I didn't say the abusers should feel bad. I just hope the managers of c2it keep it going for people that want to use their service. If that means excluding accounts that recycle money for points, so be it.

What I wonder is why they allow a transfer from a credit card to your checking account if they do not see a purpose to this. I see it as a way of paying bills that do not accept credit cards and still getting the benefit of charging that bill. How long were you doing this and how frequently when you got shut down?

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Ms.DtG

I figured it up once but I forget the exact number. I think I moved about $65,000 while the opportunities existed, which equates to 65,000 miles.

I never actually got kicked off by C2it. I stopped using their service when they started charging fees. By the time they dropped the fees, they had added the exclusionary language.

I received several calls from them. They said they just wanted to verify that I owned both accounts and that I was sending money between the accounts. I said yes and asked if it was okay. They said it was fine!

With emoneymail, I used a mile earning debit card instead of a credit card. Their exclusionary language originally only mentioned credit cards. One day my transactions just started not going through. No e-mail, phone call or anything. Later they expanded their exclusionary language to include anything resembling a cash advance.

Exchangepath was the only company that was nasty. Originally they didn't have exclusionary language and I didn't notice when they added it. I said I was sorry, but they still said I was a bad person. Oh well, I got over it.

I worry that the the golden days of mileage opportunities are over. I loved opening bank accounts with a credit card, doing transfers such as C2it, buying travellers checks from Currency to Go, getting 25,000 miles for switching phone companies, 15,000 - 25,000 miles for opening a no-fee brokerage account, etc.

Last year, the valumags transaction and the Hallmark gift certificates helped me, but I am beginning to worry that these type of transactions are going to disappear.

I have an appettite for about 100,000 airline miles and about 120,000 hotel points a year and I think the days of accumulating significant miles/points for little or no cost might have gone the way of the "new economy". I am so thankful for all of the great ideas that appear on this board.

Anybody with recent experiences with C2it. I am having a few clients pay me via C2it as I way of being able to use their credit cards rather than a check, and I want to be able to continue offering this so I definitely don't want to be shut down. I am doing this through my husband's c2it account as his was not shurt down and just created a extra e-mail at his account. I have transferred money from cc to c2it account then to checking account. I feel that because I have some "legitimate" transactions I may be safer but still worry about how much is too much. I have transferred about 15K this year and wonder if it is safe to do anymore this year, or if I am better off waiting for the new calendar year when I start again at 0. Anybody with experience in how much was transferred, not shut down, and you had other transactions going on, mostly incomeing, occasionally outgoing.

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Ms.DtG

Well considering they look at this as fraud, why are the authorities not involved. Exspecially when it is is with numbers like we see here in this thread. They have to pay for every mile they buy for anyone to post to someones account. Hence if they are not getting the return on investment and just having to purchase miles, it is excessive in their books. If they did really close them down to fraud, they are withholding information from the police.

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When in doubt www.PlaneFriends.com

Hmmmmmmm,

Now THIS one makes me wonder...

I am about to go on XMASS vaction to Europe where c2it might have been handy for me in US/Euro currency transfers, but now, I dunno. Glad I never joined.

My only take on this one is this (something I have been saying all along):

Marketers (at C2it, etc.) should create their systems with more care and THEN release them to the public. Had THEY been more thorough in designing the C2it methods, it would better provide for their needs and limits, as well as our own. It is therefore, in a way, C2it who is to blame for letting their "product" out there with 'holes' in it, not us for finding such 'holes" and using them to our advantage!

That to me sounds a bit like "Indian Giving": What, they are MAD at you because you got miles? Hah! (Well had we done a better job maybe by using more banks to pad the transfer process, we might have 'hidden' the intent, but still...)

Even if we users were in part responsible for the demise, what is so wrong with sending money to one's self? It certainly is legal banking practice. In fact, just yesterday I DID get those Euros for my trip at the teller in my bank by writing a personal check to "SELF/CASH" and handing it to the teller. "This is the way it is done if you have an account here," said she...

And so it WAS written...And so it was done.

