Brex Is Shutting Down Accounts Without Warning
Brex crashed the scene last year with one of the more profitable offers we have seen for a new fin tech / bank account. It was possible for small business owners to sign up for a new Brex account and earn $1,000+ in cash or 110,000 in transferrable points. Quite a few Miles to Memories readers took advantage of it, including one of our Facebook moderators Kevin.
Most people took the money and ran, not using the account going forward. Even though the card had a few interesting earning rates, rideshare in particular, the interface and tech was clunky and buggy. It was kind of sad to see for a company valued at billions.
Kevin actually kept using the accounts for collecting payments mostly from vendors and gift card resellers etc. That was until the other day when they shut down his account without warning.
UPDATE 6/20/22:
You have probably received an email from Brex by now saying that your account will be shut down by August 15th and to remove all of your money (and points) by then. I know this is a blow to many that have used this as their main business account since it launched.
The decision was made by Brex to move on from servicing small businesses and instead focus on fast growing start ups. They were struggling to provide good service for both groups of customers and decided that it would be best to move forward with the start up sector. It is a strange decision since they paid small business customers $1000 – $2000 in welcome offers to get their business. That is a start up with VC money for you.
If you don’t have travel plans that line up with one of their transfer partners, and still have points, I would personally cash them out at 1 cent a piece versus speculatively transferring them at this point. With how volatile miles and points have been, and with people sitting on so many orphaned points, I wouldn’t risk it for a little more perceived value. But, that is just me, you have to do what you think works best for you.
The initial notification from Brex:
Hello Kevin,
We are reaching out to inform you that Brex is unwilling to support a business relationship with your company. Because of this, your Brex Cash accounts will be terminated effective immediately.
In order to facilitate the transfer of your company’s Brex Cash balance back to you as soon as possible, We’ve sent a separate email with the account closure form. Could you please fill this out and notify our team once you’ve completed it?
This business decision is final, and if you have any other questions please consult Brex’s Platform Agreement: https://brex.com/legal/
Best Regards,
The Brex Support Team
After he reached out for more clarification this was the follow up response from Brex:
Hello Kevin,
Thank you for your response.
After reviewing with the team, we can confirm that we’re unable to continue offering your company an account with Brex. Although we are not able to provide specifics, some of the common reasons behind closing an account are related to a company’s business model, source of funds, spending patterns, payment history, or other circumstances that may pose a high risk to Brex, our customers, and partners.
This business decision is final, and if you have any other questions please consult Brex’s Platform Agreement: https://brex.com/legal/
Best,
The Brex Team
Well if that isn’t the big old middle finger I don’t know what is. Luckily he had already cashed out all of his points but he did have $80 still in the account. He will have to fill out a form to have them ACH the remaining money to another account.
Final Thoughts
What does he think caused all of this? It sounds like quite a few other people have had this happen over the last few weeks. It appears they didn’t like some of the gift card buyers etc. using Brex as a way to transfer their funds to people. They likely are going after anyone in that transfer tree. Which seems a bit much for using what acts like a bank account like you would a bank account but it is what it is. If you account has been used for this pull out your money ASAP.
For what it is worth, his wife also has an account that she hasn’t touched since February of 2021 and it is still active.
Has anyone else had their Brex account shut down recently without warning? Let me know in the comments if you did as well.
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Yep!!! Just got the same email from them. I’ve been using them actively for totally NORMAL business expenses for over 6 months now! Sucks cause I liked Brex. Whatever.
Same Here. I randomly got an email that my company account is closing with no reason. But I got a 2 month grace period I guess. Its a legitimate business in which we used the account to run my startup.
Yes today, I received an email with this message:
We want to let you know that as of August 15, 2022, Brex will no longer be able to offer you our services due to a change in how we determine account eligibility. Brex regularly reviews its services, and due to a change in company strategy, we do not believe we will be able to provide a great level of service for your business moving forward. We’re sorry that this transition may create an extra burden for you and our team is here to help you work through the account closure over the next several weeks.
