How the Occupy Card Doesn’t Live up to its Promise by Shane Tripcony The terms and conditions of credit, debit and prepaid cards are not what anyone would call scintillating reading. Layered with legalese and hard to decipher jargon, these documents have traditionally (and understandably) been ignored by consumers. Which is too bad because… Continue reading A True Wall Street Occupation?
Tag: prepaid card
Chase Cardholders Get Wined And Dined
There are already plenty of reasons for foodies to attend the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, from September 27 until November 11. Given the global slant of Epcot, one of four theme parks located at the Florida based Walt Disney World Resort, the festival offers its gourmand visitors the opportunity to sample cuisines and… Continue reading Chase Cardholders Get Wined And Dined
Bomb Threats Over Prepaid Cards
The number of ways criminals are attempting to utilize prepaid debit cards increasingly seems to match the rapid proliferation of the cards themselves. As we have written about numerous times at BestPrepaidDebitCards.com, thieves have been especially attracted to the use of prepaid debit cards in a scam that involves turning people’s lights off: from California… Continue reading Bomb Threats Over Prepaid Cards
Chicago Introduces Transit Card With Prepaid Option
Understandably, much of the current media attention devoted to the Ventra cards centers on how Chicagoans can transition from using Chicago Card transit cards and other paper tickets to the new option; basically, riders have to wave the radio frequency identification (RFID) enabled over a reader as they enter a subway station or board a bus. Although of less immediate concern to riders of Chicago’s public transport system is a new option that allows Ventra card holders to also open a prepaid debit MasterCard account.
Prepaid Debit Card Scams Proliferate
While popular, the utility scam is not the only type that relies on the use of prepaid debit cards. According to a story in the Arizona Republic, two citizens of Surprise, Arizona were indicted in a $2.5 million income-tax scheme involving prepaid debit cards. According to the charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, the alleged perpetrators told victims that they could receive “Obama stimulus money” or “government funding” via a prepaid debit card. In return for that promised government money, victims handed over personal information that was used by the alleged criminals to file false federal income-tax returns. In total, the 18-count indictment by the federal government says that the perpetrators received over $2.5 million in refunds.
Tax Refunds And Prepaid Debit Cards
Prepaid debit cards have recently become a favored way for states and the federal government to pay tax refunds. The arguments in favor of the use of prepaid debit cards over paper checks in states like Connecticut, Georgia and Louisiana are similar. Not only do citizens who lack a bank account – and therefore cannot take advantage of direct deposit – receive their refund quicker than if it came through the mail in the form of a paper check, but the governments themselves like prepaid debit cards because it save them money.Those are a few of the issues John Friedman took up in a recent story for Bloomberg Law entitled, “Policy Perspectives On Tax Refunds: An Economic Analysis Of Government-Sponsored Debit Card Refunds.” Friedman, an assistant professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, does an in-depth cost-benefit analysis of the embrace of prepaid debit cards and arrives at some conclusions that go counter to many of the arguments policymakers have made.