Anyway, if these guys can't hack it because people actually successfully earned miles by using them, then they outta get out of the pot anyway, I think. They lose out too. They will now not get MY business and yet I actually WAS going to use the service for more than just mile-earning! Oh well.

So don't feel bad for running the gig for the while... C2it will show up on the radar as the bad guys in the end.

There are bigger and better banks to go thru who are still legally letting everything be...

[Note that the money IN that above, non-miles-earning checking acct was put there as a result from my depositing a certain money order into it the previous day. BTW, teller told me that money orders are NOT cash--they are simply LIKE cash! Good to know, eh? A purchase is a purchase.]

(just my $.049cents worth, if ya catch my drift)

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gifMM

See ya for a while! Tonite I fly!
Have a grande holiday season, all!

We had four accounts in our family. I received an email about one of them and it was shut down. A second account was shut down at the same time without any warning or notification. The other two seem to be fine.

Since I want people to be able to pay me this way, I definitely don't want this account shut down, at the same time I want to be able to transfer money and get miles. The delicate balance. That is the key. I am wanting to hear from people who have been successful with a delicate balance. thanks

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Ms.DtG

Ms. DtG - not sure if this helps, but I've been using C2it for at least 6 months now, and haven't had any messages from them or shut downs. I went through a little period where I was so busy at work I forgot to transfer for a while, so my total this year is around $17k or so - soley from my cc to c2it to my banking account.

I always make sure to leave a couple of hundred dollars in my c2it account at all times (anywhere from $200-$500). This way, c2it earns interest on the float, I get a ton of points, and I also make out on the other end of the float, because I'm earning interest on money I transferred out to bank account, but haven't yet paid to my credit card to cover the orignal c2it transaction.

I haven't hit the $20k mark yet, and will likely wait until 2003 to do any more transactions, just in case.

Good luck!

Thanks for your info. I think by my having some "real" transactions I'm in a good place, and it is good to know that you have transferred more than I have and you are still in business. My clients who have aadvantage credit cards love that I found a way for them to pay me and get miles themselves, and I love that their transactions legitimizes my account. We all win. I have one who doesn't get miles but needs to be able to charge her transaction and doesn't mind her 2% Cash Advance fee.

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Ms.DtG

I don't see how this is fraud. There's no law against transferring money out of your credit card account to a bill pay account (C2IT), and then transferring it to your checking account to pay the credit card account. The fact they don't charge a fee for this doesn't make it fraud. That's their problem, not your's.

That said, I do a little bit of this tranferring each month. But far from huge amounts, which would make what I'm doing quite obvious, then they'll shut me down.

I don't feel any guilt doing this. Citibank already makes tons of money from me, in that I have a banking relationship with them, pay them an onerous $50 annual fee for the AAdvantage MasterCard, plus have made tens of thousands of dollars of real purchases on the card. I just look at the extra mileage I get from this as a "good customer bonus" I give myself.

c2it's claim, I think, is not that it is fraud, but that it is not for it's intended purpose - like to send money to your kid at school, or pay money that you owe, for an auction, for example. So, if they view your transactions as only to get miles, they don't like it. So, if you send money to your wife, and she sent the money back to you, over and over again, that looks suspicious to them. So, the more people involved in your transactions, the better off you are.

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Ms.DtG

C2It will catch up with you guys sooner or later. They view their system as a competitor to Paypal and other online payment systems. If the only transactions you have are money transfers from yourself, they will shut you down. I've watched more of these programs restrict themselves as time goes by. Webcertificate is another one that is basically worthless now because of changes to the rules.

Why should a person use c2it for its intended purpose? PayPal is a much better service for that purpose, and it pays you interest. The PayPal money market fund usually has one of the highest return rate of any money market fund out there.

Three advantages of c2it over paypal:
1. It's free. With Paypal, once you upgrade your account to accept credit cards, then they charge you up to 2.9% + $0.30 to accept any payment.
2. There's a real bank backing it up. Some folks are more comfortable with Citibank holding their money than paypal.
3. If you do run in to any problems, you can pick up the phone, call a toll free number, and be speaking to a helpful rep in under a minute. Paypal offers NO telephone support, and its email support has been reported to be spotty.