It sounds like a botched system change. They say they had switched their upstream processor when this problem occurred.

There are also reports of people having their accounts drained. So they could have other problems as well.

According to a story in NPR, this is an area of the financial sector with very little oversight, and with little in the way of consumer protections.

   http://www.npr.org/2015/10/21/450611721/technical-glitch-leaves-rushcard-owners-unable-to-access-funds

Most of the people using this service are poor and use no other financial services such as traditional banks or credit cards.

Sad this is not a bigger on HN, if this had been a problem at Bank of America, we would be all over the story.