American Express Serve Prepaid Card MONEY PAID TO ACCOUNT BUT NOT CREDITED according to their own policy. St. Petersburg, Florida

The following is a copy from my written submission to the Illinois Attorney General:

I recently opened an account with Serve From American Express. (A prepaid card).  I recently attempted to transfer $130.00 through ACH Debit from my checking account. My request for the transaction was on 7/10/12. My account was debited to pay Serve on 7/11/12.

Their own user agreement specifically states, "We will credit your Account with an ACH pre-authorized deposit on the business day we receive your payment." On 7/13/12 (two days after payment was made to Serve) I still hadn't been credited my $130.

I called and spoke to a Serve customer service rep who stated that my account with them won't be credited until 7/16/2012--much longer than the "same business day" they promised. Instead the rep kept referring back to their insane user agreement of taking 1 to 5 BUSINESS days to credit an account. This is even AFTER they took my money.

I made a visit to my bank branch to discuss this. Upon looking at my account, they could see that Serve was paid on 7/11/12. After this visit I called the Serve folks back and spoke to a supervisor named Phillip. He gave me the same canned response of their 1-5 business day agreement. I demanded to know where my money was. Phillip would only defer the discussion back to the agreement and wouldn't answer my question--"where is my money?" Then he told me my payment was being processed. I asked where. He said "Serve.""  

I think I found my answer. These people have my money. They've refused to honor their own agreement. AND, and the industry standard time frame to process and ACH debit is only ONE business day, though I can go up to a couple days longer. THESE PEOPLE TAKE UP TO 5 BUSINESS DAYS WHICH IS EXTREME for a normal ACH and based on my experience IS COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY. These people are money hoarders and they don't care if you're adversely affected by their actions.

AGAIN, STAY AWAY FROM AMEX's SERVE PREPAID CARD. If you absolutely MUST have it, then NEVER, EVER use ACH Debit from your checking account. Once I get my money and use the card to MY advantage my plan is to dump AMEX and you should too.