yeah that’s not good about TIO.
Hopefully comes back up soon.
Sounds bad: SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–PayPal Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: PYPL) announced that TIO Networks (TIO), a publicly traded company PayPal acquired in July 2017, has suspended operations to protect TIO’s customers. This suspension of services is a result of PayPal’s discovery of security vulnerabilities on the TIO platform and issues with TIO’s data security program that do not adhere to PayPal’s information security standards. TIO is not integrated into PayPal’s platform. The PayPal platform is not impacted by this situation in any way and PayPal’s customers’ data remains secure.
Upon the recent discovery of this vulnerability on the TIO platform, PayPal took action by initiating an internal investigation of TIO and bringing in additional third-party cybersecurity expertise to review TIO’s bill payment platform. A focus of the investigation will also include TIO’s practices and representations prior to the acquisition.
While we apologize for any inconvenience this suspension of services may cause, the security of TIO’s systems and the protection of TIO’s customers are our highest priorities. We are working with the appropriate authorities to safeguard TIO customers.
Our investigation is ongoing. We will communicate with TIO customers and merchant partners directly as soon as we have more details. Customer updates will also be posted at www.tio.com.
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Thank you for the update and this sucks.
So basically they noticed that TIO was being used in a way that “could be fraud” (which encompasses basically all of MS) and so they’re doing an audit which will magically result in all ms’ers being shut down.
My guess is they were bought because their financials weren’t great and they didn’t have a good handle on gov compliance which paypal has become a master at.
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So onto plastiq now, but even that has limitations on paying mortgages.
Another Staples $15 Rebate on $300 next week.
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Fees were way too high IMHO. Chargesmart (pre-Tio) was hugely popular back in 2011-2012 when we had the Chase AARP uncapped 5% on everything card. People were making insane amounts of money. Now, not so much.
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Do we think we can double dip on the Chase Marriotts Visa Offers promo - save 10% on $200 or more purchase? Excludes GCs but AMEX offers have never really excluded GCs, even though they said they do, the offers always post.
Yes, you likely can. But many people wouldn’t consider the Chase Marriott card one to do MS on typically.
My small issue with Visa Trialpay/Chase Marriott is Whole Foods sells a junky selection of gift cards and appears to not allow credit cards to buy them.
Rasheed
Sounds like Paypal is butthurt because it didn’t do its due diligence when it went over TIO’s books and is trying to wiggle out of the transaction. In the end paypal will be stuck with tio just as tio was stuck with chargesmart and someone at paypal in the acquisitions department will be demoted to basement copyroom duty.
Tio couldn’t have been bought by a nicer company 
I hope paypal paid lots for defunct tio. Serves 'em right all the times when they treated my money like it was their money.
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I am now warmheart. 
This is slowly but surely coming to an end.
I just started something new in the gas points arena that is scaling quite well. Be creative.
Delete.
I kind of agree with @SpeedingLunatic that there’s always something new. The guts to jump in hard and fast come from a long time horizon and many successes. I found something this past week and went 100%+ of my CL on multiple cards. I spoke with someone at the store and they said no one else had come in all day on the deal.
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This will probably die quick, and payments need to be scheduled before 12/21 for Jan1 checks.
Took my $2250 rent payment. Shows as pending on my CC.
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I went to my local supermarket to buy more $500 VGCs to max out my AMEX BCP for the year and two of them I went to today were sold out. They only had $25 and $50 ones. Perhaps there’s a sale this week on them, or perhaps they ran out and won’t restock?
Usually if that’s the case there’s a sale. I thought you were concerned about liquidation, TripleB, so are you just going to save them for organic spend?
Sometimes the stock that is on the racks is only part of the store’s full inventory. Ask and you might find they just haven’t put more out yet.
I did a bit more “MS” ish strategies the last month.
I bought a few of the Office Depot $200 cards during the discount period for around $403 for 2, using my 5% Chase Ink card. Not many, just 6 of them total, to use for organic spend. I wound up spending almost all $1200 this month organically.
I also bought $2k worth of $500 Visas at grocery store since I have a bit more to go on my 6% AMEX BCP card for the year to reach the $6k cap. I didn’t get them for the full $500, since my goal was to get the total below $500, including fee, so I got them for around $490, each time slightly different. Once was $492.50 and the cashier said “that’s specific” and I lied and said it was for half of my rent, as though I pay my roommate with a gift card each month.
I then made two trips to Wal Mart and got a pair of $489 Money Orders each time. First time I asked the cashier if he could do it on two different transactions, which is how I did it the first two times last month. He didn’t like that, and asked why, and I said because I have two different cards. He said “okay, I’ll do it on one and just run both cards” so I assume that meant he knew how to do a split payment, and I imagine I could have gotten one single $980 Money Order instead of the pair of $489s.
Then today I went to my preferred WalMart - which is in the rich suburb. I’m actually surprised there’s even a WalMart there, but there is. I did one of my MS runs there last month and it was much nicer than the one I usually go to, because it’s a rich-person neighborhood and there’s not a line of people paying their electric bill with cash.
I got my two MOs on two separate transactions, no problem. Then as I left Walmart I got pulled over by police. It was a bulls— reason to pull me over. I didn’t make two complete stops at the exit of Walmart. I just made one complete stop at the street, but I didn’t make a complete stop three feet earlier at the sidewalk. There was no one at the sidewalk, and I was stopped at the street for 20 seconds waiting for cars to pass, so it wasn’t even a rolling stop. Cop was super polite and nice. No ticket issued. Not even a warning. Just told me that the WalMart gets the most number of police calls of anywhere in the city, and they spend extra time patrolling it. So overall, I lost money on this run if I value my time in the factor since the traffic stop took 15 minutes for him to talk to me, run my plate and send me on my way.
I decided I don’t really want to MS much anymore. I secured a new contract to start in a few weeks and my free time will be limited. I do want to max out my $6k on AMEX BCP, primarily to help me float a few thousand dollars until my first contract paycheck arrives in February. So that’s my primary benefit of MS. In that I can get the cash right now but pay back AMEX in 5 weeks or so.
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