The news came in today with dozens of people being shut down on their Bluebird or Serve cards. As we documented a couple months ago, Amex is shutting out those who use their prepaid cards for purposes of manufacturing spend (MS).
- RIP: The End of Serve & Bluebird & SoftServe for Manufactured Spend + What’s Left
- What Percentage of Serve & Bluebird Accounts Were Shutdown?
Today, March 4, Amex axed the next bunch of accounts. Even some who didn’t do much MS had their accounts closed, apparently due to minor amounts of MS.
Note that many (but not all) of the shutdown accounts reported on Reddit are those who opened an account since November 2015. This is consistent with what we wrote in the previous post that many of those who weren’t closed initially had to do with the fact that the cards were just recently opened. Apparently, Amex gives some time from account opening before reviewing the accounts and shutting down the ‘abusers.’
In practice, today’s news is significant because it means (unsurprisingly) that Amex is serious about this whole thing, and that the previous shutdowns weren’t just a thinning of the ranks.
RIP
