Consumer complaint received 2023-01-17
Company: Avant Holding Company, Inc.
State: TX
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Trouble using your card
Sub-issue: Can't use card to make purchases

Complaint:
I have an account in good standing with Avant. 
My card expired in XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX  and I was issued a new one. I was also charged my annual fee at the same time. 
By the time I received the card I was unable to activate it because too much time had passed. 
I was issued a new card which took approximately XXXX weeks to receive. I attempted to activate the card and received confirmation that the card was active however, when I tried to use the card, it was declined. 

I contacted customer service and was told that the problem was that my card was not activated and they would take care of that for me. I was then told they received an error message stating the card could not be activated because the maximum attempts had been reached. 
I was told the only remedy was to issue me a new card, so I waited another XXXX weeks for a new card to arrive. 

When that card arrived, I attempted to activate it, received confirmation that the card was available for use, tried to use it and was again declined. 
I called the company again and received the same information about this card as the last. It was not active, they would activate it for me, they couldn't activate it because the maximum attempts had been exceeded even though the only attempt to activate it was my initial one. 
Again the only remedy I was offered was to be issued a new card which would take another XXXX weeks to arrive. 
The new card arrived with the same results and I still did not have an active card. 

This time I requested that they issue the card with a different number as all of the previous cards had had the same number and I thought maybe that was why there was an error regarding number of activation attempts. 
I was told I would be issued a new card number and I should receive my card in approximately XXXX weeks. When I received this card it had the same number, same issue. I still could not activate my card. 

At this time I called and reported my card lost in order to ensure that I received a new card with a new number. After XXXX weeks I still had not received a card so I called the company and was informed there was a backlog and it was taking approximately XXXX XXXX XXXX  days to receive a new card. 
I did finally receive my new card with a new card number, but again was unable to activate it. 
I have been told on XXXX separate occasions, upon requesting a supervisor ( and after being placed on hold for several minutes ) that a supervisor was unavailable but would call me to discuss this issue. That has never happened. 
I was also told that they would take other steps to ensure that my card was activated and I would be able to use it within the next XXXX to XXXX business days. I was told I should receive an email confirmation when the card was ready to be used. That never happened either. 

It has now been nearly XXXX XXXX and I still do not have a valid card for this account, despite being charged the annual fee and being issued at least XXXX new cards since since my original card expired. 
I have also been charged and paid a fee for services I am not able to use.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation