Introduction
A reader sent me this yesterday (edited for clarity):
“Us bank closed my new reserve card cuz I bought 3 gift cards randomly along with other purchase using my mobile wallet. No warning ..no fraud alert… mixed purchases too. Today tried to use card and decline; called and they said your account is closed…no reconsideration…. so not a good sign for 3X mobile wallet with gc purchase.”
I asked the reader some more questions and it seems he had bought a $500 GC at a drugstore using mobile wallet just fine two times last week. Today he tried another $500 GC at a grocery store and was blocked. All 3 times he had filler items so USB must be looking at level 3 data or watching spending thresholds at certain stores. He also had normal purchases in between so it wasn’t purely GCs. The reader had gotten the card on the first day, so it’s only been 2 weeks or so? Seems the USB RAT team is not messing around.
Lessons Learned
Don’t even try to buy GCs using mobile wallet with this card. Heck, don’t even bother trying to MS on the card. Oddly, their RAT team seems to be somewhat lenient with groc spend on their Flex cards.
I have similar story. I had 5 cards and applied for reserve card on may 1. My app was sent for manual review and on the same day my cards stopped working. I realized it wasn’t fraud alerts because nobody called me. I called and was told that somebody will call me, but nobody did. What I called back 2 days later , I was told by their investigation department that I purchased gift cards using my flexperks card which is not allowed. She told me all my accounts closed, all points forfeited. Amounts of points is so large, that I hired a layer for help. Letters came stating that continuing relationships is unacceptable business risk.
What came of your action with the lawyer?
nothing yet. waiting.
Does U.S. Bank think anybody wants their crappy card badly enough to put up with this crap? Believe it or not, I don’t manufactured spend, and I have legitimately bought $500 gift cards before. Credit card companies can offer whatever benefits they want, and with whatever cap, but I won’t have my purchases second guessed. If they’re going to play that game, I’ll take my business elsewhere.
Post the closure letter. Otherwise dont create topics just for the sake
its happening dude whether you wanna pretend it isnt or deal with the reality.
No one is stopping you. Go MS all you want with the card.
Is it hard to get the closure letter. You have posted lot of similar closure letters ?
Why do people visit your blog if you don’t like what you are writing?
Here is my claim! 🙂 It’s not easy to get any spending on my Altitude so far. It doesn’t seem to be working well (or at all) with Verified by Visa online merchants. Have tried to purchase airline tickets on United.com and a foreign carrier — no luck, and customer rep tried but couldn’t get the payment through. They acknowledge the problem by citing “this is a new card”.
I purchased tix on United.com sucessfully the first day I got the card (last week). Wonder what the difference is.
Thanks for letting me know. Did your United purchases go through Verified by Visa splash window? If yes, at least I will know that this is not across the board Altitude issue.
Yes, it did, it confused me for a second because I don’t know I’ve ever seen that before…but then when it went through I pretty much forgot about it until I read your comment 🙂 The travel credit for that purchase actually just posted today too.
Would be nice to see a copy of a closure letter to know if this story is for real. I see people claiming all sorts of things already…
I know this reader. This isn’t a fake claim.
No offense, but there are close to half a dozen blogs and forums saying the same thing with no closure letters to offer as proof. Every claim is from “someone I know or trust”.
I say call BS and say go hard on MSing but make sure to come back here next week to tell us what happens next
So lame.
Had my Altitude card closed as well. Same MO. Bought gcs. 2 days later, shutdown notice in mail. No call, no fraud alert.
Did your other USB cards get shut down too?
This resonates my USB shutdown story from last Sept with the Olympics promo. Bought from Giftcards.com (I know, obvious, but didn’t know they cared), and they shutdown all 8 cards (Flexperks, Club Carlson, personals, business, the whole shebang) in my household, including the Elan Fidelity Visas.
Your last sentence also reflects my (extensive) experience, which is why I was pretty skeptical of the FM posts about caution on this one. Will be interesting to see as more DPs emerge…
trolling FM – http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2017/05/09/gift-cards-altitude-reserve/