The banks are out to get me. That’s not really true, but it felt that way when Citi shut down my accounts in April, and then Wells Fargo followed up a few months later by closing my checking account. In this post, I’ll give updates about those situations plus Capital One (which shut me down in 2021).
Capital One
Background
In 2021, I signed up for an exciting 100K offer for the Venture Rewards Card. Without any shenanigans on my part, I met the minimum spend requirements and earned the 100,000 points. Then, without warning, Capital One shut down my account and paid me just half a cent per point. The reason? User error in 2015. Back then, I had tried to move money between my Capital One 360 checking account and a Bank of America account. I had forgotten that the BOA account linked to my 360 account was a defunct account number. Capital One then shut down my 360 checking account. Clearly, Capital One has a long memory and holds a grudge. In 2022 (the year after they shut down my Venture account), my wife got the Venture X card and added me as an authorized user. A month after that, Capital One shut down my authorized user card. Luckily, they left my wife’s primary account intact.
My attempt to restore accounts
At the time, I had several contacts who worked on Capital One’s credit card teams. I reached out to them to try to find out why my account had been shut down. They passed along my requests, but I never heard back. Through another avenue, years later, I learned that the Capital One 360 account closure was the trigger that led to the closure of my Venture account.
Current status
My wife’s Venture X card continues to hum along fine. And, somewhere along the way, my son got the Venture card. So, in our household, we have plenty of Capital One Miles to work with and can take advantage of Capital One Offers, transfer bonuses, etc.
What’s missing that I care about? Two things:
- I have no way to transfer Capital One Miles directly to my own loyalty account. That leaves me without a good way to transfer EVA miles to my account. If I ever want to book through EVA, though, I should be able to book through my wife’s or son’s account.
- I have no way to get into Capital One airport lounges. I don’t see that as a big loss, since I can still access Amex Centurion Lounges, Chase Sapphire Lounges, Priority Pass lounges, etc.
Citi
Background
A few months ago (April 22, 2026), Citi closed all my accounts. Unlike the Capital One and Wells Fargo shutdowns (which were shenanigan-free), I readily admitted to shenanigans with Citi. I had made an unusually high number of big purchases that earned category bonuses and had cycled my credit limit. As I wrote in the post about this, I knew that the things I did risked a shutdown. There was absolutely nothing illegal about what I did, but I knew that Citi wouldn’t like it. It was a big lapse in judgment on my part. Like most people, sometimes I make mistakes.
When I realized I had been shut down, I found a way to access my Citi ThankYou account and transferred all my points to American Airlines. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever have a good way to earn AA miles with credit cards again.
I don’t blame Citi at all for shutting me down. I do, however, blame Citi for shutting down my wife’s account. She didn’t have anything to do with this, and her one Citi card (Strata Elite) was shenanigan-free. I assume she was included in the shutdown either because she was an authorized user on some of my Citi cards or because she had transferred her Citi points to me. Or maybe they shut her down simply because she’s associated with me. I don’t know.
My attempt to restore accounts
When I posted about the shutdown, a former Citi employee suggested I email Citi’s CEO and offered to help write the letter. I took him up on that. My primary hope was that Citi would restore my wife’s Strata Elite account. In the letter, I made it clear that I owned up to what I did, but that my wife had no part in it. They divided the inquiry into three investigations for Citi’s Executive Response Unit: 1) My deposit accounts; 2) My credit cards; and 3) My wife’s credit card. All three were quickly denied.
The only response that included a reason for the shutdown was the review of my wife’s credit card shutdown. Frustratingly, they listed things that happened on my account, but not my wife’s:
During a review of your Citi credit card account, we observed frequent purchases and multiple payments from unknown sources, which are inconsistent with typical consumer use. As a result, your above-referenced account was closed on April 22, 2026.
