"All cards now have a $3K max because of the government."

March 11, 2022 7:46 PM

Help me understand this preposterous thing my boss said.

Location: USA

Characters:
Me, a technical-minded employee of a small "family style" technical services company
My boss, a charismatic small-business owner with a lot of practical knowledge about our sector but not a lot of experience running a business

Backstory: I have been tasked with the purchase of multiple pieces of computer equipment from one of the big computer manufacturers. It's about 6 items, totaling $9000. I have been provided with a photograph of a company credit card. Initially I tried to order all the items in one single purchase, you know, like a sane person would. There were multiple issues with this and despite getting lots of additional information from my boss, ultimately this initial attempt failed, the transaction being refused by the bank because... I'm not sure why exactly but I think it's because my boss didn't know the correct NAME ON CARD for me to put in to the payment details. The actual name on the card in the photograph is no person's name, it's some odd bastardization of the company name. So today I tried a different approach.

Today's action: After talking to the bank, and clarifying NAME ON CARD my boss instructed me to order each item individually. It's not important here that I think this was stupid. Regardless, I did so. I ordered item #1, and it worked. The order was accepted, the bank gave the order it's blessing and we're off to the races. So I go to order item #2, which is an exact duplicate of item #1, but I was instructed that I had to do it this way because of some transaction limit. Of course the big computer manufacturer decided that order #2 was an error, a duplicate of order #1, and froze it.

MAIN POINT: In my frustration I politely suggested to my boss that, for the future, perhaps we should look into strengthening our payment methods. Either up the transaction limit on one of our other business credit card accounts, or opening a business credit account with the big computer manufacturer directly, so we can quit fucking around with this rinky-dink-ass local bank card that I had been using. His response to me was a message: "All cards now have a $3K max because of the government." At this point I sent him Chloe.gif and just dropped it.

But I couldn't stop thinking about it! What in the world was he thinking he was talking about? It seems absolutely ludicrous to me that he could think this to be true. If he were right, no one in America could buy, for example, a Mac Pro (starting at $5999) or a hundred-thousand other high-priced items on a credit card. If he were correct, then the entire US online shopping world would look completely different. It boggles my mind that he thinks this could be true.

So surely I misunderstood him? Or is there some particularly virulent disinformation going around about that? Did someone on FaceBook said "Joe Biden said he hates America so he's limiting all credit card transactions to $3000 and giving the rest to China" cuz my boss just might believe that.

posted by glonous keming to Law & Government (17 answers total)

It's possible. It's also possible that he told you this in order to try to save face.
posted by rednikki at 7:59 PM on March 11, 2022 [9 favorites]

Is it possible he was only able to get a 3k credit limit on the card and is blaming “the government” for his crappy credit?
posted by cgg at 8:01 PM on March 11, 2022 [52 favorites]

$3K may be the threshold now, over which transactions must be reported? Because of the War on Drugs. (Used to be $5K)
posted by Rash at 8:10 PM on March 11, 2022

"All cards now have a $3K max because of the government."

If you don't feel 100% confident telling your boss that this is obviously nonsense, you need to start looking for a new job.

I mean, does he seriously believe that there's a world where Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or whoever walks into an antique store, sees something they like with a $5000 price tag, and has to go to an ATM to take out some cash? No, he doesn't. This is either a deflection or lunacy, and it doesn't matter which.
posted by mhoye at 8:25 PM on March 11, 2022 [11 favorites]

I think my takeaway from this would be don't let my name be associated with any financial transactions going forward.
posted by bleep at 8:30 PM on March 11, 2022 [31 favorites]

The IRS/money laundering law is the Bank Secrecy Act, which requires banks to report cash (not credit card) transactions over $10,000 per day, and it's been that way since the 70's.

One element in Biden's proposed "American Families Plan" - which was part of the "Build Back Better" package of legislation that was fought over for most of 2021 - included a requirement for banks to report (in the aggregate) business & personal transactions over $600. Largely to crack down on tax evasion. Here's a Snopes.com article on it. This got some banks all aflutter, and there may have been some bullshit slung about in the reaches of right-wing FB & social media.

But this does not seem to have been a big thing - at least not big enough for more liberal writers & journalists & social media folks to notice that the right wing were cranking up the outrage machine for the umpteenth time.

Did someone on FaceBook said "Joe Biden said he hates America so he's limiting all credit card transactions to $3000 and giving the rest to China" cuz my boss just might believe that.

Honestly, if he's like that, my bet is that he's got a $3k limit imposed by the bank and is just reflexively blaming "the government" for it because "those people" are the source of all his problems.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:38 PM on March 11, 2022 [20 favorites]

So surely I misunderstood him?

yeah, whenever I hear someone say something so contra-reality, about 90% of the time it's a communication error.

I use active listening type responses to confirm or rule out the error. Something like, "just so that I understand you, do you mean that all bank cards in the USA have a credit limit of less than $3K due to the government? Or do you mean something else?"

Then and only then will I allow myself to say (quietly to myself) "holy fuck, you are a damn refugee from reality."

_{a close acquaintance of mine has access to a credit card with a limit in excess of $3000. We'll do the buy for you for a small 10% consideration, but payment must be in advance}
posted by Sauce Trough at 8:40 PM on March 11, 2022 [16 favorites]

My fear is that your boss used his financials to apply for a number of different cards simultaneously, but under different variations of the business name in order to escape algorithms which detect this tactic, and got several cards with provisional $3K limits.

