H & R Block Emerald Card charge my card 50.71, held for 21 days Jacksonville florida

The employee that responded to this post is a criminal by being employed by H&R Block. There is no such thing as customer service by this company.

No, he is ABSOLUTELY right. What H&R Emerald does is run through a larger amount and then leave it as a 'pending transaction' even after the merchant has closed out the transaction for the correct amount. It is then held 'for security reasons' for 21-30 days, what I learned the hard and embarassing way is the only thing you can do, quite literally from what customer service told me (and the constant hang-ups and dropped calls and left on holds happens ALL THE TIME) is to go back to the place of business and have them write a letter on official company letterhead with all of my personal information, giving authorization to release the funds, which I then had to fax in to H&R and wait up to 5 business days for them to release the hold. Yea.

I hae so many gut wrenching stories about this company, their customer service, their practices and procedures (and/or lack thereof) and their obvious disregard for any account holders.

I currently hit the last straw with them. At the moment I am 'missing' over $10,000 that they said I have to eaither wait out for the checks to arrive that they sent me (without my authorization) or wait a minimum SIXTY (60) business days to have the money replaced on the emerald card. More on that later....

A hold on your acct is from certain merchants (restaurants,gas stations, hotels) that they HOLD on your acct to make sure that the money is in the acct and available. Once the merchant retreives the money from the acct, the cardholder can look at their statement and see that the hold was released and was never charged to their card, only the initial purchase was. This hold can be mistaken for being double charges, but actually isnt. This actually has nothing to do with HR Block, depending on the time that a merchant takes to take the money on the acct is what will effect the length of a hold. For example: You go to Chili's and your bill is 24.00, they do not know what you'll be leaving for a tip, so they put a hold on an amount that is within 20% of the 24.00$ untill the total is paid and cleared. At which point the merhcant will release the hold. Unfortunately the merchant (any merchant for that matter) can take up to 3 months to retrieve the money out of the acct for the actualy purchase only. Untill then the hold will remain effective. If the merchant has taken considerably long time to retreive this money, that is where the fax comes in. It is now out of HR blocks hands, unfortunately out of yours as well to a certain extent. At this point (just as the HRB rep told you) you need to contact the merchant to tell them they need to take the money and release the hold because it is effecting your available balance, at which point most merchants will comply and act quickly. They are required to send HRB a fax to verify this and the hold will be released. A hold can be easily confused and ALL HRB reps know and understand that it can be frustrating, although there is only so much we can do without the client and the merchant both working to resolve the issue. HRB will notify you of what exactly you will need to release this hold and get your acct in a standing that you are satisfied with. HRB does want to help you with this but there is only so much that a rep can do, but with the merchants cooperation the issue can be resolved fairly quick. With a pre-payed credit card(weather it be from HRB or any other company) this is how all trasactions work, though many holds are taken care of so quickly you as the client wont even notice this..some take longer to be released. Its similar to a PENDING charge on an atm/debit card. I hope this helps and I am sorry if you had a bad experience with a HRB Rep.

A hold on your acct is from certain merchants (restaurants,gas stations, hotels) that they HOLD on your acct to make sure that the money is in the acct and available. Once the merchant retreives the money from the acct, the cardholder can look at their statement and see that the hold was released and was never charged to their card, only the initial purchase was. This hold can be mistaken for being double charges, but actually isnt. This actually has nothing to do with HR Block, depending on the time that a merchant takes to take the money on the acct is what will effect the length of a hold. For example: You go to Chili's and your bill is 24.00, they do not know what you'll be leaving for a tip, so they put a hold on an amount that is within 20% of the 24.00$ untill the total is paid and cleared. At which point the merhcant will release the hold. Unfortunately the merchant (any merchant for that matter) can take up to 3 months to retrieve the money out of the acct for the actualy purchase only. Untill then the hold will remain effective. If the merchant has taken considerably long time to retreive this money, that is where the fax comes in. It is now out of HR blocks hands, unfortunately out of yours as well to a certain extent. At this point (just as the HRB rep told you) you need to contact the merchant to tell them they need to take the money and release the hold because it is effecting your available balance, at which point most merchants will comply and act quickly. They are required to send HRB a fax to verify this and the hold will be released. A hold can be easily confused and ALL HRB reps know and understand that it can be frustrating, although there is only so much we can do without the client and the merchant both working to resolve the issue. HRB will notify you of what exactly you will need to release this hold and get your acct in a standing that you are satisfied with. HRB does want to help you with this but there is only so much that a rep can do, but with the merchants cooperation the issue can be resolved fairly quick. With a pre-payed credit card(weather it be from HRB or any other company) this is how all trasactions work, though many holds are taken care of so quickly you as the client wont even notice this..some take longer to be released. Its similar to a PENDING charge on an atm/debit card. I hope this helps and I am sorry if you had a bad experience with a HRB Rep.