So, I buy 2 Metabank cards at Albertson's the other day. Receipt shows both were "Approved" and "Activated".

One was and worked fine. However, after having problems using the other, I noticed online it said it was inactive. Called CSR and she confirmed but told me to go to the store. Asked to speak to a manager, and he told me to send in the receipt and they'd get it active. Well, just received a VM saying sorry, go back to the store and have them take care of it.

This obviously seems a Catch-22 in both sides potentially blaming the other, and making it hard to know who has my money (i.e. did Albertson's in turn pay Metabank for my load amount).

Anyone know who to put pressure on, or how to determine the responsible party if there's a runaround? How are they going to know who at Metabank to speak to? etc.

This has been touched on briefly in some threads, but I don't think we've had one dedicated to fixing "approved" cards that aren't.


* I know first thought is I may have gotten scammed, but I've been doing this awhile and don't see an issue. The packages were sealed, the cards were secure and normal, the last 4 numbers on the approval receipt matches that of the back of the card that was revealed when I saw the cashier open it, and the card has been confirmed as inactive vs. activated and drained. There was some hiccup where the cashier asked for some help on a screen, so possibly it timed out or glitched even though one card was activated.