Refund of return of ApplePay/AppleCard purchase from AppleStore failure.

I've spent more than 30 hours on the phone since Thanksgiving between Apple’s Senior Custom Support and Goldman Sacs including three seperate three-way calls with both parties. This has been very frustrating for how long this has taken and since this was a purchase from the Mac Pro line this is no small amount.

I purchased a product from the Apple Store app on my iPhone using ApplePay with my GS AppleCard. I returned the product to Apple. Apple has provided me with a 'Credit Memo Receipt' for the refund transfer of funds to a DUSM number that matches the Device Account Number for this card in my iPhone wallet. I have forwarded the ‘Credit Memo Receipt’ to GS. To add a detail that may or may not be relevant: I purchased a new iPhone via AT&T prior to this purchase.

On the Goldman Sac's side they do not see the transaction or any transaction for that date to my account. If there had been a failure in the transactions, I’ve been told that would show up. When I asked GS what the last four digits they have for my Device Account Number it does not match the number in the ‘Credit Memo Receipt’ nor any DAN in my iPhone Wallet, or the Wallet in my previous iPhone, or the number in my Apple Watch. Since GS only has a single Device Account Number on file I presume there is more to the story of how this works than what any of us who have been on these calls understands.

There is another detail that I should add. Before the transfer date in the ‘Credit Memo Receipt’, I received a seemingly erroneous email from Apple. "We have been unable to process your request to reverse the pending authorization on your account. Please contact your card issuing bank for further assistance.” I say erroneous as the transaction was not a pending auth, the funds had transferred to Apple on the day of the purchase. I tried to contact Apple to find out about this email to no avail. So I contacted GS as instructed and they said that the only thing that could be done would be to put the transaction in ‘review’.  So the implication is that when the actual refund transfer occurred this transaction was in the ‘review’ state by GS. Theories that it was due to this ‘under review’ state that prevented the transfer were tested by removing the ‘review’ state on the transaction, waiting billing cycles.

So at this point no one at Apple or GS understands why I don’t have the funds back in my account. Both Apple and GS have multiple open tickets that do not seem to make any progress. I feel that the needed technical people on Apple’s side are not accessible to the Senior Custom Support agents or their managers and that GS’s Advocacy group is likewise not accessible however it seems that these two groups are required to resolve this. As it is, progress has only been made via multi hour phones calls every week. It took quite a long time just to get everyone up to speed about what an ApplePay DAN transaction was, fortunately I had read a white paper on the subject when the technology was first released.

What I'd like to know is a fairly technical explanation of how the GS's single Device Account Number for me is mapped to my actual Device Account Number's for my two iPhones and Apple Watch. There must be some reason GS's number does not match what I have. Are there any procedures required to happen upon the acquisition of a new iPhone for the bank to be updated with its' DAN? Is there some way something could have been missed? After all, the transaction to make the purchase worked. Also, any other technical explanation you might think of for how this could happen, or questions I should ask. Hopefully this request finds the ‘right’ person to help me going forward in trying to get this resolved.

I thank you in advance for any help or info that you can provide.