[mschy]

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Phone cards are basically just (small) deposit accounts that are withdrawn against for one particular purchase.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.

[chasingsparks]

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.

[amalcon]

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.

[Daniel_Newby]

"Phone cards are basically just (small) deposit accounts that are withdrawn against for one particular purchase.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.