Current status
Two days after Citi closed my accounts, my Barclays Aviator Silver card transitioned to a Citi AAdvantage Globe card. That account is still open. There’s no guarantee that it will stay open long-term, but every day that goes by without it being shut down makes it seem more likely. That’s good news because I’d otherwise have no good way to earn American Airlines miles from credit cards.
What’s missing that I care about?
- The biggest loss was my old Prestige card. I can no longer earn 5X on dining worldwide. Additionally, I no longer have a Priority Pass card that offers unlimited restaurant visits.
- I also lost the ability to earn 5X at grocery stores with multiple Citi Custom Cash cards. I don’t spend that much at grocery stores, so this wasn’t a big loss.
- Without Citi ThankYou points, I no longer have a way to transfer points 1-to-1 to EVA Air. Instead, my wife or son can transfer their Capital One miles at a 1000-to-750 ratio to their own EVA Air accounts to book awards. I’ve never actually booked any EVA awards, so I don’t see this as a big loss.
- With the Strata Elite, I liked the ability to earn 12X ThankYou points when booking hotels through Citi’s portal. Combined with the Strata Elite’s annual $300 credit, this was a nice little win. On the other hand, I have hotel credits coming out of my ears from Bilt, Chase, Amex, Delta, and others, so it hardly feels like much of a loss.
Wells Fargo
Background
Wells Fargo recently shut down my Premier checking account because they “believe that the account has been compromised or impacted by potential identity theft.” That was cool with me. I had signed up for it only to increase my chances of being targeted for the Wells Fargo Premier Autograph Visa Infinite card and its 100K welcome bonus. That worked. I applied and received the Autograph Visa Infinite card and quickly earned 100,000 points.
The problem with the shutdown was that it made me worry about my points. Would Wells Fargo extend the shutdown to my credit cards and earned rewards? That’s a common next step with many banks. Normally, I like to keep transferable points as-is until I need them, but in this case I decided to play it safe and redeem my 104,000 points now.
What I did with my points
In my post about the Wells Fargo shutdown, I listed my top options for transferring my points:
- Choice (1-to-2): This was my original choice, but with points on sale at 0.57 cents each at the time, it was less attractive than before.
- Wyndham (1-to-2): This was a decent option, as long as I committed to signing up for the Wyndham Earner Premier card to keep my points active if I didn’t use them before they expire in four years.
- Air France KLM Flying Blue (1-to-1): Another decent option. I find excellent uses for Flying Blue miles every now and then, so it wouldn’t hurt to have a good stash.
Readers weighed in with their votes, as follows:
-
- Choice: 11 votes
- Flying Blue: 8 votes
- Wyndham: 3 votes
In the end, I decided to transfer to Choice. I sometimes find very good uses for Choice points, especially through their partnership with Preferred Hotels, so I was happy with this option. Due to a technical issue, I had to create a new Choice account to move the points to. I then had around 6,000 points in my old account and 208,000 points in the new one. I called Choice Privileges, and they merged the accounts so that I now have 214,000 points.
Note regarding the technical issue: After I had already solved the problem by creating a new account, the Wells Fargo elite customer service department manager to whom I had escalated the issue called me with another solution. The tech team had found that my old Choice account had a trailing space on my first name. They had me listed as “Gregory ” instead of “Gregory”. So, I could have simply called Choice to ask them to trim my first name.
Current status
My Wells Fargo credit cards are still alive and kicking. I have both the Wells Fargo Premier Autograph Visa Infinite Card and the Wells Fargo Autograph℠ Card. At this point, I feel like it’s unlikely that the cards will be shut down, so I’ll continue to use them when it makes sense:
- Premier Autograph: This card earns 5X at hotels, 4X for airline purchases, and 3X at restaurants & other travel. As long as I have the Sapphire Reserve card (which earns 4X on flights and hotels and 3X on dining), I’ll use the Premier Autograph primarily for hotels.
