{"id":3131,"date":"2015-03-18T11:16:14","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T15:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=3131"},"modified":"2024-08-05T15:01:10","modified_gmt":"2024-08-05T19:01:10","slug":"cfpb-comment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/18\/cfpb-comment\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should regulate release cards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/releasecards\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/\/static.prisonpolicy.org\/images\/reportthumbs\/ReleaseCards250.jpg\" alt=\"Release cards report thumbnail\" width=\"250\" height=\"324\" class=\"reportcover right thumb250\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>While the FCC is still considering the scope of its regulation to reign in the exorbitant costs of calling home from prison and jail, <a href=\"\/blog\/2015\/02\/06\/release-cards\/\">we&#8217;re tackling another fee-driven industry<\/a> preying on people who can least afford it.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is now <a href=\"\/blog\/2015\/02\/06\/release-cards\/\">proposing tighter regulations<\/a> of high-fee prepaid debit cards, and we&#8217;re lucky to have the help of volunteer attorney, Stephen Raher, to submit a comment from the Prison Policy Initiative <a href=\"http:\/\/static.prisonpolicy.org\/releasecards\/CFPB-comment.pdf\">urging the CFPB to extend its regulations to explicitly cover release cards<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe CFPB needs to act quickly because correctional facilities are increasingly using these expensive cards to repay people they release &mdash; money in someone&#8217;s possession when initially arrested, money earned working in the facility, or money sent by friends and relatives.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nBefore the rise of jail release cards, people were given cash or a check. Now, they are instead given a mandatory prepaid Mastercard, which comes with high fees that eat into their balance. These cards charge for basic things like:\n<\/p>\n<ul class=\"list\" style=\"margin-left:1em\">\n<li>Having an account (up to $3.50\/week)<\/li>\n<li>Making a purchase (up to $0.95)<\/li>\n<li>Checking your balance (up to $3.95)<\/li>\n<li>Closing the account (up to $30.00)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nTo put this into perspective, if someone is released with $125,  a $2-per-week maintenance fee is equivalent to a finance charge of 77% per year.  If that same hypothetical cardholder makes ten purchases of $12 each, then a $0.50 per-transaction-fee would amount to $5, or 4% of the entire card balance (on top of maintenance fees).  If the cardholder wishes to convert a prepaid card into cash, he or she must pay $10 to $30 (8% to 24% of the entire deposit amount) merely to close the account.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nStay tuned here for updates on the CFPB regulations, and in the meantime, <a href=\"\/releasecards\/\">check out our comment<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAnd thanks again to Stephen for drafting the comment! (You may remember Stephen from his work in <a href=\"\/\/static.prisonpolicy.org\/phones\/filings\/60001016967.pdf\">rebutting local government officials<\/a> who insisted that jail phone kickbacks were necessary.) If you&#8217;d like to join our growing group of skilled volunteers, check out our <a href=\"\/blog\/2015\/02\/18\/young-professionals\/\">Young Professionals Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PPI submits comment to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau urging regulation of high-fee release cards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[12],"class_list":["post-3131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16294,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3131\/revisions\/16294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3131"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}