RushCard Glitch Locks Out Thousands of Prepaid Card Customers from Accounts and Prompts Investigation

Rushcard Glitch Locks Out Hundreds of Thousands from Accounts for Two Weeks


Hundreds of thousands of Americans are still without access to their paychecks after a glitch struck RushCard, Russell Simmons' prepaid debit card company.





According to an article in Rolling Stone, accountholders, many of whom are low-income and lack access to other banks, found that they had lost access to their accounts nearly two weeks ago. Although the company has assured customers that they are working around the clock to fix the error, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has launched an investigation into the organization.  Many customers have been without access to their funds since October 12th.

“It is outrageous that consumers have not had usage of their money for more than a week,” bureau officials said in a statement.

They are currently working with other agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in a joint effort to hold those responsible for this problem accountable.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced the investigation on Friday. A director with the bureau, Richard Cordray, said they’d reached out to RushCard CEO, Rick Savard, spoke of the “cascading financial effects of consumers not having access to their funds for more than a week.”

Simmons issued a statement reassuring customers that they were working hard to correct the problem and doing everything they could do.  Savard blamed the glitch on transferring to a new processing system.  To aid in customer communications, he added that command centers have been set up to help field customer complaints.

As of right now, RushCard has promised that it would waive the $1 fee that clients incur each time they use their card through Feb. 2016, and business executives have said that users will receive additional compensation for their struggles.

“Very soon, RushCard will be making a significant announcement on how we plan to make this right with our customers who were severely inconvenienced, and in some cases, suffered hardships,” Savard stated.

By Shane Tripcony

Shane is an author and administrator on BestPrepaidDebitCards.com.

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