American Express gift card problems

[spaceberry]

My mother recently got me an American Express prepaid gift card with a $100 balance. I've been saving it and finally decided what to spend it on, and while trying to add the card to Paypal I only get messages telling me that it can't verify the card. Despite being unable to spend money on the card, I was fine with this, until I went to the American Express website and discovered that $1 had been taken from the card's balance for each time I'd tried to add the card to my account.

What I want is to know exactly why this money was taken from the card, and why the giftcard can't be linked to my account even though Paypal charged my card each time I tried.

[snowshoe]

There are so many features to PayPal and so many things to read and some stuff is a bit confusing. 

Per PayPal's own Help FAQs, they state the following:

You can't link a gift card, prepaid card, or one-time-use card to your PayPal account.  (We’ve learned the exceptions are, PayPal Products or Green Dot Money Packs.)

Suggest not trying to link a prepaid card to your PayPal account unless the card is a PayPal Product or a Green Dot Money Pack.

With some prepaid cards, there's no owner name or billing address info, only the card number and an amount.  PayPal can see the amount but cannot confirm the card owner as there’s no name or address info.  When that happens, you may asked to use another funding source.

If you try link the card, you may have some dollar amount removed however the linking process will fail.  In other cases, you can link the card and may even have a small amount deducted from the card while trying to confirm it but, you may not be able to use it for a purchase.  How you get the dollar amount returned, best you can do would be to contact customer support.

Additional info:

A prepaid card is a payment card that is loaded with money by you or someone else.

A prepaid card looks just like any normal credit or debit card, with a card number, signature strip and company branding. But prepaid cards are unlike credit cards, which provide you with a line of credit. They are also very different from debit cards that are linked to a bank account with an overdraft facility. This is because you can't borrow money with a prepaid card - you can only spend the money you have loaded onto it.

When you use a prepaid card at a retailer, the price of your purchase is deducted from the amount loaded onto your card. You can also make secure purchases by phone or over the Internet. In addition, if you have a prepaid card that can be reloaded, you usually have the ability to withdraw your money from a cash machine (ATM).

There are many types of prepaid cards available for different purposes. You'll see gift, travel and everyday money cards, to name but a few but they all share the same benefit of being safer and more convenient to use than cash.