Direct Express

In late Oct 2023 I had to order a replacement card bc of some glitch in their system & like 2suspicious charges! Wanting to make sure it arrived by the beginning of November so I could pay bills, I paid the expedition fee!

Card arrived 2 days later, I activated it changed my PIN (to be safe) the next day is pay the bills day! My DE mobile app says invalid card! I call customer service & it says your PIN has been locked! I wait (58mins) for rep.

I explain the situation. She says we need to update your address! I said ma'am not only have I lived at the same address for 10yrs but you just sent me a card days ago that I activated yesterday. She insists & I comply!

I tell her my address AND she repeats it back to me verbatim! Plz note that before I ever began to tell her my problem, I had to (as you have to each time you call) verify my personal info ie: ss# DOB, 4 security questions and THEN they will discuss your situation with you.

So after repeating my address back to me much like a parrot exactly as I said it to her I paid another Expedition fee cuz now I will be paying my bills late so I'm waiting the two days go by no card I'm trying to call but herein lies the problem when you order a new card they discontinue the current card and without a card number you cannot talk to a customer service rep that's right the fourth day the fifth day the 6th day and all of these days are going by that I'm calling Social Security I'm calling Comerica Bank I'm calling the complaint line just to try to get a customer service rep finally I found a wonderful lady at the complaints department to connect me through to a customer service rep at US Direct Express customer service this rep proceeds to tell me that my car was delivered on November 2nd I said ma'am I beg to differ it was not she said well yes ma'am it was it was delivered to your back door I'm looking at it right now your your blue back door I said me and I live in a White House with white doors and nothing is ever delivered to my back door I don't use my back door because I'm confined to a wheelchair and my back door has very steep stairs so she gives me the tracking number while I'm on the phone with her I track the number low and behold it was delivered to a totally different address totally different Street City ZIP code the only thing that was the same was the state so she expedites me with a fee another card and cancels that one this was on the 8th of November the card gets here on the 10th I activated all of my money was gone I'm hysterical at this point I don't know what I'm going to do but more importantly how were they able to activate my card without all of my personal information I don't know anybody in the city that it was sent to the only person that had my personal information was the person on the phone who repeated my address back to me and then sent it to the wrong address I don't want to speak out of school but it seems to me that there's some not so honest employees working there anyway I file a police report they tell me I have 10 business days to get all of the information and all of the proof that I can gather to give to them so that they can decide whether or not it was unauthorized so just me one person confined to a wheelchair gets 10 days you know how many days they get to decide whether or not my money was stolen 45 to 120 with thousands of employees and all kinds of tools and information at their fingertips kind of crazy if you ask me anyway they finally on supposedly the third of January decided that it was unauthorized and the they had to replace my money that's what I was told on the phone they had made the decision on the 3rd and they sent the letter out I would be receiving it any day what's so crazy about it is the letter is dated the 16th but it gets even better because they did give me provisional funds I'll give them that they did give me but had I not done all of the footwork and sent all of the proof they could have taken those provisional funds back but here's the thing they made the decision that it was unauthorized but an employee another employee of theirs messed up and entered it wrong into the computer and made my account negative like a thousand dollars it took them almost a whole month to fix that now keep in mind the only people that you as direct express deals with are people on SSI people on disability are military Are Soldiers that's who they deal with that's whose money they are handling if you want to call it handling you can't get through to any is ridiculous trying to get through I don't care what time of day you call we're experiencing higher than normal call volume and then they just hang up on you I can't tell you how many times during those you know 10 15 or 10 days or so where I was trying to get through to a customer rep oh you got the wrong department and just hang up on me their company and their policies are trash they should be put out of it they should be closed down not to mention there are so many places that don't even accept the card your bank has declined your bank has declined what the *** if the money is in there it's my money I should be able to spend it how where and when I want I'm grown I don't need anyone monitoring my money so yes as soon as I can pull the last penny off of there I am switching card companies and then after all of that I get this measly little letter dated the 16th says basically it says yep you were right it was unauthorized no thank you for your business we're sorry for the trouble no nothing just yet it was an authorized trash absolute trash. At this point I don't want anything from them there is nothing they could give me that could change the way I feel about their company or erase that absolute misery that they put me through I just want other people to be warned it could happen to you just as easily

I have been trying for over a year to get transfers to my bank account approved. Called today, hold times were improved, but service still SUX !

