In general, no.

Returned PAYMENT is an absolute No No for all issuers but with AMEX in particular. The system would promptly flag you and then all sorts of crazy things followed, even it is just a plain mistake by carelessness of the cardholder - like not to remove a no longer good payment bank info from the payment options. Such mistake is almost unforgivable in my opinion. One should immediately remove a canceled / closed bank account from all its linked payees so to avoid stupid mistake like this,

Oh puh-leeze. Glad you are so perfect. And for the record, it wasn't a closed account. I also bought a house in May and all the cash in multiple accounts was swept to one account. The amount (which I said was less than $100) was an auto-pay.

It is not a matter of the $ amount, it is a matter of sloppiness that has caused this unneeded grief from AMEX because AMEX system is very sensitive on returned payment - it would process it twice if the first time it did not go thru.
Did you read the post right above yours, from Clueless12? The returned payment caused him an FR but he came thru fine. In your case it may have caused a more in depth scrutiny on your financial situation, not just the AMEX accounts. For whatever reasons AMEX human credit analyst did not like what s/he saw and initiated the shut down process.

There were DPs in the past, that a cardholder in the range of several hundred Ks annual organic spend, have found all his cards closed because, guess what? A returned payment from autopay set up - that he has already PAID that amount long before AutoPay date, due to his departure for a long trip. He thought the account has been paid, so the AutoPay would not kick in, hence he has not had the enough amount (high 5 figures) in the payment account. That caused shut down when he was on the trip. Needless to say he was furious as it caused huge inconvenience to him.
I dont know if AMEX has since fixed the AutoPay issue. I do know if you have scheduled a payment manually, if the outstanding balance has fallen below the previously specified amount, AMEX would only take the lower amount instead. But that is not an AutoPay which in 99% of the case, just goes by the balance at Statement close. Often that has caught people by nasty surprise when the banks' (not just AMEX I can tell you that) still take full statement balance at autopay, regardless the outstanding balance has fallen below due to return or other payment.

This is NOT for your benefit as what has been done has been done. But a good information to those who read the thread, that there are little things you think is no big deal, like a less than $100 returned payment, could easily prevented, but not paying attention to this seemingly little thing, could cause unwanted trouble down the road, like what you are experiencing now.

Therefore for those who follow this thread, should learn this lesson, albeit at your expense, sorry about that.

It is stuff like this when we read, we learn. So we would not make the same mistake ourselves. YMMV.

I BP a BoA card at WM.
I have not seen any DPs of recent problems with that institution, nevertheless I don't want any issues with them.

Are there any links showing shutdowns doing this?



[redacted]

Ive had a returned payment from amex and not a peep from them. Wasnt even charged the return payment fee.

How much at risk am I?

Started this point game about a year ago. Had been with Chase for over 10 years now - two mortgages, biz & personal accounts, 50-60kin accounts, Amazon, freedom and ink cash cards... Then a year ago when learned about this I opened ink pref and.. Started using my ink cash (never really used before ) for 85% of my spend through gc at office supply.. I spend anywhere between 4k-10k a month on ink cash.... Basically all charges on ink cash is 5x. I downgraded my pref to another ink cash and applied for another ink cash... So I'm now the owner of 4 ink cash.. So far so good. But... Come April I'll start a huge 400k renovation which will span over a year. So I'm assuming about 250-300k in gc though office supply.

How much am I at risk of being shut dowm? Will it help if I switch some of my freedom spend to ink cash to show some 1x spend? Any advice ?

Do you guys consider buying gc at office supply ms?

WHAT ??, 250k-300k in CCs at Office supply stores?? and with Ch@se ??, all i can see is a big AX at the end of the tunnel :(

I think you should think about this, if you want to keep Ch@se at your side please don't do this, I've seen DPs of people with 250k-500k in savings with ch@ase and mortgages being shutdown, i will spend some time reading about ch@se shutdown and then see if its worth it.

Just my 2 cents.

Wonder that Chase has been sleeping.... :D

What happens in a shutdown with a mortgage? Can they demand you pay the mortgage in full??

They won't shut down your mortgage.

I'm not quite sure if I missed something here. You're comfortable having two mortgages, 50k+(presumably low-interest) bank accounts for biz and personal all with Chase who you have been with long-term. But...

You are financing a 400k renovation with gc? The risk/reward doesn't seem to add up here. Are you churning the gc through Chase as well?

Yes, buying GC at office supply with an Ink is MS. You are in the MS forum and have been for over a year.

I don't have a dp for being shut down, but I know our relationship with Chase changed significantly with churning activity. I really don't think the algorithms will care about your mortgages or bank accounts. They will care about your MS activities. The biggest questions for me are: 1.what is your current spend level? and 2.how different is 250-300k/yr from that number?

It's possible that this will work for awhile, but even if Chase doesn't mind the volume for some reason, I would definitely stop applying for/converting cards. If there is a real business account there I think about the consequences.

Chase is unpredictable IMHO...after being around for a short while, my opinion is that if you value your relationship with them, then don't screw around.

I think the main misunderstanding here is the MS itself - in terms of what I do. You guys talk about churning/liquidating. I do not do that nor will I do it in the future. I buy gift card for home depot then use it to purchase things at home depot. I use it as intended to... same for amazon, lowes, and so on. MS idea is to manufacture artificially spend in order to earn points. I do not produce spend. This is actual spend. If I bought 10k worth of HD cards they will be used at HD and I will file those expenses as part of my business expenses because they are that... expenses. I discussed with my accountant already and he agrees. It doesn't matter if I bought a fridge using a gc form staples or if I used a credit card. It is still real expense/spend.

I should have been more clear because I am indeed, as you mentioned, in a forum of MS.

I buy merchant gc and then use them at the merchant. period.

They don't find their way back to my account somehow.

Therefore, as MIA mentioned, I shouldn't have too much of an issue. I also decided to make my life a bit easier - and try to use portal + freedom where I can which should reduce my gc spend further.

I've been doing gc route this year and have spent around 30k so far but this will raise considerably once I start working on my property.

So having explained my situation better - I would like to shift some cl to my ink cash. I originally had 15k on each but reduced it to 5k each 3 years ago as I was not using these cards. Should I go ahead and do that? or is that poking the bear? I also have some very old credit cards (8+ years) that I never ever use (not with chase) and can close... should I ?