<prompt> Human: We have an American Express Gold Card that we pay in full by the tenth of every month, which is the payment due date.On the 28th of December I made a payment of 800 to Amex from our USAA account. Alas, the payment was declined due to an automatic payment that came out on the same day. I realized my mistake today when checking our accounts and immediately authorised another payment to Amex, bringing our balance to zero. Its still ten more days until payment is due to be paid in full.Shortly after, I went shopping at Target for nappies and formula for our three month old daughter. My card was declined at the checkout, which was humiliating enough, but I didnt have any other card with me at the time, so I had to abandon my purchases and slink out red faced. I called Amex and was told that, because the payment I had made on the 28th had been declined due to insufficient funds, a hold had been placed on our account until they could verify that we could afford to pay the balance, despite the 1200 I had paid earlier that day.They said the only way they would lift the hold on our account was to set up a conference call with USAA so they could verify our account balance to ensure that we could pay our Amex account. Which still isnt due to the tenth.After some arguing and back and forth, they agreed to clear the hold, so I could buy baby essentials. The man I spoke to granteed the hold had been lifted. So I swallowed my pride, went back into Target, grabbed more nappies and formula and my card GOT DECLINED AGAIN.Same thing happened. Called Amex, they told me the only way to lift the hold is to conference call with USAA to confirm our bank balance. I told them I wasnt comfortable with that, argued again, they agreed again to lift the hold effective immediately, again I went into Target to get baby supplied AND AGAIN MY CARD GOT DECLINED. The final time I called I was close to angry tears. I was humiliated, embarassed and desperate, and frustrated. I finally agreed to let them conference with USAA, but by then the bank had closed and wont be open until the day after New Years. So I have no nappies, no formula and almost no petrol in the car.Maybe Im overreacting, but is it a common practice for a credit card company to demand the balance of your bank account? Weve never made a late payment, we generally make several payments during the month to keep the balance down, and this is the first payment since we got the card almost two years ago thats been declined. Tl;dr: American Express has placed a hold on our account and wont lift it until we set up a conference call between Amex and USAA to verify our bank balance. Is this a normal practice for credit card companies?  <response>: Not answering your question but I have had Target approve me for their RED card after my credit card was declined. My credit card got declined after I tried to make a big target purchase while traveling out of state. It triggered a fraud thing. After my card got declined, the Target cashier offered to sign me up for a Target card and I was able to pay with the new Target card. 