If you were heavy into manufactured spending (what I like to call the art of spending money without actually spending money), then I’m sure you already know about the fact that many people’s Bluebird and Serve accounts were shut down a week or so ago. Or rather I should say that the accounts themselves were not shut down, but many (most?) users received notice that they would no longer be able to load money into their accounts. Since that is what most people were using their Bluebird / Serve accounts for, for all intents and purposes, the accounts of most Bluebird and Serve users are dead.
What to do now?
For whatever reason, my account (Serve One VIP) was NOT shut down and I did not receive that letter. I did speculate a little bit about what the reasons why some users were shut down and others were not, but as far as I have seen, we still haven’t figured out what the pattern might be.
I’ve read a few posts about what to do if your Bluebird or Serve account is still open. Frequent Miler suggested this was NOT a one-time thing, and people were going to continue to be shutdown if they violated whatever algorithm Amex came up with. He suggested only unloading via spend is safe. Julian the Devil’s Advocate posted over on Travel Codex that the best way to go forward is to keep doing whatever you WERE doing.
Loading my Serve card today
As I’ve said before, I am not a huge manufactured spender, and even though I am blessed to have a working Kate (even at my closest Walmart store!), I have not been in the habit of regularly loading. I had a few gift cards that I have been meaning to load – some from a recent $300 gift card deal online at Staples, some that I bought to make minimum spending on a 15,000 mile retention offer, and others meeting minimum spend on my new BBVA Compass NBA card.
When I got there I was a little nervous actually that perhaps I had missed the email and my account would not work to load, but (anti-climatically) everything worked just fine. I loaded 3 $500 cards and 2 $300 cards (taking a break in between since I didn’t want to run into the 10 minute $2000 load limit). Other than Kate SHOUTING “FIVE… HUNDRED… DOLLARS” to what seemed like the entire store, there were no issues.
What about you? Was your Bluebird or Serve account spared from #BirdArmageddon? If so, have you been loading it lately, and if so, how?
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Since the news of shut down of last week, I’ve loaded $3000 each card. I only loaded with Walmart CS, not KIOSK, $1000/transaction. I don’t do $300 or $500. I’ve been using check writing twice a month per BB.
I’m glad you didn’t get shut down, but not getting the letter doesn’t mean not getting shut down. I was shut down without any notification on my Bluebird.
That was why I was a little bit nervous going into Walmart today – I wasn’t 100% sure that it would load correctly
To my knowledge if you put earphones into the earphone jack on KATE it wont scream out your amount. Ive read about this but cant confirm because there are no working KATEs within 10,000 miles of NYC
Yeah I’ve heard about that but I never have a pair of headphones around with me…
I didn’t receive the dreaded email and my account is still up (hopefully because we actually use it?) but the loads failed 2 or 3 days ago both via K and CS. Called AmEx to confirm all was well with the account, no system wide issues etc. Will try again tomorrow or Monday. (>.<)
I am new to the “art” of manufactured spending and just opened a serve account. Is there a perticular type of visa gift card to use or not use to do this?
Usually the ones from US Bank and Metabank work okay. Start small, try things out, only go as fast as you feel comfortable
If you weren’t shut down, I guess I am struggling to figure out the point of this post.
Hi
I loaded at Kate but one GC did not load but the money was taken off the card ! I got no receipt from Kate .
I have called but have to start a 45 day disputed charge case online .
Any suggestions ?
I hate to loose $200.00
Thanks
Rich
I use kate often. I still have two bb that survived the cut.
I ALWAYS bring with me some foam tape that is used for window stripping. I use it to shut kate up. When I am finished I remove it.
The more interesting aspect is unloading rather than loading. If you do a billpay for near the entire amount you loaded in the near future, it would be interesting to know if you ultimately get shut down. I lost one bird in the shut down wave, but still have 2 alive.