The mystery of the Mastercard/Green Dot mayhem that glitched Walmart prepaid cards in May 2016 has been explained by the three companies involved. Back in May, some customers were unable to access the amounts loaded onto prepaid cards for several days, and some could not activate new and replacement cards or access account balances.
The three powerhouses, Mastercard, Green Dot and Walmart have provided accounts of the event to U.S. senators. According to Green Dot, an outage occurred during the migration of processing services. Michael Manchisi, president of Mastercard’s Payment Transaction Services, blamed the complex system and the large quantities of data being transferred. Green Dot has given credits to accountholders and allowed those fortunate enough to have ended up with a higher balance after the incident to retain any gain.
Here are the numbers:
4.8 million | The number of Green Dot’s card customers who were hit by the outage, approximately 1.2 percent of its active base
$3.3 million | The total amount that Green Dot has disbursed in $50 credits to those affected
58,000 | The number of customers using Walmart prepaid cards who were affected by the outage
41,000 | The number of accounts that had transactions declined because of low balances that were reporting errors
12,600 | The number of customers using Walmart branded cards who could not activate new or replacement cards
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