I sometimes wonder if it's better to MS on a third party points (SPG/Hilton/AA) so that every month your points get deposited and even if you get shutdown your loss is minimal.

Then what is the point of MS'ing?

The point would be to earn the third party points.

If you are so concerned about the amount of MSing that you are doing on a card to the point where you may be shut down, then you (not the card provider) should be proactive in draining that account of its rewards immediately after the points/cash is posted. They can't claw back what isn't there.

The problem isn't the MSing (since everyone is at risk for a shutdown), rather the problem is leaving the rewards where they can be confiscated ;)

Citi CCs shutdown report from Free-quent flyer
 

I just read this report from the blogger regarding his Citi CCs shutdown due possibly from WMBP. Note that he started doing WMBP in March and got shutdown in June. Initially, he got an odd phone call regarding paying his CC bills with MOs and he quit doing that although he was expecting to be shutdown then; he didn't get the boot so he started to do WMBP in March to his CitiDC, total of FOUR(!) payments and all his Citi accounts were closed as of June 7. Feel free to ignore this DP if you've been paying in-branch with MOs and/or WMBP in a long time with no adverse action from Citi. It's been said when MSing, everything works well until one day, it doesn't.

Read his full article here .

Wmbp has been known for a long time to be shutdown risk. I've never dabbled in it for precisely that reason.

Agreed. Some like playing with low yield fire.

Agreed, best to stay away from billpay. Save yourself from the discomfort of having to shove thousands in your wallet after getting refunded for a failed BP at Wally hoping no one notices while you hustle out the store. BTW MG keeps the $4.99 fee since "they did they're part," when it came time for a refund, yet previously stated they "didn't feel comfortable with the transaction," hence their decision to block the bill pay in the first place...bunch of crooks....

Capital one
 

Both cashback and bonus. Can't get a new account though so it doesn't matter

By go-to card I mean my day to day organic spend card.

Is there a good list somewhere of known shutdown causes? It seems like that should be a wiki for this thread.

In actuality we don't know the reasons for shutdown. We can surmise them, but those educated guesses could be completely off base.

We do know that if one's behavior causes rat's eyes to be cast on an account, then some cheese may wind up missing.

Bottom line: One person's shut down behavior is someone elses normal everyday practice. YMMV.

Aren't some risk factors well-established, though, like buying GCs to reach an Amex signup bonus? Maybe not 100% of cards will get shut down, but we can still identify patterns. Paying certain CCs with Walmart Bill Pay or with an account that isn't in your name, depositing lots of MOs at the bank that issues your card, spending more than your credit limit by recycling with mid-statement payments, and other activities seem to be regular shutdown triggers at certain banks.

Yes, you are correct on all except the first one. Buying GC on [MENTION=46685]MEX[/MENTION] cards is a risk factor for not getting a bonus (rather than a shutdown). That was an initial guess by those who also opened the doomed accounts from targeted links intended for someone else. The abuse of targeted links turned out to be the actual cause of those shutdowns.

It would be nice to have knowledge like that consolidated in one place.

Data Point on Chase:
Chase shut me down in Sept 2016.
I tired to apply for a checking aco.... for a sign up bonus in branch last month and when the associate pulled up my details using SSN, there was some big blob of text in red that I could not read but he told me that "Not sure why but they instructed not to do business with you" and I could not open an aco.....
I tired to open account online later that week and at the final stage where I can fund initial deposit with a debit card, it kept saying unable to process debit. I tried 2 real bank debit cards and 1 or 2 prepaid visa cards. I assume even though the message says about debit card, the system may have blocked me for the shut down.
Today I went to apply BA card and surprisingly, I got approved with $20K limit. Hope I will actually receive the card.
If anyone was successful in getting new cards after shutdown with chase, what is your experience like?

Data Point on Barclay:
I got shut down by Barclay in Aug 2017.
I tired to apply for their Aviator card once few months ago and again today and both times it got rejected and looks like the flow is that the rejection is prior to them even pulling credit report. Not sure if I will ever get out of it.

what were your sins? MS or too many open closed accounts?

I encourage you to read through the shutdown thread in the Chase forum: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chas...solidated.html. There are many relevant data points. The short answer is that they will likely close your BA card within a few months, maybe sooner, although there are a few positive data points of people getting back in, long term.

I was shut down by Barclay in Feb 2016. My experience has been similar. I applied for another Barclay card a few months ago and was rejected without them even pulling my credit.

Do you have a comment/report link detailing your Barclay shutdown? What was the reason and what cards did they shutdown among other info?

I think I posted about it here at the time. I wasn't MSing that heavily, but I had been loading Amex Serve and loading various Buxx cards regularly with my World Arrival Card. They shut that down as well as my Aviator card.

