Churning continues to get more difficult

First it was Target with the REDcard and now American Express has lowered the boom on many Blackbird and Serve card holders

Churning is difficult, time consuming and involves risk to your credit in addition to occasionally getting your funds frozen

Exactly 9 weeks ago, Amex lowered the boom on many Bluebird and Serve cardholders. While they didn’t outright shut down accounts, they did bar them from loading new funds.  Most people with frozen accounts had been using the cards to indirectly increase credit card spend.  The basic process involved buying Visa or MasterCard gift cards with credit cards and then using those gift cards as debit cards in-store to reload Bluebird or Serve.  Then, the Bluebird or Serve account was used to pay bills that can’t usually be paid by credit card (e.g. mortgage, rent, or even credit card bills).

Photo by DIEUET MONDROIT

Photo by Moyan_Brenn