By Dee Dee Gatton | June 2, 2020 at 7:36 PM EDT – Updated June 8 at 7:45 AM
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – Are you still waiting for your stimulus money? The latest payments are causing a lot of confusion. In fact, some people think the new envelope looks like junk mail and tossed it in the garbage.
The Better Business Bureau of Charlotte says they have received countless calls and complaints.
“Everything around the stimulus payments has been confusing to consumers,” said Tom Bartholomy, President of Better Business Bureau Charlotte.
Across the country, some 4 million people are still waiting for their stimulus checks. The Department of Treasury and IRS sent out the last batch on May 18 but in another new twist, instead of paper checks, the stimulus checks are now debit cards.
“We’ve been getting calls everyday from consumers saying this has gotta be a scam,” said Bartholomy.
Thinking it’s a scam, many are not even opening the credit card and tossing it into the junk mail pile or even worse, right into the garbage can.
“It’s just caused a lot of confusion, some people have said they’ve thrown it away and had to take it back out of the trash when they realized that it was for real.”
If you are missing your stimulus check, look for an envelope from “Money Network Cardholder Services.” The letter says it’s from the Department of Treasury. It has a debit card attached to it that says it’s issued by “MetaBank.” Then there are steps for how to create a pin and activate it online.
Be especially careful not to give out that information.
“If you give them that account number and that pin number, it’s like handing them cash, you’re not going to be able to get that money back. Once it’s in their hands, it’s gone.”
Beware of any calls or texts that say they’re from the federal government – they’re not.
“There’s so much confusion around it and scammers love when there’s confusion, because they can just hone right in on it and take advantage of folks.”
If you think you’ve may have thrown away your card, all hope is not lost.
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