Green Dot Pre-Paid debit cards After using my card for eighteen months, they change the expiration date and locked the account

Complaint Description: After eighteen months of using the same debit card, Green Dot told me five hours ago that the expiration date was wrong. The account is now locked. I have had a happy experience with Green Dot up until about two hours ago. I was making plans and purchases for what was going to be a long-anticipated vacation next week. I say "anticipated" because as of 1am this morning, my current Green Dot card - the one that I have been using continuously for over 18 months - seems to no longer have the "correct expiration date" according to the Customer Service representative that I just spoke with on the phone.

Despite the fact that I have had multiple purchases over the internet and with other merchants every week for a year and a half using the expiration date on the card that I am holding in my hand, Green Dot wants me to believe that all of a sudden, the expiration date on my current card - which has worked perfectly up until tonight - is no longer valid and has not been valid for a year and a half - despite the numerous purchases that have been approved over that same period of time.

As of this moment, the only two options that Green Card is offering to me is to issue me a replacement card - which will take approximately "three weeks" to reach me - OR- to close the account altogether in which case that check would take four weeks to reach me. I am sure that all of this is covered in their "Terms of Service". I am also sure that they have presented themselves as being competent in handling the money of millions of people around the world as well.

And so I am left in the very difficult position of trying to comprehend their reason for my account being locked up - that my present card with its expiration date that I have used continuously over the last eighteen months has suddenly become "invalid" in the last twelve hours. I can not begin to imagine how this could have happened except for a data processing error in their software, memory system, or an operator error.

What I can imagine very easily is that I will not be going on vacation next week with my family, that the deposits I have already put down for the trip are now gone, and that they have in essence over two thousand dollars of precious money that I have no reason to believe is going to given back to me any time soon - if ever. I know that I am going to have to tell my family in the morning that we will not be going on vacation next week - or perhaps at all due to this incredible "explanation" that I have been provided in the last hour by two different representatives of Green Dot.

And as so many have pointed out, I was told that there was no supervisor for me to talk with and that they would take my name and number and have one of them call me in the next twelve to eighteen hours. Needless to say, I am not hopeful that whoever calls - if someone calls at all - will have the authority to correct the error by Green Dot and "make me whole" again.

This has been such a disappointing experience especially given the fact that I have not had a problem with this company. However, this is also the first time that I have had over $500 on the card and so far, I have resisted the temptation to extrapolate from those two facts.

Any help that anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated. I am frankly pessimistic that Green Dot is going to step up and do the right thing by quickly correcting their mistake. I am trying to hang onto the hope that I will at some point this year see my money ever again.