The CFPB fined MasterCard and UniRush $13 million for a “failure” with their prepaid card service. In 2015, a service outage “left tens of thousands of people unable to pay bills and access cash.” Thousands of their consumers, whom the CFPB classified as “economically vulnerable,” were unable to access their accounts due to a prolonged processing blackout and around a thousand customers had their accounts “wrongfully suspended due to possible fraud.” The CFPB said that even though the companies had “spent 13 months preparing,” the blackout had been caused by “a rash of preventable failures.”

• On February 1, 2017, the CFPB fined MasterCard and UniRush “$13 million for a failure with prepaid cards that in 2015 left tens of thousands of people unable to pay bills and access cash.” Individual payments ranged from “$100 to $250 depending on the harm the cardholders had suffered.” [Lisa Lambert, “U.S. fines Mastercard, UniRush $13 million for prepaid card breakdowns”, Reuters, 02/01/17]

• The outage was caused when MasterCard switched processing platforms, but the companies had spent “13 months preparing” for the switch. [Lydia Wheeler, “Consumer agency fines Mastercard, UniRush $13M over prepaid cards”, The Hill, 02/01/17]

• “According to the CFPB, many RushCard customers are underbanked and are often economically vulnerable. RushCard customers can deposit money from other sources, like paychecks or government benefits, and then use the funds to cover things like rent and other bills.” MasterCard had become the payment processor for Rushcard in 2014, but the conversion to their new system in 2015 experienced difficulties due to what the CFPB described as “a rash of preventable failures.” [Kathryn Vasel, “RushCard customers will get $10 million in restitution”, CNN Money, 02/01/17]

• For instance, “From October 12-15, 2015, more than 13,000 cardholders were unable to access their account information, while around 1,110 customers had their accounts wrongfully suspended due to possible fraud,” according to the CFPB’s filing. [Kathryn Vasel, “RushCard customers will get $10 million in restitution”, CNN Money, 02/01/17]

• UniRush had “delayed processing direct deposits for about 45,000 consumers and improperly returned other deposits, while also wrongly suspending 1,000 accounts for suspected fraud, according to the CFPB.” [Lisa Lambert, “U.S. fines MasterCard, UniRush $13 million for prepaid card breakdowns”, Reuters, 02/01/17]