I don’t really want to get into the details other than I ended up in a jail in California. I had about $1,500 in cash after some Casino winnings. The sheriff’s officers of Placer County took the $1,500. Then gave it back in the form of a debit card which charges 2.50 a week maintenance fee. 0.95 just to use it and another fee just to check the balance. Oh, and another fee to activate it.
Its called prestigelogin if anyone has heard of it.
I want to make it abundantly clear that the Placer County Sheriff’s Office was incredibly respectful and polite but this thing seems sort of usury doesn’t it?
Why could I not just get my cash back?
I know it’s been a minute since I’ve been on this site and other than Rick, and Ed of course, I don’t recognize the moderators.I do really respect the opinion of everyone on here. And I know we’re not lawyers and doctors and all that but seriously doesn’t seem right to me and
I have bigger legal problems than $2.50 but why do the poor always get punished?
This was cheaper* for them (because you’re paying for it). Instead of having someone on the county payroll worry about this, they outsource it to this leeching middleman and let you and all the other involuntary users pay for it instead. Someone got a gold star in their file when they signed the county up for this scam.
*Or at least sold that way when the presentation was made.
I’m sure that forcing you to pay for the debit card under those circumstances is illegal (IANAL), and they are counting on you never suing to get that money back.
I am lucky that I have the financial resources to deal with this. But what bothers me is that they didn’t return the money they took.
And some Bank in Kansas city is reaping the benefits. And I’m sure State of California somehow getting a piece of it
civil forfeiture involves a dispute between law enforcement and property such as a pile of cash or a house or a boat, such that the thing is suspected of being involved in a crime.
There are no controls or requirements that law enforcement must prove the case.
Umm, I’m pretty sure, the law, in its majestic equality, makes the rich as well as the poor pay these fees.
Not that this makes the situation, in general, more fair but it’s equally unfair for everyone.
But the poor tend to be disproportionately in jail. And (paradoxically) possibly also carrying around large portions of their (minimal) net worth in cash, rather than on a card. Because part of being poor is limited access to financial services, including checking or savings accounts.
So, yes, a rich man who gets arrested with all the money he owns in his pocket will end up in the same situation as a poor man, having all that money put on a card and subject to a fee. Just like a rich man sleeping under an overpass is just as likely to be swept up in a homeless camp sweep as a poor man doing the same. But, you know, they’d have to be sleeping under an overpass first.
It seems unfair to me. @Rack-a-Bones, what is the absolute minimum you could spend in fees, if you made each withdrawal as high as possible to minimise total fees?
But that is where you are so wrong there is so such difference between a rich man and a poor man like that. Money in the pocket is much different than knowing Governors and judges and stuff.
I called three different bail bondsman and I didn’t get response cuz I don’t have an address. Try proving you’re a person without an ID
The person is not being charged with the crime, the property is. The property wasn’t seized, it was arrested.
That’s what the courts say when they uphold this shit.