Introduction
Well I told you guys last month that this wouldn’t last until the end of the year. Wells Fargo is sending out warning letters to essentially all of us to STOP or they will shut us down and forfeit our rewards. I for one will stop since I have quite a bit of pending rewards.
Warning Letter
“To manage risk in our banking operations, we regularly review customer relationships. We want to let you know that we recently reviewed your credit card account and found an unusual volume of purchases and/or payments made using this card. This type of activity may indicate misuse of the Wells Fargo credit card rewards program, and if it continues beyond receipt of this notice we will close your account and your rewards balance will be forfeited.
While we’re not able to share our specific risk evaluation processes, we evaluated your account based on a combination of the following:
*High volume and dollar amount of purchases you’ve made, which may include the number and amount of purchases made at merchants that sell cash equivalents such as prepaid cards
*Frequency and dollar amount of payments made in a short period of time”
So how much volume did I do?
Remember, I mentioned that this was taking up 3 hours of my life every day that helped cause me to lose weight. Well, here are my numbers from 4/8 to 5/16, which is about 5.5 weeks. This is NOT a brag & moan or a ‘who has a bigger eggplant’ data point because I know of people who were running nearly $1M a month on the card, so my numbers pale in comparison to theirs. I’m just letting you know what the time and effort it takes to run these types of numbers.
| SUM of Total Spend | SUM of Total Spend Points | SUM of Purchase Fee | SUM of Liquidation Cost | |
| Ebay | $43,499 | $2,175 | $0 | $0 |
| MGC | $13,995 | $700 | $155 | $32 |
| Target | $15,800 | $790 | $0 | $0 |
| VGC | $251,339 | $12,567 | $2,673 | $549 |
| Grand Total | $324,632 | $16,232 | $2,828 | $581 |
So what next?
Well, a part of me is actually happy this ended. While those 3 hours every day were great $$$, it took away time from the wife as well as work. I’ll go back to doing lower volume with a different method and get my private labeling thing restarted again. Oh, and what’s that stupid saying – “pigs get fat..hogs get slaughtered…” well clearly you should have been the HOG with this card. Not only did the hogs get so fat they became whales, they procreated little hogs who ran around gathering food for them.
How did you spend that much on ebay GCs? I always get locked out with paypal or hit the vendor limits.
No that was what I bought with the WF card. My Paypal account is seasoned and I don’t go over vendor limits; haven’t had any issues so far.
Sorry, I meant how did you spend 44k on ebay, didn’t realize there were that many good deals haha. Are you a bulk buyer for VGCs online or do you buy at the store?
I resell
Did you actually get one of those letters? I’m at volume similar to yours for months and did not receive one. Also, confirmed that others did not receive as well. Still seeing so many people get those letters has caused me to pause while I wait for my accumulated points to redeem soon.
Yes I did. How old is your card?
Older than 4 months but less than 5 months. Based on the anecdotal evidence it appears the new the card the sooner the letter. Still no letter for me and I am very surprised.
I’ve heard ppl with less than 2 months to go are not getting the letter, so count yourself lucky and run mad game the rest of the way.
Did they close your account? I held off until I got my points, then hit it hard for a couple of days, then saw all the reports of cards being cancelled and points taken back so I’ve laid low.
No I’m shocked I’m still alive. Moved my points out. I know other ppl who were shut down and some have had their pts taken away and some are still pending. So lots of mixed dps.
Congrats and consider yourself lucky 🙂
I still have not received a letter. Could be now because I have pretty much shut myself down for the moment. Or could be that my letter got “lost.” Or maybe I could hit it hard to the end and nothing would happen. Just seem to be too many individuals getting burned right now. I’m over 3 weeks out till next rewards, so it seems like to much of a gamble right now.
If I were you, I’d bang it until the cows come home. You never got a letter and pretty sure you won’t cuz ur close to the end.
Is your card still open? I’ve been banging it hard, but I keep seeing all these reported shutdowns (older cards) and reports of new letters going out (for newer cards). I still haven’t received a letter and am a couple weeks out to my next points available date. Trying to gauge what the best strategy is…
Hogs don’t get fat if they don’t eat.
So are you telling me to be a hog? I don’t want to starve 🙂
If you’ve been doing any meaningful volume, you will get the letter – so hit it as hard as you can, while you can. Slowing down won’t save you
Bloggers brought too many into this method. There was a particular blogger, not this one, who revealed too much from what he witnessed at a seminar. A million + WF dude foolishly showed his rewards statement to the blogger (what was he thinking), then it got publicized to bring more to the future seminars. Too much of those kind of reveals publicly on blogs brought this end quicker than it otherwise would have been with fewer participants. Many of us found this on our own. Some always say “without blogs you wouldn’t have known about it” which is just not true. Some bloggers were wise to show restraint because they know when certain things are too fragile, but there aren’t enough of those kind.
Bloggers are your enemy, not your friend. Never, ever, click on a link, go to a seminar or otherwise support them.
I wish there was somewhere I could do MO…no Kates near me and everywhere else is cash only. I miss the good ole redbird days!
eh there’s a certain govt institution that is nationwide…
The one that delivers things? Cash only around me too 🙁
Is that what you used?
I thought their system doesn’t take certain gc for MO
I wonder if people who didnt cycle their CL got similar letters, would be interesting to see as a comparison
Oh yeah, people who had less than $10K got the letter.
🍆 egg plant
Man my 🍆 needs work
Liquidation was mostly via MO?
Yes
You must be friendly with kate 😉
Nope, no Kate here
How many MO per visit in the line?
2K at Walmart unless you get a friendly cashier.
I don’t have any luck at my Walmart to get them to make it one large MO from a few GC’s ($500 each). Do you manage to get one big MO or do you do multiple $500 ones? Thanks.
always 1K MO. my cashiers know how to split payments.
I love it how you say “my cashiers” heheh Do you season them too? I guess I need to print out instructions on how to split payments and give it to the cashiers at my WM. Any specific reason why 1K MO and not higher/lower? Thanks.
Half of this game is social engineering. Teaching cashiers how to split payments. Reminding them that VGC can be bought with credit cards up to a certain amount, etc. You can’t go higher than 1K is because that’s the largest denomination you can get. Why go lower if the fee is fixed?
I live on the east coast in NJ. Do you know if the same principles can be applied in different areas of the country? Also, what is the V in VCG? I am wondering if it is something unique to the west coast?
Sorry; forgot about your post. V stands for Visa. Same principle applies nationwide, but each region will be different (dff stores, cashiers, etc)
No problem. Thx!