Questions Answered for CA’s EDD Unemployment Insurance Debit Card

I recently filed for unemployment insurance (UI) through the Employment Development Department (EDD) in California because I was laid off. By default, they mail you a debit card and auto-load the benefits to the card to make disbursement faster.

Does the EDD Debit Card work with Apple Pay and other Digital Wallets?

No.

When I first got the card, I wasn’t sure how I should use it. My first thought was to add it to Apple Pay to pay for random purchases. I didn’t really want to carry it around in my wallet and it’s just another balance to keep track of. When I tried adding the card

I could enter all my info, accept the terms and conditions (T&C) and then it would fail.

Apple Pay says “Card Not Added: Contact your card issuer for more information” with the only option being “Add Card Later”.

Checking the website, I found a huge warning plastered across the top as of Oct 26, 2023.

Please Note: Bank of America has temporarily suspended mobile wallet provisioning. If you attempt to add your card to a mobile wallet, you will receive an error message. This suspension does not impact any other card functionality.

After contacting the “card issuer” Bank of America (BoA) by calling the phone number on the back of the card, customer support confirmed that Apple Pay and digital wallets aren’t supported and there are no plans to support it.

How do I transfer funds to my normal checking account?

Apple Pay doesn’t work and I don’t want to carry around this debit card all day. My next option is to transfer my cash to my regular checking account so I can just use it normally.

However, when I looked at the website and the app, I could not find any option to transfer.

After calling “card member services”, aka the number on the back of the screen, they explained transfers are not allowed until I verify my address is correct. Done!

Now I can find the option under the top menu > My Money > Transfers!

What are the transfer limits?

$5000 over 7 days. This is a rolling window, where you add up all the transfers over the last 7 days and if your current transfer pushes you over $5000, then it will be rejected. It is not counted by-week.

What does “Transfer-To accounts allowed: 1” mean?

If you go to the Transfers page, you might see a warning about “Transfer-To accounts allowed: 1”. This just means you can only add one other bank account to transfer your money to at any time. If you want to transfer to a different account, you’ll need to delete the old one and add the new one after.

How long did I wait on hold?

Probably about 30 seconds. Bank of America was pretty fast.