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Metro Atlanta woman paid woman $24K in tax returns, only to have it immediately stolen

A Georgia woman said thousands of dollars were taken from what is supposed to be a convenient alternative for people who don’t have checking accounts.

Channel 2 Consumer Investigator Justin Gray was in Midtown, where Julia Holland said someone stole more than $10,000 from her Netspend account. The money was part of $24,000 in IRS returns from a span of several years.

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Netspend is a debit card marketed as a banking alternative to traditional checking accounts. It advertises that it’s one of the fastest and easiest ways to get your tax return money. Holland said the money did show up in her account. The problem is what happened next.

Holland is still trying to get back on her feet financially after losing her job and her home during the pandemic. A big refund from the IRS accumulated because she didn’t file returns for several years. The money was gong to get her back on track, but days after being deposited into her account, the money started being withdrawn by someone.

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“I’m trying to make it and then for this to happen,” Holland said. “They was like, ‘You got a secondary card holder.’ I said, ‘What? No, I’m sorry. I don’t have a secondary card holder. What do you mean?’”

Someone withdrew more than $10,000 from the account over the next several days.

“They just wouldn’t shut the account down, and they money kept disappearing. I said, ‘Please, shut the account down,’” Holland said.

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Netspend has run into problems before. In 2017, the company agreed to a multimillion dollar settlement with regulators at the FTC after failing to provide customers access to the funds in their debit cards.

Gray reached out about Holland’s case and got a statement from a spokesperson, who said:

“Our customer service team has been in contact with the customer to address this issue. Netspend takes account security very seriously and we encourage customers to report any suspicious activity or difficulty accessing their funds to our customer service department. We will do everything we can to assist them as quickly as possible.”

The Netspend spokesperson thanked Gray from bringing the concern to their attention. Holland said they have already reached out to her multiple times to try to fix the situation and get her money back.

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