I have a small start up SP business. I processed $10,000 in Visa charges at $500 each (20 swipes) on my smartphone free Intuit device. I had done this before and the funds would deposit within a few business days to my Bank of America business account. My industry relates to travel and I had sent an ad to Intuit for initial account approval. The only issue is that my 20 Visa cards are Visa gift cards. Still totally valid, but apparently this is something Intuit does not like. Even though their own site says they allow these to process. And they should.
Anyway my $10k did not go through. I called CS on April 10-11 and was greeted by very rude and quick talking personnel in Risk that told me my funds are held for a min of 270 days! No one I have spoken to in any financial institution has ever heard of such a time frame. I eventually got put through to a very mean and smug woman named Jennifer Maddux who told me everything about me was fraud. She went on to tell me that their ingenious math system can detect fraud and that I fit this profile. That she had seen it all before and knew exactly how to spot someone committing fraud, etc. She said they needed 270 days to investigate, etc etc. (My question is: If you have seen it all before, why do you need so long? Should be easy by now!)
I told her off and slammed down the phone saying I would get the AGs office involved. She smugly said "Go for it!" as I angrily hung up. I filed a charge back report with the Visa card issuer but an exec there contacted me saying this would do no good. You see, I bought the GCs and swiped them through Intuit to my own business. While not illegal, this practice and the amount sent up flags. I had no idea. Now I do, but the fact is, even this exec said no fraud was done. Just flags. He too never heard of 270 days as a hold funds time frame. He suggested I call Visa itself, which I did. I filed a case with them. They also had no issue with me.
I had gotten in touch with Stephan Van Lar and he was fast talking but somewhat normal sounding—telling me at first he could in fact release the funds without the wait, but he had to verify with the bank that these funds were ok to go. The bank, meaning Visa Gift card. Well they tried to call him and he wont return their calls. I tried to call him and he wont return my calls. No one will. It's like they have a way to see my number now. I used to get music and then eventually patched through to CS, who could talk to me and put me through to someone in Risk. Now it immediately has me enter an extension, which I can do, but those go right to voicemail no matter what.
I am also asking BofA to write a letter saying something about me as their customer, my relationship with them, and the fact that the account is open ready to receive the funds. So my bank is connected and ready, Visa gift card company is saying these are valid cards and no fraud was done, and Visa itself is sending a letter asking Intuit to release the money.
Next step... Lawyer? AGs office? Which state (s)?
What else is there to do but wait and be angry?
I had NO idea they could nor would just TAKE the money this way. After all, these same types of transactions had gone through previously without issue. Is this bait and switch? Extortion? Did they invent some fine print rule that makes no sense that we all somehow signed to? It's not right.
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