- Autograph: This card earns 3X on a wide array of things: travel & transit, gas, restaurants, phone plans (wireless and landline), and streaming services. I’ll continue to use it primarily for transit (trains, subways, parking, tolls, etc.).
At the moment, I have a little over 400 Wells Fargo Rewards points remaining with some more pending. For now, my primary use of the remaining awards will be to keep loyalty counts alive. Wells Fargo Rewards has an awesome feature: while most other programs require redeeming a minimum of 1,000 points, Wells Fargo lets you redeem 1 point at a time. This makes it the best rewards program for keeping points from expiring due to inactivity. For example, Avianca LifeMiles expire after 12 months of inactivity. To keep those points alive, I can simply transfer 1 Wells Fargo point per year.
Conclusion
Overall, things are going well…
As far as I can tell, the Wells Fargo shutdown was a false alarm. A reader wrote that a similar thing happened to him when he logged in to Wells Fargo from abroad, and that his card accounts are still intact. I had logged into Wells Fargo in May from both Ireland and Spain, so that could have been the thing that triggered the Premier checking account shutdown.
The old Capital One shutdown is long behind me. I guess that my checking account shutdown in 2015 will eventually become a non-issue. So, maybe I’ll try for a new card in 2030 or so. Regardless, it’s no big deal because I have access to Capital One Miles through both my wife’s and my son’s accounts.
The biggest impact of a shutdown on my points & miles is with Citi. That shutdown locked me out of Citi’s ThankYou Rewards. Luckily for me (but not for current cardholders), some of the things I liked most about ThankYou Rewards changed earlier this year: transfers to Preferred Hotels used to be 1-to-4, but those dropped to 1-to-2, and transfers to Choice Privileges used to be 1-to-2, but those dropped to 1-to-1.5. Also lucky for me is that I’m not yet shut out of earning AA miles through credit cards, thanks to the timing of my Barclays AA card being transferred to Citi.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Regarding comments: Comments posted at the bottom of Frequent Miler pages and posts are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
what was yoour exact shut down reason for Citi cards? I recently had my Citi card shut down and points confiscated… for
“Frequent purchases and multiple payments from unknown sources, which are inconsistent with typical consumer use.”
No- payments were simple from the same source, unless they’re referring to refunds
Frequent purchases =yes
Thanks for sharing the details here, but it was a little disappointing to learn that expert points-earner Greg the FM felt the need to engage in shenanigans! The “do as I say, not as I do” only results in consequences for everyone trying to be in the game. Despite it all, thanks for all the tips and content, it’s still very valuable.
Hey Greg, Thanks for sharing your shutdown experiences! This helps all of us avoid similar issues in the future. I had a Amex shutdown experience about 12 years ago and eventually was removed from the Amex black list. Today no issues applying for Amex cards.
You can product change Citi personal cards. So if you want, after a few months, you can change the Aviator card replacement to a Strata Elite or whatever you like
Use a VPN, Greg!
Don’t wf ever imagine their customers travel overseas and log in their accounts? Ridiculous, if it was really the reason for shutdown.
Are we all missing something here. Does Michael know Greg the FM and have some history or something? He is really pissed about something or he missed opportunity
I am furious with Greg for NOT denouncing MS after getting caught. It turns his entire “professional” aura into a sham. Professionals do NOT cheat, do not encourage others to cheat, take responsibility (rather than trying to game their way around it) and do NOT tolerate others who cheat. Greg is failing by this standard and that makes me furious. I thought much more highly of him. I feel tricked.
Someone use their Dell credit to buy Michael a new keyboard as his must be trashed by now
It sucks that Citi shutdown Greg’s wife, but I honestly think it was reasonable for Citi to assume that her account would be a vector for Greg to continue engaging in the risky behavior that resulted in his account getting shutdown.
Especially considering that:
A) They’re married and live in the same household.
B) Are authorized users on each other’s accounts.
C) Have shared points between their two accounts.
All bets are off once banks decide that they don’t want you as a customer and is based on SSN and address and anything that is associated with it. They have customer 360 View and its part of KYC.
