Consumer complaint received 2015-10-25
Company: Empowerment Ventures, LLC
State: VA
Product: Prepaid card
Sub-product: ID prepaid card
Issue: Managing, opening, or closing account

Complaint:
Open tickets XXXX ) I am sending this letter today to express my complete sadness and discomfort with your services. As with all things there will be times when issues arise and even in ones efforts to resolve them effectively and sufficiently, there will be failures ; however in the case of this technical revamp Rush has proven to be incompetent. 
IT implementation is not my area of expertise however in my opinion a little more strategic planning may have been in the best interest of the customer, as well as the company 's brand ; which is now being viewed as negative. I assume one would have created a few mock situations, running them completely through, as a proactive approach and a way to resolve root causes in a timely manner. 
Please understand I have been a customer with Rush since it launched, give or take a year. Although the card is not the best of them currently in the market, I have prided myself on being involved in what appeared to be a company that believed in the underbanked and had the backing of XXXX XXXX, who outside of rush I respect. Rush vision was to provide financial power to those who are/were underbanked, have the desire to establish credit or rebuild credit, among other things. 
In addition to this I have even recommended family and friends who really had no desire to have a Rush card get one, as this allowed us to transfer money from one card to another for XXXX versus using XXXX XXXX or XXXX = Financial power/flexibility. By the way this service is no longer working ; which means there is no need for them or even myself to stay with Rush. Understand, I am very loyal and despite me being able to use a normal bank I enjoy the transfer to transfer card feature and would much rather not jump ship. 
To date the changes made within the customer service department and its procedures I have embraced ; however I am at wits end. With all due respect, I am a person that believes in empowering people from all walks of life, but considering one is in a financial bind due to rush, having a person with a language barrier answering questions with lack of knowledge is extremely frustrating. In my opinion despite ones background we all deserve equal opportunity however Rush has not provided their workers with the adequate tools to successfully address the current needs. 
Instead customer service places you on hold for over XXXX mins, then the phone lines disconnect. Please see below example A. of just one of my many calls to Rush, where I was on hold for a long time and then line disconnected. 
Also to add assault to injury on my part, I either lost my wallet or it was stolen, needless to say, as normal immediately I contacted Rush by phone and email to freeze, or deactivate the card, and to no avail, due to the IT issues. 
Below is a chain of events about this communication, and by the way the card is still active, and still in risk of someone using it unauthorized. 
At this point, I do not know what to do because my direct deposit is being issued to this active, but lost card. I have since contacted my HR department who is trying to stop the transaction and issue a live check ; which puts me in further issues, as I will be out of state on payday and will not have any funds or ways to cash the check. My desire was to have the lost/stolen card cancelled and a new one expedited to me over night ; however in not being able to speak to anyone at Rush, this is not feasible again. 
As you can see Rush team, what should have been a simple IT enhancement, has turned into a financial Amputation, for those of us who believe in you. I have had to use XXXX XXXX to secure funds for my rent, I have had to pay things online with a card I do not have with the hopes whoever finds it does n't use it. I am extremely scared to cancel my ( currently lost ) card because at the least when and if my direct deposit hits

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief