Visa - Vanilla Gift cards Rude and not helpful Internet

Vanilla Visa Debit Gift Card is a fraud and ripoff and steals your money

I couldnt agree more w/ your report. on 12/26/2012 the EXACT same thing happened to me. The only difference was that A Supervisor at VV gift card  told me to call them back when I got my Verizon on the phone so that Verizon can verbally tell them the payment wasnt made. Impossible. How is it possible to call both companies on 3 way, do the prompts, and wait for them to get on the phone at the same time. The wait time is different. Not to mention the rude customer services that they provide. I had to deal with them for 5 hrs straight. Not to mention that I checked the card balance and the amt was indeed paid to my cellphone company. What a waste of my freaking day. 

" I work in customer service and deal with credit card returns and charges, a merchant can not place your funds on hold.  "

I don't know about the details of your complaint, but your assertion that merchants cannot place funds on hold is way off the mark.   As a matter of fact, merchants can and do place holds which show up as "pending" amounts until the transaction actually posts to the account.  Posting can take 3 to 5 days, depending on how often the merchant uploads transactions to their processor,  and how many intermediate clearinghouses are involved.

Holds are especially ugly on prepaid an regular debit cards, as they tie up actual money as opposed to credit cards, which only tie up available credit.  Many merchants only place holds when debit cards are used.

Neither the consumer, nor the credit card company has any control over whether or not a merchant issues a hold.   Some chose to do so and some do not, but it is the merchant's choice.  They do it (especially on debit cards) to ensure that the funds will still be in the account when the transaction posts in 3-5 days.   Without a hold, there is no guarantee that will be the case and the merchant could lose money.

If a merchant does place a hold and it is not followed up with the posting of a valid matching transaction, the hold will expire in 3 to 5 business days (depending on the issuing bank), and the funds held will again be available to the cardholder.