Published
August 24, 2026
This $4.2 million settlement covers the prepaid debit cards, known as release cards, that Rapid Financial Solutions and Axiom Bank issued to people leaving jails and detention centers instead of returning their money in cash or by check. If you were handed one between January 16, 2024 and June 30, 2026, a valid claim is worth at least $15 plus three times every fee the card charged you.
Current Status
Claims are open. A claim must reach the Settlement Administrator no later than October 12, 2026; no official time of day or timezone is specified for that deadline, so file well ahead of it. There is an earlier date that is easy to miss: October 2, 2026 is the deadline to exclude yourself, to comment on or object to the settlement, and to file a notice of intent to appear. The Court granted preliminary approval on July 2, 2026, certified a Nationwide Class and a Washington Subclass for settlement purposes, approved the class notice and appointed Kroll Settlement Administration LLC as Settlement Administrator. A final approval hearing is scheduled for October 19, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. in Tacoma, Washington. No final approval order has been entered and no payment date had been announced as of August 24, 2026.
Status
Claims Open
Claim Deadline
October 12, 2026
No timezone specified · opt-out and objection deadline is October 2, 2026
Estimated Payout
$15 minimum + 3× fees
A $15 floor plus three times the fees charged on your release card · from a $4,200,000 non-reversionary fund · pro rata reduction possible
Proof Required
No
The online form needs the Claim Number from your notice, but you can file without one by mail or by contacting the administrator through the settlement website
What Changed Recently?
The settlement was filed with the Court on July 1, 2026, and on July 2, 2026 the Court preliminarily approved it, certified the two settlement classes, approved the form of notice and appointed the Settlement Administrator. That order is what opened the claim window and put the October 19, 2026 fairness hearing on the calendar. The case is Hall v. Rapid Investments, LLC and Axiom Bank, N.A., No. 3:25-cv-05039-BHS, before Judge Benjamin H. Settle in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Tacoma.The underlying dispute is about how money gets back to people when they walk out of custody. When someone is booked into a jail, the cash in their pockets is taken and held, and money can accumulate in an inmate trust account while they are inside. On release, they are entitled to have those funds returned. The complaint, filed January 16, 2025, alleges that Rapid Investments, LLC — which does business as Rapid Financial Solutions and as Release Pay — and Axiom Bank, N.A. returned those funds on prepaid debit cards that carried fees, rather than by cash or check, and that people were required to accept the cards. The complaint alleges this violated the federal Electronic Fund Transfer Act, and that it also violated the Washington Consumer Protection Act and amounted to conversion and unjust enrichment for cards issued at Washington facilities.
Rapid and Axiom deny all of it. Both maintain they were not involved in any wrongdoing and are not liable under any federal or state theory, and the Settlement Agreement states expressly that nothing in it may be used as an admission of liability. The Court has not decided who is right. The parties tried and failed to settle at two mediation sessions, on December 3, 2025 and February 12, 2026, and reached this agreement in the discussions that followed.
One fact from the litigation matters directly to what your claim is worth. On or about February 3, 2026, the defendants reloaded $2,138,557.48 in inactivity fees they had already collected back onto class members' release cards. Under the Settlement Agreement, once final approval is granted the defendants have the unconditional right to recoup any of those reloaded funds still sitting on a card. Your claim is insulated from that: inactivity fees are calculated as if the February 3, 2026 reload never happened, so the reload cannot be used to shrink what you are owed.
OCA has covered this corner of the market before. The Numi release card settlement resolved a nearly identical set of claims against a different card issuer, and our investigation into excessive prison and jail fees tracks the broader pattern of charges layered onto people in and leaving custody.
Who Qualifies?
The Court certified two settlement classes on July 2, 2026. The Nationwide Class covers all persons in the United States who were:- Taken into custody at a jail, correctional facility, detention center, or any other law enforcement facility;
- Entitled to the return of money either confiscated from them or remaining in their inmate account when they were released from the facility; and
- Issued a prepaid debit card by Rapid Financial Solutions and/or Axiom Bank between January 16, 2024 and June 30, 2026, inclusive.
