Vanilla Visa gift cards scam, Internet

I went into a men's clothing store to use $133 I had left on 2 Vanilla Visa gift cards which were given to me as a Father's Day gift.  The clerk at the store scanned them but the transaction got hung up in a "pending" status. They were not "approved". He cancelled the transaction and scanned them again but now they showed zero funds available.  

The manager of the store got involved and called the customer service number on the back of the cards (800-571-1376).  After explaining the situation to the Vanilla customer service rep, the store manager eventually became frustrated with Vanilla's lack of help. Vanilla's rep told me and the store manager "there is nothing we can do".  He was very abrupt and rude.

We asked for a supervisor and got Elsa on the line.  Elsa also refused to help us even though she could see on her computer exactly what we were going through. She could see that the transaction was being held up because it was mysteriously stuck in this "pending" status.

The manager asked Elsa numerous times to simply help us through the process of accessing the funds on the cards but Elsa was not helpful at all.  The manager and I were on the phone with Vanilla for 45 minutes. That is not an exaggeration.   Elsa repeatedly told us it would be 8 days before I would have access to the funds. She even told us she could make it happen immediately if she chose to but she wasn't going to.  That blew my mind. I won't know whether she told me the truth for another 7 days.

The store manager and I were both incredulous at Vanilla's lack of professionalism and caring about the situation. It should have been an easy situation to fix but Vanilla basically told me to take a hike, at least until June 30th when I will have access to the funds on the cards *fingers crossed*.