They can go after anyone including parents, in-laws, your dog anyone in 360 view if they want and think its a financial risks that they don’t want to deal with
Yes because you were authorized user on her card, happened to my sister but only to the card that my parents were authorized user on; my sister other cards were not impacted
> I had logged into Wells Fargo in May from both Ireland and Spain, so that could have been the thing that triggered the Premier checking account shutdown
“Digital Nomad” I spend most of my time outside the USA and travel extensively for long periods. Currently with Amex without any issues. I was looking at Wells Fargo Autograph but this has me worried. Are they “bad” for treating foreign IPs with suspicion?
Going off of your Wells Fargo experience where you got a Premier checking account, do you have a blog post about the various elite tears of banking and what credit card or loyalty perks they allow you to have? Meaning comparisons of programs like Chase Private Client, Citigold, BofA Premier Rewards, WF, etc …
A chase shutdown is coming up next.
Just be patient Greg.
You a “Million Miler” too? Sorry, I mean, how many Million Miles have you flown so far?
Just wondering about your Discover status. With the merger stuff, could this be a backdoor to Capital One?
Yeah, I should have mentioned that. I have a Discover It card that will soon be a Capital One card. It will be interesting to see if they allow it to stay open!
Thanks Greg for always being honest and transparent with us! It’s not always easy to admit mistakes, but this is one of the reasons I love Frequent Miler. I love listening to your and your teams honest thoughts and opinions, even when things don’t work out. And selfishly, it’s nice to know even the pros are human and make mistakes ☺️
Greg – have you taken a hard look at your credit reports for any mention of fraud? Might be worth a review if you haven’t already.
Yep, neither my credit reports nor my ChexSystems report has any negative marks. And on my credit report, my closed Citi accounts show: Paid, Closed/Never late.
Given those circumstances, would it be worthwhile to dispute it anyway in the interest of cleaning up their internal systems at Wells and Cap1 (maybe not Citi).
There is nothing to dispute. Banks think these customers are doing something fishy and raises their compliance antennae or abusing rewards in some ways. They dont wont these customers and deal with all headache. Now if you are powerful like Trump you can go after them but once you are in shitty list – Its game over most likely for life as in their system its always tied to SSN of a person and family.
FYI – I have been banned from chase more than 8 years ago and they approve credit or bank account and within 2-3 months close it.
I, and my wife, got shut down by Barclay’s about 7 years ago due to me doing large volumes of gift cards. Cycling the account. They wiped everything and closed my account and my wife’s. I just applied for the Hawaiian card and Barclay’s denied. I am just glad it was Barclay and not an important bank.
“I am just glad it was Barclay and not an important bank.” Bahaha!!
With all due respect …. professionals do NOT engage in known shenanigans especially absent a willingness to be transparent about them, Indeed your expressed need/desire to keep the shenanigans masked should have been more than enough to cue you in to NOT so engage. Then to complain that you are in theory blocked from a use you have never done (EVA) but actually have a work around for is yet again less than professional. People come here for advice. Rather than “here is what the banks did to me” why not “don’t do these things if you want to keep your point earning accounts in good standing” The lessons here are quite simple: DON’T do “manufactured spend”, DON’T pay from “unrecognized sources”, DON’T abuse category limits. Trying to “beat the man” is a foolish game and seldom ends well (regardless of the adventures along the way). Focus instead on arbitrage opportunities within the rules. Getting banned by 3 banks for trying to earn what say 50k-100k extra points is NOT worth it and should not be encouraged by you. Yes everyone is entitled to make a few mistakes, but please turn yours into positive lessons for your readers not a whine session.
I…think you’ve misinterpreted Greg’s content on this matter.
Perhaps I have been harsh but this content is outlining other than professional behavior and lack the “dont do this” warnings
He had an entire post and podcast with those “warnings.” He even says in this post “It was a big lapse in judgment on my part.” Idk what else you expect–should he be wearing a digital hair shirt?
