@CountryLad wrote:Okay... have to ask -- what's an MS charge that you can be directly connected to? A bit naive here and don't want to make the same mistake. Asking for education only. Thank you.
@K-in-Boston wrote:Making any charge with a merchant that you can be directly connected to will always result in a FR (and often complete account closure) with Amex.
It's fine! Discussing manufactured spending here is okay; advocating it or discussing specific ways to get away with it is not.
An obvious example is that you are the owner of Acme Company, Inc. You run your personal card through Acme's credit card terminal for $10,000 to hit the spending for a SUB. The next business day you have $10,000 deposited into your checking account from your merchant CC processor (and at the end of the month have ~$300 debited for merchant fees). Amex knows you own Acme, and know that you just manufactured spending to meet the terms of the Welcome Offer, and you also skirted their cash advance policies.
Another example would be that you use PayPal to send $5,000 to your spouse. Again, you just skirted their cash advance policies. (Note: normal PayPal transactions are perfectly fine with Amex.)
A third example would be one we saw here a while back. Someone had their accounts shut down because they ran one through their uncle's furniture store. Whether it was a legitimate large purchase or a cash advance, who knows? But Amex like every other lender has access to 3rd party consumer data. You know when you have to answer security questions, and things like "Which of the following people do you know?" are one of the questions? Yeah, that's how they tied you to Uncle Bob and his furniture store.
Thanks K-in-Boston for the reply and taking the time to be so detailed. Much appreciated.
