A DEBIT DEBACLE
Stimulus pay in card form often unrecognized
Don’t throw away your junk mail — or you might throw away your stimulus payment.
The US Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service began sending out Economic Impact Payments as prepaid debit cards earlier this month. So almost 4 million Americans still waiting for their cut of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act can expect to get their stimulus money in the form of an EIP Card, as opposed to a paper check.
Problem is, these Visa cards are being issued by MetaBank (the Treasury’s financial agent) and delivered in plain envelopes from Money Network Cardholder Services — neither of which are familiar names for many folks. So reports of people mistaking these for pre-approved credit-card junk mail or scams have been popping up across the country. And in some cases, people have even thrown away the debit cards containing their longawaited stimulus money before they realized their mistake.
Thomas and Bonnie Moore of southwest Florida are one such pair. They told local CBS affiliate WINK-TV that they chucked their EIP Card because they were expecting a stimulus check from the US Treasury.
“My husband looked at it, briefly read it and he said, ‘Do you want this?’ And I said, ‘I don’t need another fake card,’ so he cut it up in little pieces,” Bonnie said. “The next thing you see is I am in the garbage can trying to pull out all of the pieces together, which did not work.”
Their neighbor also told the outlet that he found his prepaid debit card suspicious because it bore no official federal insignia, and the return address was Omaha, Neb. “Doesn’t sound like the federal government to me,” he said.
Several people have also complained on Twitter that they mistook their EIP Cards for junk mail.
This has led several authorities to reassure consumers that the EIP Cards are legit. Both the Nassau County District Attorney’s office in New York and the Belmont, Mass., police department have tweeted that this is “not a scam.”
Better Business Bureau offices in Texas, Colorado and Alabama have all been fielding calls from concerned consumers asking if the debit cards are real. And the Iowa attorney general’s office said it received dozens of calls about the cards May 21 and May 22. “People were very confused wondering what these were,” a spokeswoman told a local NBC affiliate. “They were throwing these in the garbage.”
Neither the IRS nor the Treasury Department responded to requests for comment on the confusion, nor the complaints about getting debit cards instead of checks. But the IRS was tweeting daily “reminders” last week that “millions of people are getting Economic Impact Payments by prepaid debit card mailed in plain envelopes from Money Network Cardholder Services.”
What’s more, the IRS also issued a press release on Wednesday afternoon with the subject line: “Economic Impact Payments being sent by prepaid debit cards, arrive in plain envelope.” It also answered several “frequently asked questions” about the cards, such as how the cards could be used without fees.
Because, yes, there are some fees tied to these EIP Cards, including a $7.50 replacement charge if the card is lost.
Some unsatisfied customers have already started complaining online about getting a debit card instead of a direct deposit or a check that they can more easily cash or deposit into their bank accounts.
The Internal Revenue Service has distributed more than 128 million checks and paid over $218 billion as of early May. This includes $1,200 payments to individuals with adjusted gross income below $75,000 and $2,400 to married couples filing taxes jointly who earn under $150,000. And that money can’t come soon enough for the roughly 35 million Americans out of work since the coronavirus temporarily shut down large swaths of the economy.
May 13 was the last day that Americans could submit their direct-deposit information to receive their stimulus checks, which means the payments will arrive as either checks or debit cards moving forward.
You can get answers to frequently asked questions at the EIP Card Web site eipcard.com/faq or by calling (800) 240-8100.