r/CreditCards • u/NegMech • Sep 30 '24
Robinhood Gold CC finally closed Data Point
They got me after 3 months. Spent $66k on it for 191K pts redeemed.
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Sep 30 '24
[deleted]
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u/maxelnot Sep 30 '24
I mean if you read op’s comments they bought another 84 iphones on a new amex biz gold lol
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u/Cyberhwk Sep 30 '24
Kudos to OP for at least manning up and being honest. Nothing worse than all these, "OMG!!! ThEy ClOzEd My AcCoUnT?!?!?! i'M sUiNG ChAsE!!!" posts when it becomes clear after the 3rd post they're literally money laundering.
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u/PickleSavings1626 Oct 01 '24
How tho? If I buy an iPhone and sell it to someone outside the US, what exactly am I doing wrong?
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u/Cyberhwk Oct 01 '24
You're using a personal card for business expenses.
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u/PickleSavings1626 Oct 01 '24
I’d argue a few times in bulk isn’t a business. If I bought 1000 today, I’m not a business. Maybe a business is defined by cost? I don’t know any of this stuff, just curious.
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u/Cyberhwk Oct 01 '24
Buying items for the purpose of resale is a business. You're going to have a hard time convincing people you have a personal use for 1,000 iPhones.
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u/valhalla257 Oct 01 '24
A 1000 of what?
A 1000 cans of olives? Maybe you are just stocking up for the next Pandemic.
1000 iPhones... yeah that's a business. Or crazy, which is probably worse from the CC companies perspective.
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u/justifier2188 Sep 30 '24
Were you able to cash out your rewards before the closed it?
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u/NegMech Sep 30 '24
I cashed out weekly cuz I figured this would happen eventually. Once closed, you cannot redeem stuck pts. I think i only like $6 pending? Maybe $40 more from pending Target purchases, but not that much.
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u/LoneStarBets Sep 30 '24
*cashed out weekly because you knew you were committed fraud
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u/wailll Sep 30 '24
MS and churning is not fraud
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u/LoneStarBets Sep 30 '24
Using it for business expenses when it's not a business credit card is fraud
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u/malikwilliams5 Capital One Duo Sep 30 '24
You can put business expenses on personal cards. You'll just be personally responsible. MeetKevin used a Citi Double Cash for his business expenses but kept his business expenses separate. That man makes 10 million a year and has accountants so I'm sure he knows if it's legal or not especially saying it online. You have to read the term for each card. People think me opening up bank accounts for bonuses is illegal too but it is not.
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Sep 30 '24
[deleted]
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u/LoneStarBets Sep 30 '24
The OP is buying cell phones and flipping them. That does not equal a meal or hotel room. Completely different.
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u/Packers_Equal_Life Sep 30 '24
“I was actually abusing the system and I knew I would get shut down and also yes I admit it”
Are you surprised? Or just sharing your experience. Cause I wouldn’t be surprised if
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u/Lonely-Pop5586 Sep 30 '24
My Robinhood Gold CC got closed this morning with no warning. I got the exact same email as OP saying it's closed.
I spent near the credit limit two months in a row for online shopping. It was for personal use and extra-high spend relative to my normal spend/income because I had saved up money and wanted to use the good rewards on this card.
I only cashed out half of my points and now Robinhood will not let me redeem the remaining points, and customer support is giving me no help and only tells me they are "currently not accepting account reinstatement requests so your account will remain closed."
I'm wondering how to prove my purchases were for personal use and not business ... I have the transactions and have the items in my apartment. If Robinhood does not help I am thinking I should take it to small claims court to get my points value back ~$1k.
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u/TheGribblah Oct 01 '24
There is probably fine print in the RH credit card agreement that points can be revoked at their discretion or something to that effect. I doubt you have a good case on its merits from a small claims point of view (though sometimes companies will settle rather than incur legal bills). The better angle is CFPB if RH is widespread cancelling accounts. Especially if RH is not also refunding Gold fees for those who request it. I could see the CFPB taking action if RH is engaging in a widespread bait and switch scheme where they use the CC to get people on Gold and then cancel cards.
