Stimulus Fail: Dead people and discarded snail mail debit cards

What if you wanted to stimulate the economy and failed to deliver the funds to the people who needed it most? That would be embarrassing. Ever hear of MetaBank? Me neither, till now.

In mid-April the White House and the press were talking about stimulus checks. The occasional report would mention direct deposit for taxpayers (like me) who paid taxes and received refunds via ACH/direct deposit. There was even significant press coverage surrounding the fact that Trump had gone to extraordinary lengths to get his name on the stimulus checks. The Treasury sent billions to dead people… Whoops. Despite all the talk about checks, instead of checks, the Treasury Department mailed prepaid debit cards to 4 million Americans, $1200 or $2400 for couples.

Scammers often try to make their email, and direct mail communications look like state, local, or federal government envelopes. It should have been predictable that many recipients of debit cards from MetaBank with instructions on how to activate the cards by going to EIPCard.com might think it’s a scam. That’s indeed what happened.

The Washington Post reported on just how large a problem this may be, and apparently the Treasury has seen a low redemption rate on the debit cards and has a follow-up direct mail which will have more obvious language regarding how to get a replacement card. Didn’t get your check, perhaps it was a card, and you through it out.