Consumer complaint received 2024-11-03 00:00:00
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: Incomm Holdings Inc.
State: LA

Complaint narrative:
On XX/XX/year> I purchased two ( 2 ) Vanilla Visa Gift Cards, distributed and serviced by InComm Financial Services Inc, from XXXX store # XXXX. They were for {$500.00} and {$490.00} plus {$4.00} purchase charge each, for a total cost of {$1000.00}. Over the next three ( 3 ) days I attempted to use each of these 2 cards at several online stores as well as several in-person stores. The attempted charges were declined every single time, despite the promise that the cards could be used everywhere Visa debit cards are accepted. Whenever I checked the card balances online at https : //balance.vanillagift.com/ I could see that the cards still had the full balances of {$500.00} and {$490.00}, so the funds had NOT been stolen by a third party, but instead the cards were being rendered worthless by InComm 's choice to block all attempted charges for no legitimate reason. In effect, InComm had stolen the funds, and it is clearly very profitable for them to sell gift cards and disable their use, so that they can simply keep the money. On XX/XX/year> I called the listed phone number XXXX to get the worthless cards refunded. I was given a Case Number # XXXX and instructed to email XXXXincomm.com with certain documents. That same day I emailed to XXXXincomm.com all requested documents, namely images of the cards and their packaging, the purchase receipt, and personal identification. That same day I received acknowledgement of the information I sent for XXXX Number # XXXX, and they promised a response within 7-10 business days, which would be XX/XX/year> at the latest. But I have never received any further response from them, despite my further enquiries on XX/XX/scrub>XXXX XXXX XXXXXX/XX/year> also sent to XXXXincomm.com and XXXXincomm.com. So by almost two months ago I had already taken all the necessary steps for InComm to issue a full refund of the {$1000.00} I paid, and they should have issued the refund about six weeks ago at the latest. InComm is clearly choosing a very profitable strategy of selling gift cards and disabling their use, so that they can simply keep the money, and now they are stalling and stonewalling in furtherance of this strategy, hoping defrauded customers give up on their attempted refunds. I have already made the necessary phone call and email, so any request that I make further such communications would just be more evidence that they are burdening me with time and effort, as part of the stalling and stonewalling strategy to avoid issuing a refund, and this would be more evidence that they are intentionally defrauding customers. Any further delay in a prompt and full refund of {$1000.00} would be yet more evidence of their fraud, as would any attempt to issue it in the form of their worthless cards. 

Note that documents have not been attached to this CFPB complaint, since all the documents were already sent to InComm about two months ago.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation