Consumer complaint received 2025-02-17 00:00:00
Product: Prepaid card — General-purpose prepaid card
Issue: Problem getting a card or closing an account — Trouble getting, activating, or registering a card
Company: Credit Karma, LLC
State: TN

Complaint narrative:
When doing my taxes on XXXX XXXX, I was offered several ways in which I qualified to receive my tax refund. XXXX of which was a XXXX  XXXX  which I selected. In order to receive the refund advance, I was required to open a Credit Karma XXXX Account. When trying to link my existing Credit Karma account, I could not log in due to my phone number needing to be updated.. I contacted support and over the course of XXXX week went back and forth because the system was saying my new phone number was associated with another account. XXXX days and XXXX reps later, I was finally able to update my phone number after submitting to an identity verification process for which a link was sent to me and I successfully completed and it was accepted. I then proceeded to log in and was able to link my XXXX XXXX account and my Credit Karma account. I then confirmed I wanted to open the Spend account and agreed to the terms and conditions. I then received a message stating there were problems verifying my identity and that they were working on a solution. When XXXX was found, someone would contact me to open my XXXX  account. I contacted Credit Karma by the only means possible which is by chat and asked why this was happening given I had just verified my identity. I was told that it was yet a XXXX party bank who was denying me the account. That is not what the error message stated and further discussion made me doubt how knowledgeable the rep really was because they tried to tell me that XXXX XXXX and Credit Karma are not related and have nothing to do with XXXX another. XXXX owns both of them and the rep seemed oblivious to this and offered no help except rudeness in telling me to stop trying to figure out a reason. 
Because support was no help, I turned to online discussion groups to see if anyone had encountered the same problem and was able to overcome the problem. I learned that I am not the only person with this problem and gathered some tips such as making sure my name in Turbo Taxes was an exact match to Credit Karma, that my contact info was the same, use a different browser, and clear my cache etc.. I have tried off and on now for XXXX weeks since I first tried thinking that maybe the glitch would resolve on its own or that maybe enough people had brought their attention to the problem and they would fix it. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. I even contacted XXXX XXXX support and allowed them to remotely access my computer screen as I attempted to open the required pre-paid XXXX  account through Credit Karma. This time, I received a message stating " we're sorry we can not open a XXXX  account for you at this time ''. It went on to say it could happen for a variety of reasons but did not give the reasons. The rep from XXXX XXXX commented that she had never seen someone unable to open a XXXX  account and was baffled. I contacted XXXX once again and they again told me it was out of their hands. I do not understand this as it is named a " Credit Karma XXXX  Account ''. During my research of the problem, I learned that it is ongoing since 2022 without any real solution ever been made available. The company has known about the problem but refuses to do something in order to prevent it from affecting others. In all honesty, I do not understand why I have to open a pre-paid account through Credit Karma in order to take advantage of the refund advance option I am approved for if I have an already existing account that the funds can be routed to.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation