A charge from GTL*INMATE PHONE SVC on your statement

GTL*INMATE PHONE SVC 877-650-4249 is a deposit into a prepaid account for phone calls from a jail or prison. GTL is Global Tel*Link Corporation, which now trades as ViaPath Technologies, and 877-650-4249 is the customer service number it publishes for these accounts.¹² If someone you know is locked up and calls you, the charge is probably theirs to explain. If nobody you know is, it is a charge you did not agree to.

What it looks like on a real statement

The State of Delaware publishes every purchase its employees make on state cards, with the merchant name as the bank received it. When we counted on 3 October 2026 it had 322 lines for GTL, from 17 May 2024 to 11 August 2026: 321 of them GTL*INMATE PHONE SVC and one GTL*TELMATE INMATE SRV on 23 January 2025. Telmate is one of the companies ViaPath’s terms name as part of the group.²⁴ Every one of the 322 lines is exactly $10.00. 319 are from one unit, the Delaware Psychiatric Center; its busiest day was 9 January 2026, with 23 charges of $10 on the same date.⁴ Banks add their own words in front of the name and a town and phone number after it. People have posted these forms from their own statements: CHECKCARD GTL*INMATE PHONE SVC 877-650-4249 AL, POS PURCHASE GTL*INMATE PHONE SVC 877-650-4249 AL and PRE-AUTH GTL*INMATE PHONE SVC 877-650-4249 AL.³ One person wrote that their bank showed it only as "Inmate Payment’s".

How to find who paid

1. Ask first, then check the account A family member, a partner or an old friend may have put money on a phone account with your card or with a card number you once gave them. ViaPath accepts "any credit card bearing the Visa or MasterCard logo (including debit and check cards)" with a United States billing address, so a debit card is enough.¹ Each phone number added to an account is funded separately.¹
2. Look for auto-reload ViaPath says it has no monthly or unlimited plans, but a stored card "can automatically reload your balance when it reaches a pre-determined threshold". That is how the same amount can come out several times in a row. To turn it off, sign in to the account at ConnectNetwork, choose AdvancePay in the left menu, and cancel it in the Preferences chart.¹
3. If it was a real deposit, ask for the money back now ViaPath says you can have a refund "only while your account remains active", that it "strives to process refunds within 30 days, but no longer than 60 days", and that you must "validate" your identity as the account holder. Refunds go by phone (877-650-4249), or online for some facilities.¹ Closing the account online is also possible for "select facilities", and the refund then comes as a check to the address on file.¹
4. If nobody you know made it, go to your bank Tell the bank the charge was not made by you, ask it to replace the card and ask what its deadline for a dispute is; the answer depends on the bank, the card network and the reason, and a missed deadline can end your options.

How long the money stays yours

ViaPath’s two documents give two timetables. Its help page says that after 180 days of inactivity or non-use an account "will become inactive and is subject to forfeiture" and "no refunds are available once an account becomes inactive".¹ Its terms of use, effective 1 June 2026, say friends and family accounts become inactive after 180 days, and that account holders "will have 270 days from the date of the last activity" to ask for a refund. After 270 days, "you agree that any remaining funds … will no longer be available to you", and they are turned into free calling minutes for people in the facilities it serves.² The same section then says refunds are available "while an account is in active status only (i.e., prior to 180 days of continuous inactivity and until the account is converted … after day 270)", which does not settle which day is the last. We did not find a document that does. Ask in the first 180 days. Any refund is paid after deducting call charges, taxes and fees from the current billing cycle, and some state laws change these periods; the terms name Alabama and Iowa.²

The terms also say that accounts for calls from California state prisons and youth facilities run by the state’s corrections department have been free for the family since 1 January 2023, and that in Minnesota state facilities calls cost nothing to either side since 1 July 2023.² A deposit that you thought was for those calls needs a different explanation.

Fees on the deposit

ViaPath’s help page says "applicable payment and transaction fees are deducted from some deposits, so a lower amount may be reflected in your balance".¹ In July 2024 the FCC voted for rules that fold the cost of such services into the per-minute rate caps, "eliminating the ability to impose separate ancillary service charges".⁵ The FCC’s release does not say which fee on which date applies to your account. Compare the balance to what you paid in, and ask about any difference.

Is this a scam?

The name is real: the line is the company’s own. ViaPath’s terms name Global Tel*Link and its group, and the number on the statement is the one its help page gives.¹² That does not make every such charge wanted. On a charge look-up site, where anyone can post about a statement line, about twenty dated comments from February 2017 to November 2024 sit under this name. Several of them say the writer knows nobody in jail, saw one or several charges of $12 to $99, and had the bank cancel the card; one says the charge was refunded the same day. One says the writer does send money to someone inside and saw a $42 charge two days after sending $40. These are their statements, not our findings, and we cannot tell from them how a card number reached the account.³ What follows from them is the same as above: if nobody you know funded it, it is your bank’s to reverse, not a renewal to cancel.

Why this page is on a site about held money

This site records payment companies that hold back money that belongs to someone else. GTL is not in the incident record; the page is here so that people searching for a name on a statement find the answer. The refund rules above are the held money part: a balance you cannot get back after a number of days is held money. A small card check with a code after it looks different, see PAYPAL * and PP*; a plan that renewed by itself is more often SMK*SURVEYMONKEY, STK*SHUTTERSTOCK or DNH*GODADDY. A $45 charge from SPBLL.COM is a membership someone may have joined with your card. An ordinary phone bill paid to Verizon reads VZWRLSS* or VERIZON BILL PAYMENT. Other lines are in the table of statement names.

Sources

1. ConnectNetwork Help (ViaPath’s account site for friends and family): AdvancePay questions on refunds, closing an account, fees, auto-reload, accepted cards and unauthorised charges. web.connectnetwork.com. Read on 3 October 2026. Archived copy of 2 October 2026.
2. ViaPath Technologies, "Terms of Use", effective date June 1, 2026: section 1 on the group companies, 15.2–15.6 "Friends and Family Accounts, Account Inactivity, and Refund Policy". viapath.com. Read on 3 October 2026. The web archive returned an error each time we asked it to save this page, so there is no archived copy of this version.
3. What’s That Charge, "GTL*INMATE PHONE SVC 877-650-4249 AL": the list of statement forms and the dated visitor comments, 6 February 2017 to 1 November 2024. whatsthatcharge.com. Read on 3 October 2026. Archived copy of 2 October 2026.
4. State of Delaware Open Data, State Employee Credit Card Transactions, fields "merchant", "trans_dt", "dept_name", "div_name" and "merchandise_amt". Lines starting GTL. Queried and counted on 3 October 2026.
5. Federal Communications Commission, news release "FCC Caps Exorbitant Phone & Video Call Rates for Incarcerated People", action of 18 July 2024 (FCC 24-75). docs.fcc.gov. Read on 3 October 2026. Archived copy of 2 October 2026.