He should stop discussing it
I think it’s helpful to hear about things like this so people know this game has real consequences.
He should stop discussing it? I don’ understand why you say this since in your original post you said
He should stop unless he is willing to be transparent. He has refused to tell us what the shenanigans were and has not said “never do this i was wrong.” Instead he talks about as a tradeoff where he made the wrong bet. That kind of talk only encourages others to see if they too can cheat at minimal cost. Transparency is NOT what Greg is doing. Instead he is in effect “poking the bear.” That is very seldom wise.
It’s not cheating, it’s just something that Citi didn’t like. In Greg’s case it seems probable that it had to do with multiple things such as cycling, different payment sources while cycling, plus purchases in a bonus category that was viewed as rewards abuse. Likely without the cycling he would have been fine. But the cumulative effect of everything was such that Citi said no thanks, do business elsewhere.
MS is cheating possibly illegal and possibly money laundering. Try reading the terms and conditions. Its very clear. Despite what you might want to believe.
Greg makes his money from referrals. Banks dont want their referrers to cheat.
Its quite simple.
It is neither illegal nor is it money laundering. Terms and conditions are not laws. I don’t know if you simply do not know what you are talking about or are merely acting in bad faith here.
Tell it to the judge when and if you get charged. I also suggest you read the legal definitions of money laundering and wire fraud. I am a corporate compliance officer. Yes small potatoes are seldom worth charging but make no mistake intentionally defrauding your bank using the internet or the phone system is a crime.
No matter how you twist it there is no money laundering going on and no crime being committed. Rewards abuse could be somewhat considered defrauding the bank I suppose but good luck getting a jury to see it that way.
And posts like yours are exactly the problem. Good luck when the bank shuts you down
Getting shut down by a bank is absolutely possible if one does these things. As happened to Greg. That’s completely different than claiming people are committing serious financial crimes. I don’t do what Greg did fwiw precisely because I don’t want to be shut down.
Like it or not MS is usually done in a manner that indeed is a serious financial crime. That does not mean prosecution is likely. But dont kid yourself, MS at scale is fraud, wire fraud, banking fraud and yes money laundering. Scale sounds like an escape hatch but what counts as scale begins somewhere between $5k and $10k. Read and believe whatever nonsense you like, but fraud is NOT a game.
Here are the primary legal boundaries that manufactured spenders risk crossing.
1. Structuring (31 U.S.C. § 5324)
This is the single greatest legal risk for those engaging in high-volume manufactured spend. Under the Bank Secrecy Act, financial institutions are legally required to file a Currency Transaction Report (CTR) for cash or cash-equivalent transactions exceeding $10,000 in a single day.
The Crime: Deliberately breaking up deposits of cash or money orders into smaller amounts (e.g., depositing $9,000 on Tuesday and $9,000 on Wednesday) specifically to evade the $10,000 reporting threshold is a federal felony known as “structuring”.
The Trap: You can be prosecuted for structuring even if the money is 100% legally obtained. The crime is the act of evading the bank’s reporting requirement, not the source of the funds.
2. Suspicious Activity Reports and Money Laundering
Because manufactured spend involves buying prepaid cards, liquidating them into money orders, and depositing them back into bank accounts, it mimics the exact transactional topology of a money-laundering operation.
Banks are legally obligated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) when they detect this loop. While accumulating SARs is not a crime in itself, it draws the attention of federal investigators.
3. Wire Fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1343) and Bank Fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1344)
Fraud charges generally require intent to deceive a financial institution for financial gain. A credit card holder engaging in MS can trigger federal fraud charges if they cross from “exploiting a loophole” to outright deception. Examples include:
Lying on applications: Inflating income on credit card applications to secure the massive credit limits required for scale MS.
Synthetic Identities: Using stolen or fabricated Social Security Numbers to open fresh accounts for sign-up bonuses.
