If this is established as a precedent though how far will it apply? Do ISP's have to turn unused internet bandwidth over to the government too? It doesn't seem feasible.
I think the difference is that the calling cards are for a set number of minutes and a monthly internet service is just a on/off thing. The other thing I wonder about though is gift cards - I'm sure there have to be tons of dollars that expire on those all the time. Does the gov take a cut?
I find it a stretch to say that unused minutes can be considered "unclaimed property". The cards basically are a contract where ATT will deliver up to X minutes of use within a defined time frame. That's really just a bandwidth agreement. What's next, will cable companies be required to rebate me for the hours of TV that I don't watch every day?
What if there is no defined time frame? If you can buy minutes in the form of a pre-paid card, why wouldn't it be property? You could resell it. And it's a "pre-paid" card, not a "minutes contract". That makes it see that it is a stored cash-value card. The only difference is that the value is removed from the card in proportion to calling minutes as opposed to dollars spent.
What about the case of airline points? Those are used almost interchangeably with cash. Hell, didn't American Airlines pay Citi in points once?
Every pre-paid card I've seen has in the fine print an expiration date. If there are some that are totally open-ended, that does change the argument a bit.
Those expiration dates are quickly becoming illegal. I don't know how it applies to pre-paid minutes, but for gift cards, most states have eliminated expiration dates.
I don't know about other systems, I use a Tracfone, and while I have to buy a new card every 3 months, the minutes roll over - I'm up to over 7 hours now.
The TV example is different. The cable company doesn't sell you X hours of TV, it sells you 'as much TV as you want' each month. Whether you watch constantly or not at all, you got what you paid for.
The calling cards are good for X minutes. Is it legal to expire those minutes? Seems like gift card sellers have been restricted in their ability to erode gift card value.
Escheatment isn't new. If you abandon a bank account, the bank escheats it to the state.
If you then notify the state that they have your money (such as via http://ucp.dor.wa.gov/ ), then you can file a claim, and they'll give you the money.
Phone cards are basically just (small) deposit accounts that are withdrawn against for one particular purchase. It makes a lot of sense that they'd fall under the same law.
Your "slippery slope" example on the other hand doesn't seem to match, because ISPs charge a fixed price for daily access. They don't (currently) take a deposit and then debit that account based on usage. If they did, then it seems like it might fall under the same laws.
Escheatment may not be new, but this is certainly a poor application. Abandoned money in banks probably dwarfs that of calling card remainders. Claiming a few hundred dollars (or more) from a bank account is a good use of my time. Claiming $1.03 from my calling card is not a good use of my time.
How exactly will D.C. redistribute the pre-purchased minutes to their rightful owners? My guess is they wont, which is why calling it a cash grab is appropriate.
A lot of them cap usage, though (at least officially). The phone card could just be structured as "$X for Y years of access, with a maximum total usage of Z" to get around this.
It seems more likely that the difference is that cable companies usually bill later, whereas prepaid phones obviously bill up front.
"Phone cards are basically just (small) deposit accounts that are withdrawn against for one particular purchase. It makes a lot of sense that they'd fall under the same law."
No. Bank deposits are accounted for as money held in trust under a limited power of attorney, the total principal value must be reserved against by high-quality assets, and they are super-senior debt instruments that have priority in liquidation.
The purchase price of phone cards is accounted for as income for the phone company, the cards are sold to provide a bearer service contract, they can discount the sale price to account for minutes that will not be used, reserves are whatever the phone company wants, and they are junior instruments that have low priority in liquidation.