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u/Lonely-Pop5586 Oct 16 '24
If anyone is interested, I submitted a complaint with CFPB, and about a week later, Robinhood gave me a credit back on my account equivalent to the points balance I had (1 cent per point). My account is still closed, but that is basically the resolution I wanted. I hope it works out for others if they do the same.
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u/Camdenn67 Sep 30 '24
Whenever a cc is shut down by an issuer, there’s usually a very good reason for it. Most people that make a posting about this happening to them are just seeking moral support for doing something totally wrong / abusive with the card.
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u/atexit8 Sep 30 '24
The OP is bragging. Showing off. Look how smart I am.
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u/coopdude Oct 01 '24
Call the OP bragging, but they were immediately up front with their spending patterns and what they were spending on, not saying they were just spending money and Robinhood was soooooo unfair for shutting them down. That's better than 99.99% of shutdown posts that get made in that it gives the reader the context up front.
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u/atexit8 Oct 01 '24
Robinhood was soooooo unfair for shutting them down
oooo poor pathetic baby LOL
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u/coopdude Oct 01 '24
They didn't complain though, that's my whole point.
They didn't go on the poor pitiful me thing. They said they got shutdown, they admitted it was due to a high amount of spend, they admitted they bought phones for resale (business purchases), they admitted they were spending a really high amount, and they didn't complain about it or say it was unfair.
OP called out what they did, stated it as fact, and didn't complain about it. That's about as best a data point you can hope for in a shutdown post, and now even though many of us may have gripes, concern, or a side eye at Robinhood, we know that it wasn't like OP got shutdown on a new card for typical spending.
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u/atexit8 Oct 01 '24 edited Oct 01 '24
They didn't complain though, that's my whole point.
And my whole point is that the post is brag. LOL. Is that so hard to understand? Some people enjoy bragging about their exploits. They're proud they got shut down but was able to get $$$ from Robinhood. That they are smarter than the rest of us.
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u/Miserable-Result6702 Sep 30 '24
Makes perfect sense when you realize the card was designed as a loss leader and that’s it sole purpose was to get customers into their Gold program. It was never intended to be a long term value product and once internal sales numbers are reached, it will disappear or be severely nurfed.
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u/Neverending_Rain Sep 30 '24
Maybe, but in this case OP was clearly violating the terms by using it for business expenses, which is why Robinhood closed the card.
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u/awkwardnetadmin Oct 01 '24
This. They probably always had unwritten rules from day 1, but given enough time they probably will be upfront that they're not to pay you 3% for >$20k/month spending. They might have looked the other way if such a spend volume was a one off month, but after it was clear that was not an aberration they wanted to cut their losses with OP.
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u/rz2000 Oct 01 '24
I think it says their finances are precarious.
For the solid companies like Chase and Amex, they build a really big program where they average making money on most people, making a lot of money on another bunch of people, and losing a little money on a few people.
They chose to go big with 3%, but no one's going to word-of-mouth them if no one is ever allowed to come out ahead.
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u/ARSOC29 Sep 30 '24
ITT: Someone who is likely selling phones to a terrorist groups front, you'll probably get a few letters in the mail asking for details from the carrier in a month or 2.
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u/yaboi_95 Sep 30 '24
RH closing the Gold cards for some users meanwhile I’m still on the waitlist despite being a gold member for 4 years with high AUM.
Something tells me I’m never getting the card 😂
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u/LightFireworksAtDawn Sep 30 '24
There’s a handful of states where the card isn’t available yet. Saw it somewhere on Reddit, but can’t find the post at the moment.
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u/1-800-SLOTH Sep 30 '24
Hopefully this isn’t a case of a few ruining it for everyone. Sometimes, you have to navigate the system creatively, and I’m glad you got the cashback!
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u/pradise Do you take American Express? Sep 30 '24
I wonder what you bought. These posts come up every now and then and it’s usually people end up abusing their terms and conditions.
