CFPB Orders Global Tel Link to Pay $3 Million for Alleged Inmate Payment Account Misconduct

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An order issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on November 14 requires Global Tel Link to pay $3 million for allegedly freezing and taking funds from accounts belonging to incarcerated individuals, in violation of federal law.

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Global Tel Link, which does business as ViaPath and operates subsidiaries Telmate and TouchPay, contracts with correctional facilities across the United States to provide money transfer services. These services enable friends and family to deposit into an account funds that an incarcerated individual can use to purchase items from a correctional facility’s commissary.

The CFPB claimed that Global Tel Link and its subsidiaries violated the federal Consumer Financial Protection Act by engaging in several unfair and abusive practices to exploit people who are incarcerated and their families.

In particular, Global Tel Link illegally blocked money transfers from friends and family that incarcerated consumers relied on to pay for basic needs, such as food, medicine and clothing, the CFPB said in a press release.

Per the CFPB, Global Tel Link’s “no-refund” policy dictates that a consumer must file a chargeback with their financial institution to recover funds lost due to errors such as duplicate transactions or money sent to the wrong account. In such an instance, the company and its subsidiaries would then block the accounts of incarcerated individuals from receiving further transfers until the chargeback was repaid, sometimes with an extra $25 fee, the CFPB said.

Global Tel Link is also alleged to have unlawfully taken millions of dollars from inactive accounts without sufficiently notifying consumers.

The CFPB found that between 2019 and 2023, Global Tel Link and Telmate had a policy of seizing funds from consumer accounts for their own profit if no transactions were made within 90 or 180 days. Under this policy, the companies took funds from approximately 575,000 “unified accounts,” which are used to pay for online messaging, video visitation and telephone services, the CFPB found.

Finally, the CFPB took action against Global Tel Link and its subsidiaries for allegedly failing to provide consumers with complete information about the fees associated with their money transfers.

The CFPB order requires Global Tel Link, Telmate and TouchPay to return at least $2 million to harmed consumers who have yet to receive refunds.

“[T]he companies must repay all fees and chargeback balances paid by friends and family of people who are incarcerated to unblock accounts, despite not having filed chargebacks themselves,” the press release says. “It must also return the amounts seized from purportedly inactive unified accounts.”

The order also hits the companies with a $1 million civil penalty, requires them to properly disclose fees, and bans them from blocking accounts and seizing funds from inactive unified accounts.

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