Consumer complaint received 2023-09-25
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Trouble using your card — Can't use card to make purchases
Company: GOLDMAN SACHS BANK USA (VA)

Short version : I'm locked in a fraud-block cycle where my transactions are declined, the card is blocked and put under review, and when the review is cleared, the same transactions are declined again and the cycle starts over. When I asked a phone agent to close the card because it wasn't worth this hassle, my request was refused. 

I opened this card for the cash-back benefits for Apple transactions , and I've been entirely unable to take advantage of those, and instead used a card that only provides XXXX XXXX instead of the advertised XXXX  XXXX  I applied for this card to use. 

Long version : XX/XX/XXXX  Applied for Apple Card. The application was approved with a {$8500.00} credit limit. 

I purchased a XXXX XXXX through the Apple Store App for pickup in-store for pickup that day, the card worked fine for this ( and two small transactions, one in the store, and one App Store transaction on my new laptop ). 

Later that night, the card was blocked for review. I received a voicemail asking me to call in, did so. I had to go through an identity verification process and was told the " Identity Theft Alert '' on my card would be removed. 

XX/XX/XXXX  Decided to return the XXXX to get a model with different specs. I tried to place an order using the Monthly Installements option through the App Store ( same as my initial purchase, but a different purchase amount ). The transaction was declined, despite the credit limit being sufficient to cover both this purchase and the pending transaction for the laptop I was returning. I tried two more times to see if it was just a glitch, including one time using pay-in-full instead of the Monthly Installments option. The last order ( pay-in-full ) went through. 

A few hours later, I received another voicemail asking me to call in. I did, just to be told that my " account was under review '', and there was nothing they could do over the phone ( so why leave a voice mail telling me to call in the first place? ). I mentioned the issue with the pending transaction ( the pay-in-full order that went through ), and the agent told me they would try to escalate the review. 

XX/XX/XXXX  Received an email from Apple that there was an issue with the payment on the order and I needed to update my payment method. My Apple Card was still blocked, so I had to call in to add a different card to the order, one with significantly worse cash back returns for this transaction. 

XX/XX/XXXX  My card was unblocked. I attempted to place a new order, using this card, for the XXXX XXXX specs I wanted ( intending to cancel the order that was charged to my other card ), and the transaction was declined yet again. 

A few hours later, I noticed ( unsurprisingly ) that the card was blocked again. 

I called in, waited for 20 minutes on hold, and had to hang up. I called in again and was able to speak to an agent. I explained this whole story to her. She put me on hold and came back to say my account was under review ( *again, * for the same purchase that was blocked, reviewed, and cleared over the weekend ), and there was nothing she could do other than tell me to wait out the review -- which I'd already done once, and had no reason to believe would have any different effect than it did the first time. 

Unsatisfied with the options, I asked her to just close the card. I was told that couldn't be done while the account was under review. I asked if she could leave a note on the account to close it as soon as the review was completed. She said she was making notes, but that to close the account, I'd have to call back in again after the review was completed. At this point the call quality degraded, I could no longer hear what the agent was saying, and, extraordinarily frustrated, hung up.