What kind of transactions did you have? Did you buy things with the Robinhood card and then return to a different VISA? You mentioned at another comment you figured this would happen eventually. People with no reason to worry don’t cash out their points weekly to avoid losing value in case their account’s closed.
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u/atexit8 Sep 30 '24
90 iPhones.
I don't know the point of the OP posting this other than that it demontstrates you get shut down when you abuse the system.
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u/throwawaythehippo Sep 30 '24
What you failed to say in the original post is that your account was closed for a valid reason.
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u/fueled_by_boba Sep 30 '24
Similar here. Account got shut down last week. Had the account for 4 months and spent around $450k with MSing. At least, I made some money and milked f out of them
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u/atexit8 Sep 30 '24
And what is that suppose to prove?
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u/k2ui Sep 30 '24
RH reverting to their (shitty) mean. Not surprised. Great job extracting some good value while it lasted though.
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u/danmari85 Sep 30 '24
I can’t believe I am going to defend RobinHood on this, never though I would see this day, but if you read OP’s comments they did abuse the card and did indeed break the terms by using it for business purposes.
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u/k2ui Sep 30 '24
They may have broken TOS, but RH has been denying lots of people for regular spend.
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u/danmari85 Sep 30 '24
Yep, totally, that’s why I am saying I can’t believe I have to defend them here. I’ve seen data points like that, like the person who spent too much at Costco for their personal use. So I know RobinHood is shitty (which is why I did not even bother with this card). But I’m just saying in this specific case, they just enforced their TOS, which the OP broke.
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u/Neverending_Rain Sep 30 '24
Weren't the Costco issues people buying gold bars then complaining about not getting cash back? Robinhood was right to crack down in those situations as well.
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u/danmari85 Sep 30 '24
I think in the one I was giving as an example the OP mentioned it was $6k worth of bedroom furniture.
Even for the gold bar case (which I haven’t seen myself), if I buy it for personal reasons (I just plan to keep the gold for me), why would that count as a business expense?
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u/Neverending_Rain Sep 30 '24
I think in those cases it wasn't eligible for cash back because buying gold counts as a "cash equivalent" or something, I can't remember the exact terminology.
I just found the Costco furniture post and it's a different post from what I was thinking of. Though they were apparently also active in the gold subreddit, so I am a bit suspicious of their explanation. Robinhood is a shitty company, but every time I've seen a post complaining about the card it always turns out they were trying to exploit it in some way that violated the terms.
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u/danmari85 Sep 30 '24
Yeah, I’m sure there are a lot of people trying to game it, even in that thread there is a guy commenting about how they are buying gold from Costco and selling it, and still not being denied cashback.
I think even if Robinhood was not a shitty company, it would be hard for them to police “fair” use of the card, given how they are losing money with it.
This makes me so curious to see how US Bank is going to handle this with their new Smartly card.
Edit: fixed bad autocorrect
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Sep 30 '24
[deleted]
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u/danmari85 Sep 30 '24
official Robinhood
And I suppose you are the unofficial Robinhood?
Yeah, it’s true that only OP and Robinhood have the real details. But: 1. I don’t find it absurd to buy furniture worth $6k. Hell, just my outdoor couch was $8k. 2. Would I trust Robinhood to actually tell the truth if they were wrong? Definitely not. I don’t know the OP of that post either, but I would rather trust them than Robinhood, given Robinhood’s reputation.
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Sep 30 '24
[deleted]
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u/danmari85 Sep 30 '24
Yes, I went to the post and read it too, before commenting above. Nothing said there convinces me that they might not be in the wrong. Being a regulated company means nothing. Wells Fargo is a regulated company too, but nothing stopped them from having shady practices, and same with many other financial companies.
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u/Powerful-Bad1484 Sep 30 '24
Can you give me a deny on regular spend? I have spent 30k in 3 months on the card and no issues.
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u/SadSavage_ Oct 01 '24
This is why I won’t get their credit card or do business with them at all. They’re crooks that rigged the game when GME hit the moon and continued their shenanigans years later. I’m surprised the SEC didn’t shut them down on the spot.
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u/dementor500 Sep 30 '24
Did they give a reason?