It’s been almost a month since thousands of users of Russell Simmons’ prepaid debit card, known as the RushCard, were left in the dark without access to their money. By “left in the dark,” we mean literally. Many people flooded social media with complaints of not being able to access money to pay light bills, rent or day care or even buy groceries.
According to Simmons, a glitch occurred when his company’s systems were being upgraded. But no one wanted to hear Simmons and his prayers for the card’s victims. People wanted their hard-earned cash.
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In an interview with HipHopDX, Simmons tried to explain exactly what went wrong, but with a quick search of social media, you can still see that people still don’t have access to their money.
“It was one of the most devastating times in my adult life,” Simmons told HipHopDX. “I know how hard people work to get money. I know how damaging it could be if people were not able to get to their money. … I’m deeply sorry. I don’t know what else to do about it but try to make good on it and try to make the people that were damaged whole. That’s all I can do.”
Make good on it? Sure, people want him to make good on it—by digging into his own pockets. Because we all know that Simmons’ pockets run deep. Others have filed a class-action lawsuit against Simmons and his card. But Simmons is trying to help out those people who are sticking with RushCard.
“I’ve announced that we’re creating a multimillion-dollar fund that will be used just to pay people who didn’t get their money. We’ve given some people money just for the outage. But then the people who make additional claims because they lost their apartment or because they lost their job or because they couldn’t get their medicine—there will be claims from people that were damaged. We’re putting a fund together that will help to make people whole. That’s our job. That’s one of the many things we have to do to regain trust,” Simmons stated.
Simmons received a lot of criticism about his card and has been accused of exploiting the black community with high rates on the card and charging people to access their own money. But Simmons denied all of that.
“I’ve never exploited any community. When I see these guys at the march or when I see these guys changing laws, when I see these critics showing up with me and the community doing things, then I can respect their criticism. I respect everyone, but I’m not in the business of exploiting nobody,” Simmons stated.
Well, I guess he’ll have to convince the users of his card who still don’t have access to their cash.
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