Perils of MS

[Anonymous]

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@skigirl916 wrote:
You'd actually sue over this?

Do you realize that most small claims judges are pro tem?

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As FinStar says, there have been a lot of successes.  Of course, it's likely that not all failures are reported, but at least several succeed.   These are not weighty legal arguments, basically pitching "greedy big banks" against "innocent consumer who was misled by the banks".    When this was happening with Citi a year ago, I too thought it unlikely, imagining the banks saying "This person was buying $30K, yes, THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS, of gift cards each and every month.  Does that sound like a normal honest pattern of purchases?  And even so, were these used as  gifts?  No, they were turned into money orders the same day.  This was a gross misuse that hurts all consumers ....." but apparently not, focussing more on their right to close the card per T&Cs, which often doesn't work for them.  Also, in many cases the banks settle to save time and money.

[Anonymous]

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@kkapdolee wrote:

I'm amazed by all the people doing massive amounts of MS. 2.2k worth of rewards in 2 months isn't that "much" compared to others out there? That's crazy...

I don't know if I'm just too lazy but the easiest form of MS that I knew of (Vanilla Reloads at CVS and Bluebird) was too difficult for me. I had to go around so many different CVS and often times still come home empty handed. I stopepd doing any MS after the end of VR at CVS and it amazes me how people continued to do MS in a harder form.

longtimelurker, how much time do you think you spent on MS each month including going to grocery/drug stores, depositing to BB or Serve or Walmart MO, etc.? Was it usually just during your normal trips to the stores and not for the sole purpose of MS?

I guess it depends on how much time was spent but 10k in 2 months or even 2k in 2 months sounds really good to me. I was just never able to achieve that kind of a level as a single guy holding only one BB account. I'm just glad I got to spend 6k on my Dividend card Q1 this year. That yielded about $250 after fees. Then I never even got through my 6.5k initial spending of Amex BC because I couldn't find enough VRs before CVS closed their hole.

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It is very dependent on your "geography", which stores are near you and their policies.  In my case, it is easy to buy gift cards ($5K at a time form CVS, and I was buying $2.5K from supermarkets).  I do my real shopping at WholeFoods (which doesn't sell cards) so I had to make an extra trip, but these places are near.  So going and buying these was probably 2-4 hours a month.  The reason I did relatively little was Walmart.  The nearest one was about 25 mins away, and once there you spend another 30-40  minutes loading etc.  So I was spending say 8-10 hours a month for about $1200 profit.   Those doing much more tend to live near several Walmarts and visit each every day, and you can (or maybe could!) put huge amounts through

[Imperfectfuture]

While I learned by googling, that is definitely advanced ms.

Personally, I just buy gift cards for small use (dinner, amazon), and actually use them as gift cards (used to do that to avoid atm fees with my debit card).

Payoff seems nice, but too much hard work for moi.

[Anonymous]

Shop at Whole Foods? No wonder you had to MS.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Shop at Whole Foods? No wonder you had to MS.

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Nah, I shop but don't pay.   Coats with big pockets, other people's credit cards, makes the cost low.

[CreditCuriosity]

Very interesting topic.. So in theory this was some peoples full-time jobs in essence?  Sorry for being nieve, but that is crazy reading some of what was on FT after reading this article about how much some people MS was.  You could live off that if you did enough... Although as you stated and others have that is abusing the system if you do it that much, if I am following everything correctly.

[mongstradamus]

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@CreditCuriousity wrote:

Very interesting topic.. So in theory this was some peoples full-time jobs in essence?  Sorry for being nieve, but that is crazy reading some of what was on FT after reading this article about how much some people MS was.  You could live off that if you did enough... Although as you stated and others have that is abusing the system if you do it that much, if I am following everything correctly.

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From what i can tell people wre putting mid 6 figures an month thru MS. The 5 % is more than most people make in an month i think. I read some of the thread this morning and i was literally laughing. They seem to be blaming everybody but themselves for the shutdowns. 

[Anonymous]

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@CreditCuriousity wrote:

Very interesting topic.. So in theory this was some peoples full-time jobs in essence?  Sorry for being nieve, but that is crazy reading some of what was on FT after reading this article.  

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For at least one person it is a full time job.   Apart from the perils of being shutdown by the issuer, stores can also change their policies, so too many buying money orders at a store can make them go cash only.   (And "too many" can be very small, if a store that sold one a month now gets asked 5 times a week, that;s enough!)   So the person I am thinking goes to lots of stores, over quite long distances, varying patterns.  It takes a lot of time, but he earns enough (tax free) not to need another job.  Not for everyone though!  From my limited experience, "job" satisfaction would suck!

[CreditCuriosity]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@CreditCuriousity wrote:

Very interesting topic.. So in theory this was some peoples full-time jobs in essence?  Sorry for being nieve, but that is crazy reading some of what was on FT after reading this article.  

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For at least one person it is a full time job.   Apart from the perils of being shutdown by the issuer, stores can also change their policies, so too many buying money orders at a store can make them go cash only.   (And "too many" can be very small, if a store that sold one a month now gets asked 5 times a week, that;s enough!)   So the person I am thinking goes to lots of stores, over quite long distances, varying patterns.  It takes a lot of time, but he earns enough (tax free) not to need another job.  Not for everyone though!  From my limited experience, "job" satisfaction would suck!

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Agree, but alot of lazy people out there... Deffinetly if not a full-time job a job that supliments a substational amount of income for some people that chose to do it to that extent and abuse it like the 6 figures a month person or even to a  lesser amount.   Crazy.. Anyways, thanks for the info and sorry for your misfortune with the closure of the account.

[Luscher]

The only thing I see bad potentially about suing, is that it may ruin your long term relationship with amex. It looks like you have a be and they may close that on you too because you have an open law suit against them. Either way, they owe you $2500, and thats a good chunk of free money I would want, if it was owed to me