Got the same email (the polite one). I used mine to receive money for my company and then to ach it back out to my personal in a sort of qausi-owners-draw. I liked the card because it gave a point back when used and allowed you to pair receipts with your transactions.I initially rated them 5 stars but once I migrate my money and close my account I’ll revise my rating on the play store. They recommended Bluevine, anyone use that?
Just got notified today that my account will close August 15. No prior notice. Like many in these comments I jumped on original 100k offer and haven’t really used the card since. I have 103k points. Any suggestions where to move them too? Perhaps I’ll just trade in for $1000 Amazon gift card!
I just got notified today (6/16) that my account will be shut down in August. I actively use the account for business purposes (no gift cards or churning) to pay vendors and receive payments. It’s a bummer b/c now I need to move everything to keep my biz running. With free international wires (which I used) and no monthly fees, I’m guessing I was a low revenue acct for them and got axed as a result.
I was given notice today that my account would be shutdown in August. I had two of these accounts for two legit businesses (LLC’s) That said, I only use the account for ride shares as it’s 8x return is too good to pass up.
Mine got politely shut down. The email just said something like a change in direction, and they gave me notice but I closed immediately and cashed out my $12.50 in rewards. I used it for monthly payments, but my daily usage of the card dropped to almost nothing since last year. So also not a surprise. I didn’t miss it and only signed up for the reward.
Just got an email from them saying they will be closing the account on August. We use it for business reasons as we (a company in Chile) have some clients in the USA and they pay via Stripe which is connected to our Brex account or wire directly to Brex.
No prior notice, no problems whatsoever prior to this email.
Very strange.
Anyone knows of some alternative?
Does Brex even have any active users? The whole concept of Brex is kooky to me. Right from the beginning it seemed sketchy as all get out. But when I heard private equity was involved, I absolutely wanted to take advantage of the promo, if only to screw the private equity self-described muckety-mucks. After jumping on the last day, the last hour, I crazily was given 100k. Then did the PayPal Invoice thing (which I use for my business anyway), rec’d another 100k. I did the absolute minimum transactions to get the points. Never did anything else.
Moved the 200+k points to Life Miles, called it a day, and assume we’ll be reading, sooner or later, “Brex has ceased operations, having blown through xx dollars in xx years”.
ps if you don’t know where to transfer your points, grab the cash. Worst worst is that you wish you moved the points to a airline. But then use the $ you got from Brex and buy the miles.
Mine shut down but after repeated messages to customer service they opened them up just so I could transfer out my points
We had our Brex account shut down suddenly last year. We actually use it for legitimate business purposes, for an online business, but may have missed a notification requiring a receipt be added to a transaction and we had our employee overseas accidentally make a donation on GoFundMe. These were not sited as the reasons and they never said the decision was final, so I pushed back. It took emailing several times but they agreed to restore our account, which we still use.
I had not used our points bonus at the time, so I’ve since transferred those to KrisFlyer and will keep a second bank account open for our business just in case. I actually like the convenience of using Brex online but the instability is certainly very concerning!
I was given a warning email after not using the account for the last year. I put money in and started making some ;not big or many) purchases. About 2 weeks later I got an email that I had been shut down. I was no longer able to transfer out the rewards and when I questioned it they told me that was in line with their T&C. Fortunately it was under $20, but on receiving the warning I should have immediately cashed it out. I didn’t realize some light usage wouldn’t suffice.
Definitely recommend keeping no rewards in the account.
Mine was shut down, but I hadn’t touched it since I got the initial bonus and transferred out the points. So it wasn’t really a surprise in my case. I don’t know if this is related, but a couple of weeks before the shutdown, I received several fraud alert texts right in a row. I was out of the country at the time and, knowing I had all of $5 in the account, wasn’t particularly concerned so I ignored it. I suspect it was most likely due to inactivity though but who knows.
If the platform and interface had been easier to use, I might have kept it active somewhat, but reading this post maybe it’s best I didn’t bother.
what is a safe program to transfer the Brex points to?
Whatever program you can easily use really. Lifemiles or Flying Blue would be my personal choice but may not work for you. Actually I’d probably just take the money ha!
i think lifemiles expire after 1 year while flying blu expires after 2 years?