Drinking from the CIPpy cup...what could go wrong?
I've been pondering something today, and I feel it's worth sharing. I want to preface this by saying,
I personally am ok with the risk of CIPpy and will continue to drink until the cup spills over.
That said, it's worth pointing out that
Chase is not afraid to shutdown accounts if they feel abuse has taken place. Earlier this year, a loophole was shared on r/churning that you could generate support links to any Chase card by manipulating the link. This essentially unlocked a backdoor self-support method. Shortly thereafter, it was discovered that these support bonuses had to be posted manually by Chase and could draw unwanted attention to your account. We subsequently decided here, that we would not support this backdoor "self-support" method and we removed all mention of it.
After this occurred, Chase sent letters out to some of r/churning's support link "super users" (more like super receivers) who had used the ability to PC their card multiple times to max out support points two and three times on the same card within one year. Some of these users also had participated in the link manipulation shared above.
The text in that letter said:
We reviewed your credit card account and it appears as though certain transactions represent a misuse of the rewards program...If this activity continues or if there is any other misuse or misrepresentation by you, we may close this and any other accounts you have with Chase.
A picture of that letter can be seen here:
The users who received these warning letters all were clear that they felt it tied to support links and I believe a couple may have called in to confirm that. Then, in a somewhat shocking move,
one of those folks who received a letter actually had some of their cards shutdown by Chase (presumably for the same activity as there was no other logical reason for the shutdown). It's worth noting though, that in all instances, they did not clawback any rewards.
How does this tie to CIPpy you may ask? Well it seems that Chase can decide in their sole discretion what they deem to be abuse of their rewards program. Could they decide that repeatedly getting the same card to earn the signup bonus while simultaneously "self-supporting" was an abuse? I certainly think so. It is almost a certainty that this loophole will cease to exist at some point in the future. Nobody can tell you how far away that is, and nobody can tell you what (if any) consequences may occur when it gets shutdown.
I will reiterate, that I am not going to stop drinking from CIPpy... But, I am going to try my best to follow some rules to cip safely:
- I will always do P1=>P2 or P2=>P1 clicks. I know that might not be possible for all (especially those in 1 player mode) but if this is an option, embrace it! Avoiding a true "self-support" click is much more defensible. In the recent Amex clawback debacle, nobody who was supporting via this method experienced any clawback,.
- Follow your pacing guidelines, don't try to accelerate the timeline and do 1 a month. It's just not worth the risk of getting yourself shutdown on your own.
- If you want to be paranoid, you may also consider trying to mix up your business type with each application. Perhaps you own multiple successful "businesses" and you purely were pursuing the best small business card on the market for each business...
Please don't stop drinking from CIPpy because of this comment...just make sure you've weighed all the options and are doing it in the most safe way possible for your situation.
Additionally, as we are advising new folks on this option, I think it's important that we make sure they understand that this is not without risk. I don't want to spook them, but it's irresponsible as a "DISchurner" adviser to not at least make sure they understand that this is a loophole and (a) could be shutdown and (b) could come with some level of consequence at some point in the future.
I'm interested to hear anybody else's thoughts on this - even if you're opposed or feel I'm being overly paranoid here...
Sorry early birds, hope you had your coffee/Diet Dr Pepper/Pepsi this morning!
Given that I couldn't be sure what offer amount would come up when someone clicked my link, I decided just not to post it at all.
I think part of the reason PA decided to do away with the stickers is you are more likely to get pulled over for an expired inspection sticker than a registration. The computer systems are so quick to check registration status and it's a minor violation it really didn't seem to be a point. I forget how much money they said it saved by not providing the stickers, but it was a good chunk of change. They timed it with the move to allow 2 year registrations to make logistics easier. I keep forgetting to peel off all the old ones so it probably looks bizarre when all us PA folks travel out of state since most states have some type of sticker system. (last I heard there's less than a handful of states not using stickers) Although I guess it'd probably look bizarre either way. I know I'm still shocked at seeing a nice shiny new plate with no stickers at all 
