Things Have Changed Recently.

Somethings have changed. Not ALL things. Yes, Alliant is still giving rewards at SIMON for VGC purchases. Yes, there are still pre-paid debit gift cards that work to pay Citibank. Maybe your argument is that someone is not getting rewards from Alliant for purchases, but that would be a case by case basis it seems, not a complete representation of everyone with an Alliant CC. Just like some prepaids don't work for paying CitiBank and some STILL do. I'm not making false statements. These are facts that are recent as of this week.

I've done my reading here and am trying to evaluate the incidence of shutdown on credit cards using BillPay vs. bank account closure with MO. It seems to me that with similar percentages, it sure is a lot easier to use the BP method. Vast majority of closures I am seeing are related to bank accounts and volume, or irregularity there of, deposits via MO. My current strategy:
1- WMBP various phone numbers with multiple billers under each phone number
2- multiple checking accounts with low volume, couple thousand, MO monthly
3- cycle the use of credit cards buying VGC from giftcardmall
4- never cycle or exceed my CL.
5-Pay a few money orders to each credit card directly at the branch

I'm hoping this works out for me over the long term

What's missing in your observation is the total number of people engaged in each activity. If you look in archived shutdown threads from several years ago, you'll see that the vast majority of shutdowns correlated with WMBP use. That message was clearly received, and the number of WMBP users is likely miniscule by now. Thus it would be incorrect to infer comparable risk between MO deposits and WMBP use in 2019.

then what is the most "proven" and "safe" way to pay off the CC's? With the ongoing Simon promo deal, I drastically increased deposits (often >10k) into bank accounts (some relatively new, some old) and I'm anticipating looming shutdowns based on various feedback here. Nothing yet, but wondering what the heavy hitters do then since it looks like no matter what you do in high volumes, it leads to a shutdown.

I know Walmart BP is risky, but what about BP from Serve, GoBank etc.? Are these BP's also around the same level of risk from the bank's POV?

I'm not very familiar with GoBank. AFAIK Serve is similar to a bank account, where the origin of all funds is 100% traceable. I understand that WMBP arrive to payees as anonymous, which creates their perception as risky.

But Serve suffers from the same issue as any other method: as soon as you increase volume, you get shut down. Mine didn't last even two months. Perhaps if you take your time and "break it in" for a few years, that might work, but who has that kind of time when there are opportunities knocking on your door without stop : )

Useless reply. The guy asks for specifics and you offer hackneyed trite reply.

You always have to remember why Serve and BB exist. They are meant to provide banking services for people who either don't trust banks or cannot qualify for banking services in the first place. Usually, for the latter, it means that they don't have enough resources to interest a bank into allowing them to open a checking account or even a savings account.

So that means that if they open a BB or Serve account, they may be depositing their $1400 paycheck (net) every 2 weeks and paying things like utility and rent from it. At the end of the pay period, there usually isn't anything left.

Now we get Mr. MSer into the picture. First of all, he isn't direct depositing a paycheck into the system. He is inputting MOs or GCs, and lots of them. Then, he is pulling the money out within days, paying off credit cards that the usual user of these services never have. The flow is huge and unprofitable for Amex, since they have to keep track of the ins and outs to satisfy the Feds for MLing. Of course they are going to close out these customers for such behavior.

Furthermore, even if your payments and deposits were legit, why would anyone use a service like BB or Serve when they could afford a bank given the amount of money they are passing through the system.

I suspect that Amex and others are becoming much more sophisticated in discovering those who overuse their products and making more rapid closures of the offenders. (just my opinion.)

So, yes, there are people with 5 or 10 accounts and using other people's SS# to sign up (which I do not believe is exactly kosher, but whatever), but they will all be closed eventually and will not be able to sign up again due to banned SS#'s. So I can see how people are using the services to the max right now.

Good points. A question does not require anyone to publish a tutorial on the subject. We all contribute what we feel is appropriate and useful to get their own research started.