I first spoke with Gretta and explained what I wanted to do (transfer funds to my checking acct), the steps I had been through and the result - transfers denied !!

She was nice enough, and told me that my requests to enable transfers had been denied by a manager at least twice. She could not say why but would transfer my call to a supervisor to get this resolved.Audrey came on the line and looked at the record of the account and could only tell me to do AGAIN what I had already done.

As my bank (PNC) doesn't include routing numbers on their statements, I had previously gone to the bank to have a letter drawn up - on bank letterhead - signed by a bank officer - which included the routing number, account number, my name and my address of record. This took over an hour and I require supplemental oxygen 24/7. I almost ran out.

(I am truly surprised that Comerica Bank didn't require me to get the number of times I dump every day certified !)

My bank letter stated "In response to your request that PNC Bank, National Association provide written verification concerning your checking account(s), we are providing the following information:" followed by the routing and account numbers and signed appropriately.

According to Audrey, the letter MUST contain the words "(insert my name) is the owner of the account" - VERBATIM ! ! !

This was the first time I was informed of this RIDICULOUS requirement, and I am NOT about to go back to PNC and repeat the ordeal . .

As a result, I am forced to change my direct deposit and forgo the benefits of my Direct Express card (0.85 ATM withdrawals among others).

Effective May 2024 my payments will no longer go to Comerica Bank.

If more people did this, perhaps Comerica would be more responsive.

I am now a widow and single mother after tragically losing my husband to cancer. My son is entitled to Social Security benefits since his father passed.

At this point, I am now six months into trying to deal with Direct Express. The first debit card that was supposed to be sent to me never arrived. It took me endless phone calls and an appointment at Social Security to be told to call "this number" (Direct Express) and request a new card. Took forever to get through.

Requested new card. It took two weeks to arrive. I activated the card and now am on Day 9 of trying to transfer funds from Direct Express into my bank account. I have followed the WRITTEN instructions provided by Direct Express as to how to transfer funds.

I am not a moron. I have a degree and have worked in the legal field for over 25 years. I would transfer funds (four times now) only the next day to find that the transfer was "declined" by Direct Express. Why?

Who knows. They just decline it and don't provide any explanation. No communication whatsoever. Your only recourse is to call their 888 number (which takes forever to get through - today it took 35 minutes just to speak to a "live" body, and another 20 minutes to be transferred to a supervisor) Basically, I have found that (1) the "letter" (written instructions) that were provided to me by Direct Express is incorrect.

The two customer services reps for Direct Express that I have spoken to in the last two days didn't know that this letter was included to customers with their debit card. The letter does not include correct instructions. For instance, they state to provide a "scanned copy" of the front of your driver's license, when, in fact, you must provide a PHOTOGRAPH of your driver's license, and not only the front of it, but the BACK of it, too. I have now tried four times to transfer funds, and four times it has been declined.

Customer service can't help you. They don't have access to the reason why either.

It's a complete guessing game as to what you did wrong, and the customer service rep doesn't know either. What a joke.

Starting from my last call that I just finished. Today is Friday and I was told that I could receive my Debit Card if I paid $13.

I asked why was I being charged for an expedited card that Im been waiting on for three months? I finally agreed and was then told that Id get my by Thursday of next week. I then said, No! Send it regular Mail!

Ill wait.. The customer service rep giggled, told me that she just sent my card off, told me to have a good day, and disconnected the call. Theres much, much more to the troubles Ive had with their customer. I was on hold yesterday over two hours.

Asking to speak to a Supervisor or Manager only got me transferred to other customer service reps EVERY TIME I asked to speak to a Supervisor. Smh. One guy told me to have a great day and then said, Get out of here dummy.. This is the bank Social Security referred me to to have my benefits placed on.

Weve got to do better America! Some of the reps barely speak English.