Consumer complaint received 2023-11-26
Product: Prepaid card — General-purpose prepaid card
Issue: Trouble using the card — Trouble using the card to spend money in a store or online
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY (LA)

I purchased a American Express XXXX XXXX XXXX  from XXXX on XXXX XXXX XXXX for the amount of XXXX dollars. The total amount of the purchase was XXXX. When I received me XXXX XXXX XXXX I activated it and tried to make a purchase it was declined. I then called XXXX the first sent me a new link to my card saying my zip code wasn't registered to the card. I tried again to pay my light bill it was again declined. I called XXXX again this time I'm told that I had to redeem my gift card so I was given a link and I followed the instructions I was given. Yet again I tried to use my XXXX XXXX XXXX for a purchase at XXXX and was still declined.I decided to call American Express gift card and they keep saying it's the merchant I have to call the merchants. That the card is activated and working properly on there end. Well I called XXXX because they was one of the merchants I tried to make a purchase with.I was hung up on transfered to the XXXX language line, I was transfered to the wrong department a couple times. I finally asked to speak with a supervisor. She told me she had to put in a request for the refund and she was going to do so through the escalation team. She provided me with a incident number and told me to call back in 24 to 48 hours and give them the number and they'll be able to help me. When I did call back It was like there was no request nor had it been put in for escalation. She said her supervisor said because no one at the gift card department was trying to help me nor at American Express the best thing to do is to process the refund. She then said for some reason her supervisors system wasn't allowing him to process the refund and she could only give refunds for no more then XXXX dollars. So she transfered me over to the department that could process it. Despite having a 20 min wait I stayed in the phone and waited. When someone picked up the lady was confused at why I had been transferred over to her department. She then asked for a direct transfer to the department that could help she transfered as I waited about 4 mins then the phone disconnected. I called back this time the lady said I should speak to someone in billing. She gave me the number when I called this time the lady told me that everyone I spoke to told me that XXXX would not refund money for third party gift cards despite me having bought it there. Even though this is not true this was the first time I actually heard this. So I called American Express again they said again it's the merchant the car is activated and working properly on there end. Then I was told in order to get a refund if they can in fact give a refund I'd have to wait until XXXX dollars was no longer on hold. When I asked why would there be XXXX cent holds for every time I tried to make a purchase even they did not go through for me. The CSR couldn't give me any reason why the merchants would be able to charge my card XXXX cents but I could make not one purchase.So basically I'm left with XXXX will not help me and American Express I will have to wait and see if they will or can even refund my money back.