The Washington Subclass applies the same three conditions to people released from a facility located in the State of Washington. The subclass exists because the Washington members carry state-law claims under the Washington Consumer Protection Act on top of the federal claim, not because they file separately — a Washington class member is also a Nationwide Class member and submits one claim.
Three practical points. The card had to have been issued by Rapid Financial Solutions or Axiom Bank; release cards from other issuers are not covered by this settlement. The class period is defined by when the card was issued, not by when you were arrested or when you spent the money. And you qualify whether or not you still hold the card, still have a balance on it, or ever activated it at all — the claim is measured by the fees charged, not by what is left.
How Much Can You Get?
Each class member who submits a valid claim is entitled to a minimum award of $15, plus three times the fees incurred on the release card or cards they received on release. Inactivity fees are counted as if the February 3, 2026 reload described above had not occurred. So a card that charged $30 in fees produces a claim of $90, and the $15 floor governs only where the fees were small or zero.The money comes from a $4,200,000 fund that Rapid and Axiom pay into an account held by the Settlement Administrator. Two features of that fund are worth knowing. First, it is non-reversionary: the Settlement Agreement states that in no event does any portion return to Rapid or Axiom. Second, it is an "all in" payment — the defendants are not obligated to contribute anything beyond the $4.2 million no matter how many claims come in.
Claims are paid from what remains after four deductions come out of the fund: Court-approved attorneys' fees, Court-approved litigation costs, a case contribution award, and the costs of notice and claims administration, along with amounts held for taxes and check mailing. Class Counsel may ask for attorney's fees of up to, but not exceeding, 30% of the fund, and will ask the Court to approve a $15,000 case contribution award for the class representative. Those requests are subject to the Court's review and were due to be filed by September 8, 2026 and posted to the settlement website within three days of filing.
If enough money is left after those deductions, valid claims are paid at 100%. If not, every claim is reduced on a pro rata basis. Class Counsel has said it anticipates, but does not guarantee, that there will be enough to pay claims in full. Treat the three-times-fees figure as the ceiling on your claim rather than a promise. Any money still left ninety days after all payments have been mailed goes to four cy pres recipients in equal shares, subject to Court approval: the Human Rights Defense Center, Public Justice, the Center for Employment Opportunities, and Defy Ventures, Inc.
What Proof or Claim Number Is Required?
None, in the sense that matters: a class member who never received a notice, or threw it away, can still file. That is the test OCA applies, and this settlement passes it.The nuance is worth spelling out, because the online portal looks gated. To use the electronic claim form you must enter the Claim Number that appeared on the notice mailed to you, and the form will not open without it. But the official settlement website and the claim portal both describe routes that do not require it. You can download the paper claim form from the settlement website and mail it in. You can submit a claim in writing giving your name, your address, and the state and facility where you received the card. And you can contact the Settlement Administrator through the channels listed on the settlement website to obtain your Claim Number and then file electronically.
No receipts, bank records, card statements or release paperwork are requested on any of those routes. The administrator is matching claims against the defendants' own records of which cards were issued and what fees each card was charged, which is also why the three-times-fees calculation can be run without you documenting anything. That said, knowing roughly which facility released you and when will make a mailed claim easier to match.
For context on how identifiers usually work in class actions, see our explainer on the class action claim form.
What Are the Deadlines?
Four dates run this settlement, and the first two arrive close together:- October 2, 2026 — exclusion, objection, and notice of intent to appear. An Exclusion Request must be signed, must identify you by name and address, must state that you want to be excluded from the settlement, and must be postmarked by this date. Comments and objections must be in writing and submitted in the manner the Class Notice describes by the same date, as must any written notice of intent to appear at the hearing.
- October 12, 2026 — claim deadline. The official settlement website states claims must be received by this date; the online claim portal states claims must be postmarked or submitted electronically on or before it. The two are not identical for a mailed claim, and no timezone is given for the electronic cutoff, so the safe reading is to have your claim in the administrator's hands by October 12 rather than in the mail on it. This is the only route to a payment.
- October 19, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. — final approval hearing before Judge Benjamin H. Settle in Tacoma, Washington. The Court may adjourn or reschedule it without further notice.
