Western Union Netspend Prepaid Internet

I attempted to pay my phone bill online and it came back denied. I knew that couldn't be right so I had them run it again. It came back denied again. So I went ahead and paid with AmEx. No problem. This was 8/11/15 at 8:30am PST. That night I discovered that 176.90 was taken out of my WU account, despite the charges being denied. (88.45 x 2). I have been consistently on the phone with Western Union and the phone company for 5 days now trying to get my money back and just keep getting the run around. They have taken 176.90 of MY money, that should have NEVER been touched once the denials were made and will not give it back to me. They have NO IDEA what they are doing. I think they just have a scripted rebuttal, because everyone has said the same thing, word for word. This is NOT ethical business practice and I thought was illegal in the United States.....stealing someone's money..