I received Amex Serve card yesterday and tried to do something, but there has been no good progress at all.

First, I tried to load with $400VGC at Family Dollar, which I bought at Target.com. The gift card has the same feature as Vanilla VGCs. So, you can’t use it at Walmart for reloads. I visited only one store today. The store used to accept debit cards for reloads, but now they accept cash only. There are three stores I loaded with VGCs last year. I will see if they still accept debit cards for reloads.

Second, I received an email from Serve about the investigation of Debit card I linked yesterday. They always ask you to upload photocopies of ID and Debit card whenever you change linked cards so you can’t use prepaid cards for online-reloads. I linked PayPal Business Debit card and soon received an email that asked me to send photocopies. I did, and here is their response:

Hello

During a recent review of your American Express Serve® Account we noticed you have linked a prepaid card that is not a permitted funding source. The acceptable card funding sources are a bank debit or credit card.

Please contact a Customer Care Professional immediately at 1-800-555-4318 so we can discuss further details on this matter.

Thanks,

The American Express Serve Team

“we noticed you have linked a prepaid card that is…..” This isn’t correct. PP debit card is not a prepaid card. I used the card for Serve’s online reloads last year. I’ve been using it for Redbird online-reloads until I closed my account this month. Do they confuse it with PP Prepaid MasterCard? Or they only accept debit cards issued by major banks now?

I have two reward-earning debit cards. One is PP debit card, and the other one is Discover Cashback Checking Debit card. Discover debit card can earn 10 cents per transaction, up to 100 transactions per month. If you want to earn maximum rewards with this debit card, you have to make (100) $10-online-reloads every month. It would be obviously an abuse against both Discover and Serve. So, the only choice for me is to use PP debit card. I will call Amex tomorrow to see if it was a mistake or a new rule.

And I also need to go to Walmart and other Family Dollar stores tomorrow. While I was waiting for Serve card, there are many prepaid cards piled up. I hope ATM works good and find FD store that still accepts debit cards for reloads.