Many readers report Dosh suspending accounts of those who were earning Dosh rewards on gift card purchases against the terms. To be clear, all the user does is link their card, but Dosh still penalizes accounts that aren’t being used as they want.
Even accounts with just a few transactions are getting caught up in this suspension. Reportedly, you need 60%+ of your transactions to be non-giftcard related for them to be happy with your account.
I always find it annoying when companies suspend accounts who haven’t done anything wrong, rather than just taking back the cashback that wasn’t deserved based on the terms. They do have something in the terms about this, though.
In any case, this is a heads-up that if you have a lot of gift card purchases at Dosh-earnings merchants be sure to keep those cards off Dosh to avoid account suspension. Readers suggest that you can try getting your account reinstated to be used for ordinary purchases.
Interesting update https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/manufactured-spending/2104152-dosh.html
FYI, can be just a few gift card transactions. Had 10 transactions on my account, 2 for MC/V purchases ($400 each), 2 for Amazon GC ($150 each) purchases and 6 misc online/in store transactions (usually $10-$15) each. Over the course of 3 months since my last withdraw. Went to withdraw today and locked up. So even the 60% possibility didn’t work, for me at least. Sad but it was always just a bonus on top of my Ink card.
To follow up, I got the same stock response about large amount of gift card purchases. I replied with only buying a few, not a lot. They came back with the 60% threshold and unlocked my account after a review. Cashed out right away without an issue.
Another follow up on this: I was ignoring Dosh, hadn’t gotten around to clearing my cards and closing, and had 50-50 gc and organic purchases. Noticed the other day that OD disappeared from my app so tried to cash out a few hundred bucks and had no issues.
got the following response from support.
Hello,
We have taken some big steps to protect our Dosher’s and merchants from fraud. After conducting a thorough review of your account, and it would appear that you have purchased a high volume of gift cards at Office Depot.
Per the Dosh Terms of Service, if we believe you are purchasing gift cards at a volume or denomination that is intended to abuse the Services or that appears to be consistent with manufactured spending, Dosh retains the right to suspend and/or terminate your Account and remove any DOSH received as a result of the gift card abuse from your Account.
You will notice on the merchant offer within the Dosh app, that it violates the Office Depot offer to purchase gift cards.
If these transactions are not gift cards, please provide itemized receipts with a valid explanation of why you made high volume/high dollar amount transactions at Office Depot. This would greatly help us resolve your case.
Thank you for your help, and we look forward to hearing from you soon.
Kind Regards,
I got the same bs email as well. I will probably refrain change up my question and send it in again. People who got the nicer email about making sure 60% transactions are non-GC…im cool with that but not this bs.
A suggestion for people who want to make a bunch of mini-transactions to get to 60% non-GC transactions. ODOM sells candy bars and small snacks, and will price match Walmart/Target/Amazon etc. upon request, so you are not really overpaying. So if you have a lot of money frozen on DOSH, buying a few candy bars, one per transaction and with price match, might make sense.
Same dawned on me, but it’s vague on whether they meant 60% of the number of transactions or 60% of the spend amount of all of the transactions.
I think 60% of number of transactions that tracked in dosh activities. I’ve done a tons of other transactions that not eligible for dosh cash back (both in term of number of transaction and total amount charged to cards linked to dosh).
They did suspend my account today after I added checking for cash out. the cash out amount is about $100 and my life time cash back just over $500. Account is about 3 years old). Pretty low bar to be honest.
One more DP:
All my Dosh linked CC’s are almost exclusively used at either Staples or OD.
Was trying to cash out some $ a few days ago and got the ‘temporarily suspended’ message others reported.
Contacted them and received the following back:
“I just wanted to briefly connect with you and give you an update on your account. First off, I want to thank you for your patience. I know it can be frustrating when you are unable to access your account the way you want to.
We have made some expansive changes to protect both our Doshers and merchants from fraud. Unfortunately, these changes caused your account to get flagged. After a thorough review of your account, I have gone ahead and unsuspended your Dosh account. You should now be able to access and transfer funds as usual.
Again, thank you for your patience, and I wish you a great week!”
Cashed out after and some of my pending OD purchases have fully posted since.