System Exploitation: Intentionally exploiting a bank’s payment gateway glitch where a credit card is repeatedly paid off with insufficient funds, temporarily resetting the credit line to extract more points before the payments bounce.
4. Tax Evasion
The IRS generally treats credit card rewards earned from purchases as a non-taxable rebate or discount on the purchase price. However, if an individual begins selling manufactured points to third-party travel brokers for cash, that activity crosses into generating taxable income. Failing to report that profit can lead to tax evasion charges.
The Non-Criminal Consequences
Even if a manufactured spender perfectly threads the needle of federal law, the activity violates the Terms and Conditions of almost every major credit card issuer. When banks detect MS at scale, they execute “financial excommunication” by permanently closing all associated credit and checking accounts without notice, forfeiting all accrued rewards, and freezing the funds inside the accounts while they investigate the origin of the money.
Of all the dumb comments on this dumb blog yours might be the dumbest.
Congrats?
There is no “defrauding” taking place. NONE. And no money laundering, either. No wire fraud (because, no fraud).
MS is violating the terms of your credit card agreement, but that is not a criminal (or civil) offense, it’s certainly NOT fraud of any kind, and no “judge” is going to charge you with anything – because no laws were broken (or even bent). Period.
The banks certainly don’t like it if you violate the T&Cs but there’s nothing criminal about it. Their recourse is to fire you as a customer (which they have done to Greg). No court involvement at all.
A corporate compliance officer should (would) know the difference.
Those who do MS hate being told to stop.
Greg’s letter from Citi that he published here is pretty clear about what led to his shut-down: excessive spend (eg cycling credit limit) and multiple payments from anonymous accounts. FYI, I knew someone who had a Citi shutdown years ago, and he thought it was due to large amounts of Walmart bill-pay to his Citi AA credit cards (which shows up as an anonymous cash payment to the banks). But, he actually was lucky, since a few years after that, AA went on the warpath and closed everyone’s accounts who had over 4 or 5 credit card signup bonuses post in the previous 24 months! This person’s AA account survived.
May be you should try MS or missed the gravy train and now sour grapes? If you are a real attorney then you are not busy with work and why wasting time on blogs?
I briefly worked in this field too.
At the end of the day, credit card churners exhibit an almost identical behavior pattern as identity thieves and money launderers (credit cycling, unusually high gift card purchases, many new accounts).
Financial institutions are within their rights if they decide that they don’t want to bank you because they don’t like your risk profile or even if they’ve determined that you are not a profitable customer. In Greg’s case, it was likely a combination of the two.
However, I disagree with labelling Greg’s behavior as money laundering. Funds must be illegally obtained in order for money laundering to occur. To the best of our knowledge, his money has been legally obtained through this blog and referrals. I haven’t seen him admit to anything that would warrant criminal charges.
Never said Greg rose to that level. But Greg admits to cycling funds from unknown sources which certainly looks like money laundering to a bank. The bigger issue (to me from any banks risk perspective) is that a paid referral is not only not speaking out against MS but stays somewhat neutral after being both caught out and punished. If i were still running a risk committee at a bank my vote would be to disassociate completely. Greg is a demonstrated behavior risk and the bank does not need the risks associated with people he may refer. The lack of “dont do this ever” on this blog is a strong reason to be rid if Greg.
LOL Michael you are embarrassing yourself, please for your own sake stop contradicting yourself. As you now admit he was not doing anything illegal illegal, no fraud and no money laundering. Your long rant shows your insecurities. Greg did a great job of pointing to what caused this and you did a good job of showing that you have no clue how to MS since you couldn’t pick up the clues and sit down and be humble when you don’t have the facts straight. Big risks associated with MS. But telling the world what to do as if you know the ins and outs and acting like the over-controlling out of touch parent no one wants is a wild thing to do in front of everyone.