- September 8, 2026 — Class Counsel's fee, cost and case contribution motion was due to be filed, and to be posted on the settlement website within three days of filing. Class members may comment on or object to what it asks for, which is why it lands before the October 2 objection deadline.
Because the opt-out date falls first, an undecided class member has to make the harder call earlier. Staying in costs nothing and keeps the claim alive. Excluding yourself forfeits any payment but preserves whatever right you have to sue Rapid or Axiom on your own. Doing nothing is the worst of the three — you are still bound by the release and you receive no money.
What Do You Give Up?
Class members who do not opt out release Rapid, Axiom, and a broad list of related parties — including the third parties Rapid contracted with to provide release card services — from all claims that relate to the conduct that was or could have been alleged in this case involving release cards and release card fees. The release covers known and unknown claims and includes a waiver of any state-law rule that would otherwise preserve unknown claims. Class members also agree not to sue over the released claims, though nothing stops anyone from enforcing the settlement's own terms.The release is tied to release cards and release card fees. It does not reach into unrelated grievances about your custody or your treatment at a facility. If you have a claim of that kind, the full release language in the Settlement Agreement on the settlement website is the place to check how it interacts, and a lawyer is the place to get an answer.
What Changes for Future Release Cards?
The settlement also buys forward-looking practice changes, which is unusual for a case this size and is the part that outlasts the payments. Under the agreement, the defendants will implement three changes to their payment program:- No inactivity fee will be charged until 365 days of inactivity have passed.
- A one-time issuance fee will be charged in place of maintenance fees, which will no longer be charged.
- Cardholders will be given clear notice of alternative payment options in the cardholder agreement provided at the time the card is issued.
The defendants also agreed to revise their cardholder agreements, web pages and other statements of terms to reflect those changes. The agreement is careful on one point: nothing in that section permits a violation of the Electronic Fund Transfer Act or Regulation E, and the plaintiff and the class do not concede that these changes make the release card program fully compliant with that law.
How Do You Take Action?
Filing runs through the official release card settlement website, which hosts the online claim form, a downloadable paper claim form, the exclusion instructions, the Settlement Agreement, the long-form and short-form class notices, the preliminary approval and class certification orders, the complaint, and the fee motion once it is posted.To file online, enter the Claim Number from your notice on the claim portal's login screen and complete the claimant, facility, payment and attestation steps. To file without a Claim Number, download and mail the paper claim form, or use the settlement website's contact channels to request your Claim Number and then file electronically. Submit one claim, not several.
OpenClassActions is not the Settlement Administrator and is not Class Counsel. We cannot look up your Claim Number, confirm what the defendants' records say about your card, or tell you what your payment will be. Those answers come from the official settlement website.
What Happens Next?
The Court will hold the final approval hearing on October 19, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. and decide whether the settlement is fair, reasonable and adequate, rule on Class Counsel's requests for fees, costs and the case contribution award, and consider any objections. A hearing being held is not approval being granted, and the Court may reschedule without further notice.If approval is granted, payment still waits on the Effective Date. Under the Settlement Agreement that date arrives when the time to appeal has expired with no appeal filed, or when any appeal has been affirmed or dismissed with no further review available, and only after the ninety-day waiting period required by the Class Action Fairness Act has run. The defendants then pay the balance of the $4.2 million into the fund within ten business days, and Class Counsel must file a final report with the Court within 120 days of the Effective Date accounting for what was paid, what went unpaid and what went to the cy pres recipients. No payment date had been announced as of August 24, 2026.
There is also a termination clause to be aware of, though it is unlikely to bite: Rapid and Axiom may terminate the settlement if five percent or more of the class opts out, and they must notify the Court within ten business days of the opt-out deadline if they intend to.
Sources and Verification
- Agreement to Settle Claims, Hall v. Rapid Investments, LLC, et al., No. 3:25-cv-05039-BHS (W.D. Wash.), Dkt. 28-1, filed July 1, 2026.
- Order Preliminarily Approving Settlement Agreement (Dkt. 32) and Order Granting Settlement Class Certification (Dkt. 31), both entered July 2, 2026.