BUT: my OD MCGC purchases in the last two days (after my un-suspension) have not tracked on Dosh anymore! And just checked, and OD doesn’t show up in my Dosh offer section anymore. 🙁
consider deleting the app if they are not showing you the offers you want any more. they are basically getting lots of data on your movements (which is valuable for them) . that geo data is worth real money in the data marketplace. i watched my dosh for a while after a couple of months of no useful offers, it got deleted (this was maybe 18mos ago). i think they try to bait users initially with something to get people to use it, and then turn them off after a while.
They’re still collecting data after you delete the app. You have to remove all cards, deactivate your account then delete the app.
Mine is locked and I they asked to send in receipts if it’s not giftcards.
I wonder if eventually they just close the account.
Nothing in particular. That was before i read this DoC post here, so I didn’t even know I was ‘in trouble’.
So I just send an email saying my cash out is stuck, and can they look into it.
Then received the reply above, finished my cash out request and that was it.
Edit: to me taking away my OD cash back is de facto the same as if they would have closed my account. Since that’s all I used Dosh for (apart from Sams Club a few years back)…
I just changed my name and email / phone on my Dosh account and requested to CLOSE it. lost like 70$.
Not a big deal, i dont count on Dosh to work. I will try and reapply and see what happens.
Earlier in 2021 my account was flagged for review after cashing out a few hundred from gift card purchases and they reinstated my account, but after cashing out $1,400 I stopped using them due to offers changing so haven’t used them for several months. Seems like they may have changed their policies.
Seems the suspension notice is only when you try to cashout, right?
Yes
Yes, they are very deceptive. No notice of suspension ever sent. And while suspended they keep posting all your transactions and keep sending their junk emails to make the account look fine until you try to cash out.
Glad i was cashing out everyweek since the Sam club gift card purchased issue years ago. Only lost $80.
It’s always fun to see people get up in arms whenever something like this get killed. You were taking advantage of it and you knew it. If you cared about dosh’s other CB then you should have not used your linked card to buy GC or at least tried to stay as low as possible. If you only wanted to use it for CB on GC, which is the case for me, then you should have expected to lose your account at some point. It’s all part of the game
I am outraged that you’re outraged that other people are outraged.
Outrageous!
Truly, truly, truly outrageous! -Jem and the Holograms.
i am outraged that you are outraged that he was outraged about other people being outraged.
I agree with you 100%, definitely part of the game and no biggie really. Nobody is complaining if they take back the Cashback earned from GC purchases.
The only thing that makes this case different is- people link their cards to Dosh, so they can get cashback on any eligible purchase they may make. Set-it-and-forget-it. You don’t link it on a purchase-by-purchase basis. So just because someone bought a GC with a credit card that happened to be linked to Dosh who knows how long ago- doesn’t mean they were trying to break Dosh’s terms. The truth is the cashback never should have posted there, that isn’t the customer’s fault since they didn’t claim it on that purchase. So it is harsh to ban them permanently- makes much more sense to just not post cashback earned from GC, or take it back if noticed afterwards.
Agreed. Linking cards you use everyday is what they (dosh, their partners) want, so they get all your purchase behavior. Complaining that people bought stuff when they didn’t explicitly go into the app and clicking “add offer” is unfair.
Can you describe what happened with dosh/sam’s club?
Speaking of gift cards, it appears that Dosh is no longer offering cash back for ANY Office Depot or Office Max purchases. I thought it was odd that I didn’t receive any cash back from my Office Depot purchase yesterday, so I checked the app. Office depot is gone.
Still on mine. Used it last night and the purchase is pending. I currently have a 50-50 GCs v. regular transactions. Just above $25 now so I’ll probably make a couple more normal purchases before trying to cash out. But if it’s over, it’s over. It was always just.a bonus over the 5% on Ink. A fun ride.
Correct- the discounted GC at Office Depot are still completely worth it when using an Ink, the Dosh was just an extra little something on top.
Uh-oh. Then maybe they removed the offer from mine. After all, pretty much all the money I’ve earned from them has been from from buying Office Depot gift cards.
Yep. Fun while it lasted. Just like the old Yelp bonuses. We’ll just have to wait for the next sucker..
Still see them all on mine