And is now attempting to spend the $3K from each card as fast as he can before the various issuers have time to figure out what’s going on and cancel the cards. And wants you to do it so the orders appear to be coming from different number/identitys than ones he is using.

Which would mean that you don’t want anything more to with this under any circumstances.
posted by jamjam at 9:08 PM on March 11, 2022 [14 favorites]

My guesses are saving face (he must have really bad credit - my first credit card in college had a credit limit more than $3k and I was 18 and had never had a real job), former criminal activities, or hardcore Q Anon guy. Those are the only options.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:17 PM on March 11, 2022 [6 favorites]

Hi so I'm in charge of the bank cards at a small business and I often have to delegate spending on that card and then track things down afterwards. I'm also a signer on the card and many other employees or contractors are not.

As for the "government thing" that's just bullshit. I think all it signifies is the boss is a bullshitter. It could be a bullshit joke, or a bullshit lie, or a bullshit conspiracy theory.

The company card I use (that we get through a mid-sized bank) has spending limits that I can set, and I often do. There's a limit per transaction, and a total daily limit. The bank does impose limits but they are quite high, I usually set them lower so that the risk of theft or error is smaller. $3k is a reasonable limit. Many small business credit cards require that an owner sign on to the card with a personal guarantee - so if the business (LLC or corporation) goes bankrupt, the owner is personally responsible for the debts on that card. I'd be cautious delegating that kind of risk to others.

Raising the limit requires that I make a phone call to the bank and do verification - usually business info and a list of recent transactions, so often I'll break things up into smaller pieces to avoid that.

As for opening credit accounts at business - if they are small and local I'll always ask for invoices with 30 day payment terms because hey - it's great to be able to just order as needed and pay bills in one batch every couple weeks. But if it is a big company or one that has strict rules - required a formal credit app, credit references, etc. I will try and avoid it because it's a lot of paperwork.

It's also harder to monitor spending on multiple vendor accounts. I'd like to keep my eyes on as few accounts as possible so running everything through one card or bank account is much easier than tracking open balances at ten different vendors.

The photo of the card is pretty normal - it's not great security but it's better than entering the text and numbers in communication that goes over the internet. People delegate purchasing all the time, it's not like you are buying it, you are doing work and buying things on behalf of the card owner. The chance that the boss is running a scam and you are the mark, and will suddenly get hounded for the companies debts, is virtually nil.
posted by sol at 9:30 PM on March 11, 2022 [15 favorites]

There's really no way to know why the bank refused your transactions, as they each have different criteria on what they considered to be suspicious. And they can't tell you because then the crooks would avoid doing that to trigger them.

(Once I was told that if you go to fill up gas, then go to buy jewelry, the jewelry transaction will be declined, because a lost card can often be "tested" at a gas pump without attendant seeing it, then once it "works" the crooks run it at a jewelry store to buy something expensive but easy to carry and flip/fence. )

But agree with all the others that his explanation was "horse puckey".
posted by kschang at 1:21 AM on March 12, 2022

Your boss is full of it. I got a new credit card last year with a $3000 limit because my income was very low. They have begun offering me a higher limit as of a week ago, proof that even if one does have a low initial limit, it can be raised.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 2:02 AM on March 12, 2022

Corporate / business cards can sometimes have weird limits imposed. But usually that's large businesses who request them from the bank to fit their own internal rules.

For example low level people have cards with a high credit limit but can only do 5k per transaction. Then there's a higher level person with a higher transaction limit.

But after that they do purchase orders instead of a credit card, which I have no idea how those work.

Tldr, your boss is making things up. You need to work with the bank to figure out what's going on with the per purchase transaction limit, and the total credit limit, and how much of the limit is used already. My guess is the total credit limit is close to tapped out.

And then with the weird card name there's always the possibility for credit card fraud which you'd rather not be involved with, so be careful.
posted by TheAdamist at 4:41 AM on March 12, 2022 [4 favorites]

I have run into so many small business owners who (obviously erroneously) blame the government for making/requiring them do things that are counter to how things are done in a real business, that I swear it must be taught in some bogus small business seminar. I honestly once heard a guy blame the government for making him pay workers no more than the minimum wage! Because that was the wage the government required!, totally ignoring the “minimum” part of the term.

This all to say that, yeah, your boss is blowing smoke up your butt. He probably just can’t get a decent credit line.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:00 AM on March 12, 2022 [5 favorites]

Although it is preferable, you don't have to be particularly smart or well informed to run a business. You do, however, need to be both of those things if you're hoping to commit fraud without being caught. Where your boss falls on this spectrum of intention is for you to judge. May it guide your choice of continuing to work there, since the sticky fingers of money laundering can leave marks on people other than the intentional perpetrator.
posted by ananci at 7:43 AM on March 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

I think this thread has been well-handled so far. As one single data-point, as someone who purchases high-value technical items frequently at work, my corporate card has a $50K limit. It is possible for me to increase it to $250K if necessary. This is a bog-standard AmEx corporate card (the green one).
posted by saeculorum at 7:47 AM on March 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

If he wrote, verbatim, "All cards now have a $3K max because of the government," he surely meant it as "All [our] cards..." -- the same way you could write "all employees need to report to work at 9am sharp" and not be talking about every employee at every company everywhere.

And so it's still silly that he's blaming the "government" instead of the bank, but...a whole lot less deranged than how you took it. (I think your chloe.gif response may have been more aggressive than you'd intended!)
posted by nobody at 8:16 AM on March 12, 2022 [3 favorites]