Thanks for the advice and anecdotes.

Yes, I bought 2 cards at the same time, and only 1 wasn't activated! I guess the good news of that was it may help them audit, since at least everyone should be able to "see" the activated card.

I'll keep trying with the store I suppose. The manager of the store is back from vacation next week, and the bookkeeper did tell me they "elevated" it internally (whatever that means).