your city?

1)Shutdown by Capital 1 (Venture Rewards)
2)Length of account-2 years, CL-50k
3)N/A
4)Volume of MS-25k per month on and off for 2 years (giftcards.com)
5)Cycle CL-No
6)No WMBP but I made a small payment with my Cap 1 360 account the day before shutdown

I haven't received the letter yet but the CSR that I just spoke with said it was "spending that was inconsistent with their expectations of a personal account" or something to that effect. They started me out with a 30k CL but after several months of 20k per month MS they raised it to 50k without me asking. At that point I bumped my monthly MS up to 25k. I have a seasonal job from March through July and don't have time for MS during those months. I MS during the other 7 months. Started my MS back up in August after a 5 month break. I think what did me in was making a $500.00 payment from my recently opened Cap 1 360 account that I opened for the bonus. Made that payment on the 28th and the account was closed on the 29th. Just found out today though.

I think $25K per month from giftcards.com was the dead giv-a-way once eyes were on the account. Maybe once a year from there during Nov - Jan, but not month after month. IMO.

I like this card BTW:D

I think it was that payment from the 360 account that put eyes on my account. 25k is a lot but it was only half of my CL. I liked that card too but I was considering cancelling it since my CU shut me down. Annual fee being due next month. Wish I could have done it on my own terms though.

Does anyone know if a Capital 1 shutdown is permanent? Is it possible to get approved for a card after a certain time interval?

Yes, Cap 1 doesn't forgive.

Is CapOne indefinite ban from all cc products or is it like Amex where length of the ban depends on circumstances & they might let you back in after some-many years?

What other banks ban perm/ind?