Like ChrisFlyer posted, they may cancel your new BA card. I posted this in the Chase shutdown thread, but here are the cliff notes on my experience. Chase shutdown my SO and my joint checking account, as well as all Chase credit cards in either of our names. We waited for about 18 months, then both applied for the Chase Sapphire Reserve. We were both approved. About a month later, my SO's card quit working and we were to find out that Chase had canceled it. However, my CSR was not cancelled and I have been using it for probably a year and a half now. So, it's going to be a wait and see type of thing in your case. Good luck!

My experience with Chase after shutdowns is that eventually they will catch you and your cards will be shutdown again. My last batch of Chase card "lived" for ~16 months and one day they were closed. I even called EO and tried to get some answers, but they were pointing out on their T&C ("can close accounts for any reason anytime") and on the fact that my accounts were closed few years ago. You just cannot do anything. So, for any future Chase cards, I use a new logic - hit hard as long as you can. My wife's accounts were closed by Chase as well in the past, and one month ago she applied and received a Ritz Visa card. The card lived only for one month - even if only "real" spend was put on the card, no MS. I'm glad we decided to hit a spend requirement in the first month, at least she received a sign up bonus.

Anyone ever gotten back with Cap 1 after getting shut down?

Is chase shut-down risk still likely after applying for one of their cards? Ive been reading about it but no real recent dp that I can tell.

Apparently so -- just happened to me. I totally ignored the C-bank since they went 5/24. But I've kept a couple of their no-AF cards with 5X cat's since 7-12 yrs ago. A few weeks ago I applied for the new Hyatt card though. And now they shut down all their remaining cards that I kept, and those of everyone else in the household. They even "shut down" an account that I closed ~6 yrs ago. Hmmm seems like there's some spite involved.

It sounds as if you had not used those cards for several years.
Is it possible that they had shut you down at the original time but didn't make the connection with regards to the notification?
Then when you applied for the new card, they just resent the original shut-down notification? (You never really had an extant account after the initial closure.)

Damn that's harsh. What was your #/24? Did they give you a reason and have you tried asking for recon? I read that you may get reconned if ms is not a major issue.

I did use them for the 5X: between $1.5K-3K per year on personal, <$1K business.

Since there's no way I'd limit my #/24 for the benefit of one bank that doesn't want to compete fairly, I never really needed to count. I'm guessing it's way >5 (maybe 10-18, including AU's). I do not want a recon -- it's a done deal.
And they sent me letters with the reasons: 1) # of CC accounts, 2) too many accounts opened recently.

Not a true shutdown, but I did want to warn people about PNC and how sensitive they are to money orders. I opened a mobile wallet account with them about a month ago for the $300 bonus. Since I don't plan on keeping this account long term, I deposited two Walmart MO for $499.12 at the ATM. PNC put a hold on the funds for 5 business days, which isn't a huge deal.

I had also pushed $2000 from PayPal to meet the direct deposit requirements from the bonus. To get the funds out, I made a $1000 Chase payment and a $1000 AMEX payment. Both showed up as pending the following day, then disappeared on the next day.

I called PNC and they said that since the money orders were being held, they put a hold on my entire account. Any charges made would also be subject to hold, even if there are enough funds from other sources to cover the balance (in my case, the PayPal transfer). They said the Chase and AMEX payments would be released, but to check with Chase and AMEX to make sure.

I would avoid using PNC for money order deposits, or at least avoid using the account while the MO funds are being held.

I wouldn't read too much into the reasons, I recently got APPROVED for an account by Chase where they mentioned these reasons as negatively affecting my credit score, in addition to 3) account opened too recently, and 4) length of credit history. Not that I care too much, but all of this seems rather arbitrary, my credit history is 30+ years with the average age of account around 12 years, and my credit score at 800+.

In general for all banks, I'd suggest teller (drive through) deposit vs ATM, likely scrutinized less since a banker already put eyes on them during the deposit. Also 1 transaction vs multiple MOs via ATM.

for new customers, the bank has different policy and restrictions.

That's a lot of driving, and will not help according to earlier DPs. Shut down decisions come from the back office, and being known or visible to front line tellers makes no difference.

Yeah, the only time I think it might make a difference is with smaller banks or credit unions. Larger banks like Chase or PNC don't care unless you have lots of $$$ in accounts with them.

PNC is fine.

You really want to limit these type of things for the first 30 days of a new account. Banks tend to place longer holds and are more "curious" about customer activity in this timeframe.

Finally someone is using common sense, I never understand the hype around chs3, I get nearly all of the benefits matched through other credit cards/banks. The only area that chs3 really stands out is Fr33dom 5X and ability to pool the points into UR, but I don't spend enough on gas and grocery plus this benefit may be axed in the future (it's not profitable).