- Class Action Complaint (Dkt. 1), filed January 16, 2025.
- Court-approved long-form and short-form class notices, as distributed to class members.
- Official settlement website, including its schedule of deadlines, opt-out page and documents page.
- Official online claim portal operated by Kroll Settlement Administration LLC.
The Court appointed Sirianni Youtz Spoonemore Hamburger PLLC of Seattle as Class Counsel; class members are not charged for that representation. Defense counsel is Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP. Where anything on this page differs from the Settlement Agreement or the Court's orders, those documents control.
Related OCA coverage of prepaid cards and electronic transfers: the Direct Express prepaid card settlement over disputed transactions on federal benefit cards, and the Navy Federal unauthorized electronic transfer settlement, which turned on the same federal statute at issue here.
Questions
Can I file a release card claim if I never got a notice or lost my Claim Number?
Yes. The online claim form requires the Claim Number printed on the notice, but that is not the only route. The official settlement website explains that a class member without a Claim Number can still submit a claim by mail using the downloadable paper claim form, or can contact the Settlement Administrator to obtain the Claim Number and then file electronically. A claim submitted this way asks for your name, your address, and the state and facility where you received the card. Because a person who never received a notice can still file, this settlement is treated as no-proof.
How is the release card payment of three times the fees calculated?
Each valid claim is worth a minimum of $15 plus three times the fees incurred on the release card or cards you received when you were released. Inactivity fees are counted as if the defendants' February 3, 2026 reloading of collected inactivity fees onto class members' cards had never happened, so that reload does not reduce what your claim is worth. If the money left in the fund after fees, costs and administration is not enough to pay every valid claim in full, all claims are reduced on a pro rata basis.
What happens to the money the defendants reloaded onto release cards in February 2026?
On or about February 3, 2026, the defendants reloaded $2,138,557.48 in previously collected inactivity fees onto class members' release cards. Under the Settlement Agreement, once final approval is granted the defendants have the unconditional right to recoup any of those reloaded funds that are still sitting on a card. That is a separate question from your claim: the settlement calculates your payment as though the reload never occurred, so class members who still hold a card can file a claim on the same terms as everyone else.
Who is covered by the Rapid Investments and Axiom Bank release card settlement?
The Nationwide Class covers anyone in the United States who was taken into custody at a jail, correctional facility, detention center or other law enforcement facility, was entitled to the return of money confiscated from them or left in their inmate account when they were released, and was issued a prepaid debit card by Rapid Financial Solutions and/or Axiom Bank between January 16, 2024 and June 30, 2026. A Washington Subclass covers the same people for facilities located in Washington State. Washington Subclass members are also members of the Nationwide Class and file one claim, not two.
Why is the opt-out deadline earlier than the release card claim deadline?
They govern different decisions. October 2, 2026 is the deadline to exclude yourself from the settlement, to comment on or object to it, and to file a notice of intent to appear at the fairness hearing. October 12, 2026 is the deadline for a claim to reach the Settlement Administrator, and filing a claim is the only way to be paid. Filing a claim does not preserve any right to opt out, and the opt-out date passes ten days first.
When will release card settlement payments be sent?
No payment date had been announced as of August 24, 2026. The fairness hearing is scheduled for October 19, 2026, and a hearing being held is not the same as final approval being granted. Under the Settlement Agreement, payments follow the Effective Date, which arrives only after the Court enters a final approval order and the time to appeal has run with no appeal filed, or any appeal has been resolved. Check the official settlement website for updates.
For more class actions keep scrolling below.
Settlement Amount
$4,200,000
Non-reversionary — no portion returns to Rapid or Axiom
Case Title
Hall v. Rapid Investments, LLC and Axiom Bank, N.A.
Case Number
3:25-cv-05039-BHS
Court
U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington at Tacoma
Final Approval Hearing
October 19, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Before Judge Benjamin H. Settle in Tacoma, Washington — may be rescheduled without further notice
Administrator
Kroll Settlement Administration LLC
Official Website
Hall Release Card Settlement.com
