Complaint Review: American Express Prepaid Debit Cards

"Beware of the AMEX Prepaid Debit Card"

When you search Google for the "Best Prepaid Debit Card" the first link shows you a list of cards to consider and ranks them. The #1 card on the list is American Express. If you want to remain sane then please don't get involved by making them your choice like I did. I promise you will regret the very day you did. Trust me!

I placed $2500.00 on this card on November 14, 2012. The money was transferred to the American Express Prepaid Card on November 11-16-2012. I am now ready to use my card which shows the $2500.00 in the online account that I had set up so I thought. I go out to a Red Lobster on November 18, 2012 and had dinner with my wife and was told at the conclusion of the dinner that this card has been DECLINED! Really!!! I paid with another bank debit card and left and decided to deal with this on the next day. This is where I decided American Express Prepaid Debit Cards were not for me. I called and talked to Jamie in Salt Lake City, UT and told her after holding for 1 hour that I wanted to cancel the card and get a refund. By the way I looked online and the card is showing suspended. Don't asked me why. I had no idea. After being on hold again with Jamie the call got disconnected. Really!  

I then placed another call only to be told that a "Special Department" would need to "Unsuspend" my card before I can even begin to process to cancel this card. The special department is not a call transfer but another call back to another number. I think! My head was spinning about this time. This call by the way took no less than 1 hour and 20 minutes. 

The very next call got my card "Unsuspended " and I had enough for the day. I then called back on November 20, 2012 and cancelled this card. I was told it would take 15 days to get this money back into my account. December 5th was the day the money should have been back in my account.  It was not! I called to find out why. Guess what? They had no record of my cancellation and I had to go through the cancellation process again. They said I will get the refund this time. I asked them why should I believe you? Their response was you know have a claim number. Great!!! So now I must wait 20 business days to get a check in the mail. This means I am patiently waiting for December 28, 2012. Note: I added a couple of extra days because of the Christmas holiday.

So now you see why you NEED to be aware of this madness with AMERICAN EXPRESS PREPAID DEBIT CARD!