Another MS credit card cheater heard from
What is simple is that Michael is sour grapes that he missed gravy train and does not have his own blog or bored at real job. Not sure why he is wasting time on blogs. I thought corporate attorneys are really busy. Something is not making sense
What makes no sense is Greg’s willingness to poke the bear. If you make your money from credit card referrals do not EVER discuss how you or any one else might benefit from cheating. Greg’s unwillingness to loudly proclaim “don’t do it” is simply asking for more problems. It is very simple arbitrage is fine cheating is not. MS is cheating. Dont do it. Ever.
MS is not cheating but an equalizer to all shenanigans banks do with using points as an arbitrage to cook up their books or lure customers to get their credit card and then charge 25% or more on interest – Now that is cheating!
Charging $7.95 fee on $200 gift card along with ridiculous transactions fees or other made up fees is cheating. Its game on. Buying anything using credit card is not cheating – Banks can stop giving points or cash back for using their cards and lets see what happens to their business.
So says someone who must by definition cheat. Karma that is not good karma.
Awesome Michael. Now please go back to your so called corporate attorney job if this is actually true. No one wants you on any blogs
So glad to know you speak for everyone.
I just realized, you want Greg to be transparent? AKA to lay out exactly how he did the MS?
Sounds like you’re promoting criminal activity. Straight to jail!
/s
“Getting banned by 3 banks to earn what say 50k-100k extra points is NOT worth it…”
And did you actually read the article? It doesn’t seem to me like Greg did anything sketchy in the pursuit of an extra 50k-100k points that deserved an account closure for his Cap1 and WF accounts.
“but please turn yours into positive lessons for your readers”
okay, now it’s clear you didn’t read the article.
He knowingly engaged in shenanigans and keeps discussing it as just a bad decision and wants sympathy for the consequences.
He definitely doesn’t “want sympathy.” He says in this article “It was a big lapse in judgment on my part.” I don’t think he’s disputing that he deserved the Citi shutdown; based on all the facts, he didn’t deserve the C1 or WF shutdowns.
Since when do banks do things in isolation? Greg has publicly acknowledged behavior the banks dont want engaged in. He has stated it was a bad decision but has not identified the behavior in question (but we have a strong educated guess) nor used this platform to be very upfront with “don’t do it.” If a human were to look at this the blog postings alone justify shutting Greg down by ALL his providers. It is clear Greg thought at the time that getting extra points through what the banks call manufactured spending was worth the risk. What he thinks now is debateable since he does not seem to understand why he would be viewed as a “bad customer.” Paid referrals from “‘bad customers” are viewed as “bad business.” Most financial institutions want to know the sources of money being sent through their systems. They dont want to get anywhere near money laundering. Yet Greg has told us he was shut down for large usage of unknown sources. Sorry but Greg paints himself as an unrepentant risk. I suspect more of his cards are destined for the cancel heap.
You keep repeating yourself without engaging with the arguments others make.
TravelGeek what arguments do you want engagement with? Greg sinned, he has not adequately repented, his acts of contrition are insufficient and he has proven that he is willing to engage in forbidden behavior. In short he is a KNOWN risk they are wise to avoid. All the folks thst do not want to accept that truth and hope that “some misbehavior is ok” are simply wrong. Greg is unwilling to step up and say dont do MS ever. Shame on him.
Hilarious. Are you a part time priest and corporate compliance officer? Or just fulltime blog troll?
Ah another sinner revealed
I have to agree with you, Michael. I have worked at a bank, and known the rules are archaic, and many come from Federal laws. Greg has admitted to doing large scale manufactured spend, using buying groups. Why everyone misses that is mindful ignorance. What is most egregious is using Visa/MC gift cards to do the spend. These are considered banking instruments. Cycling credit is another big issue because you are circumventing the credit limit that a bank has established for your income. Biggest thing to learn from all of this: if a bank closes you down, the chances that will ever change are almost zero. Don’t piss-off the banks!