Consumer complaint received 2023-02-13
Company: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION
State: FL
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:
Charge company : XXXX  Pre-charge amount : {$400.00} Initial VISA Pre-Authorization Charge/Order date : XX/XX/2023 Pre-Authorization, monthly recurring charge declined : XX/XX/2023 once, XX/XX/2023 XXXX times, XX/XX/2023 declined twice. 

I'm a XXXX year USAA member. USAA used to be officers only and now the company has changed to an " XXXX Bank '' and has abandoned the officer only membership in order to increase holdings for agenda purposes and not the members any longer. You may have noticed that the most recent advertising campaign has one of the most highly paid and famous XXXX players, XXXX XXXX, who has a reported net worth of over XXXX XXXX DOLLARS. His fee for these commercials is certainly a multi-million dollar contract with USAA, which is members money. This complaint involves ordering a custom item online from a company that I have a long history of transactions and that was being produced on a timeline for delivery this week and pre-charges are charged to my VISA monthly during production. This weekend USAA declined the pre-charge eight times. I logged in to my APP and to my account online with no explanation nor ability to approved the charges. This Monday morning, firts thing, I called USAA and the credit card rep, XXXX, stated " no reason is given ''. When I asked for a supervisor, XXXX asked me if I wanted to, " escilate the call and what was the reason for the escillation '' ... A XXXX year old would know I did and why so this an obvious obstruction tactic by USAA management in order to obstruct supervisor requests. No operator is this ignorant and keeps their job in a competent company. After telling her multple times that she should use her own brain to fill out that company form, she finally agreed to get a supervisor and fill out the reason why. XXXX XXXX took the call and she confirmed no reason was provided and told me that the card issuer declined the charges and not USAA. I asked her to call XXXX and she refused. I asked her to get USAA to call XXXX and call me with the reported reason and she and stated USAA would not contact XXXX  to find out and I would not be receiving a call. So I'm a 30 year member and XXXX and my purchase from a company that I routinely patronize was declined eight times this weekend with no ability to call USAA and USAA provided me no option to authorize this via my app nor on the main online website account. There was no operator available over the weekend to authorize this charge. There was no call from USAA prompting me to verify this pre-charge. I've made many transactions with this company, one of which was last month for over twice this charge with no decline. USAA requires members to listen to a pre-recorded disclaimer before we can talk to a XXXX  card representative. I was made to listen to the same disclamer once prior to reaching operators and then once for each operator. That's three times listening to the same recording, even though I told each operator that I had already heard it. This is just pure incompetence. The first operator blocked my request for a supervisor with patronizing questions, like, " do you want to escilate this call '', when I had just asked for a supervisor. She also asked, " what is the reason for the escillation '' after we just spoke about why I was calling in. She can't be this XXXX. There is no way a human being is this XXXX and employed by a bank to work the phones. So this is an intentional tactic from USAA to obstruct customers requests to speak with a supervisor. The supervisor, XXXX, refused to provide a reason for the decline and refused to contact the card issuer to find out why it was declined. She even aknowledged that USAA would make no efforts to provide me this basic information about why my services were declined by my card holder. Every complaint that I issue to USAA is not reported unless I " request it be forwarded to management ''. Meanwhile, USAA is paying the XXXX million-dollar XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX of the most famous XXXX players XXXX the last 20 years, to advertise on TV and attempt to increase membership of non-officer applicants. The field grade and flag grade retired officers who run the board at USAA have decided not to use that multi-million dollar contract to make sure day-to-day normal services are assured, like not inundating 30 year members with recorded messages over and over due to lawsuits and USAA lawyers. They also do not allocate member funds to pay contracted companies like XXXX to provide reasons to USAA for declining standard and commonly seen charges on members cards and forwarding those reasons to 30 year members, like me. The USAA XXXX and XXXX are allowing management to use member funds frivously instead of dedicating those funds to day to day operations to make USAA a smooth and respected operation for life-long members like you and I. This diverting of funds is the same behavior we are seeing by our own government in Washington, XXXX Our tax payer dollars are being sent out of the XXXX XXXX the billions, to other countries who are living off of the tax payers and future children of the XXXX XXXX Tax funds are also being given to illegal aliens instead of allowing those who earn the funds to use them as they see fit. This is what USAA is doing with member funds. Instead of paying XXXX  to provide the reason when they stop payment on a credit card charge, USAA is using those millions of dollars to pay XXXX stars to advertise on TV for membership boosts. USAA used to be an officer-only bank for the members. Now USAA is an " investment bank '' being run by the XXXX and XXXX. Of course it is XXXX to take member funds and pay a football player rather than negotiate with the XXXX XXXX to provide a simple reason for a decline.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation