scrubbedexpat091

Went to Home Depot a few days ago to get a couple of things, went to pay with debit and the machine said "mac failure, unable to authorize" whatever that means.

So went across the street to Wal-Mart to the ATM got out cash and went back to Home Depot.

Went to Save On, bought some food, debit card worked fine.

Got home, decided to check bank account online as the balance on the ATM receipt seemed off.

And there were 4 charges for 22.76 from Home Depot. Called the bank, bank said they were not authorizations but actual charges and Home Depot would need to refund them.

Went to Home Depot where apparently nobody who works there actually knows anything, but finally found someone who could at least check their point of sale history, they found the transaction and Home Depot system says transaction failed, and there was apparently no manager on duty.

Called bank again from store, bank talks to Home Depot, Home Depot employee's say transaction failed and they can't refund the money, bank insists and the account page shows Home Depot charged the account 4 times.

It's been a few days of bank blames store, store is blaming bank. Tomorrow we are at least finally going to see the store manager and maybe he can actually get this resolved as none of the middle managers seem to be capable of doing anything, if that fails, then to RBC local branch to see if they can do something.

It's not a huge amount, for us having 80 dollars tied up like this is a big deal.

First issue we have really ever had with either company, obviously one of them made a mistake or their systems did, and one of them has our money...

So hard to get anything resolved these days with any company, nobody seems to be able to do anything anymore at these places.

tee1

Dont bother with the store, they sound useless, was it a visa debit you paid on? If so call them and say you want to start a chargeback for the unauthorised charges.

BristolUK

And when it does get put right ask to be compensated for all the running around you've been doing. And inconvenience.

You should at least get a gesture of goodwill from the bank and/or discount from the store.

scrubbedexpat091

No, it was Interac. RBC doesn't issue a Visa debit that can be used in Canada or in person anywhere for that matter, they only have a virtual Visa debit you can use on some Canadian websites, and any foreign website for the most part that accept's Visa, but it's limited in Canada use wise.


We got it sorted though, RBC still say's nothing they can do in this sort of situation and that it is up to the retailer to resolve, the manager at Home Depot though said it's been an issue Canada wide and it's a known issue and refunded the 80 dollars in cash, he said some people are getting their funds back within 4-5 weeks, some don't, so they just issued a refund in cash.


Not sure I will still use debit after this fiasco, luckily the HD store manager was aware of the issue, obviously this might be something the company may want to pass on to their front line employees who proclaimed it could not possibly be their point of sale machine.......


Not impressed with RBC though.

dave_j

When I was very young I'd go to the pub and pay cash.
When I stopped being very young I realised that I could borrow money for a short period and if I paid off the debt it was for free. I thought that this was very good, but if you missed the deadline then the face of the bank changed from smerk to grin.
When I became a little more familiar with a keyboard I understood that I could set up a standing order thingy that would pay off the debt automatically and the bank changed from grin to smerk but you needed to keep up to date with where your money was or the grin would be back.
As I got a few grey hairs the bank gave me this thing called a debit card. 'Hmmm' I thought, why have they given me this? What can this do that a credit card can't?
Well.. It can give you your own money back instantly. But why would you want this to happen when you can borrow it for free?
Of course there are sometimes apparent benefits to using a debit card. When you see a sign like.. Gas/liter 1.00 debit 1.10 credit, think! Banks don't give away anything. You can bet that if they suggest that it's cheaper to use a debit card then it ain't.
In your case, Home Depot refunded the cash because bad publicity costs them. Like banks, they're not good guys, an accountant somewhere will have crunched the numbers and decided that in your case a refund was worth more to them than keeping the money.
You were hard done by, and you shouldn't be thankful that you got your money back. it should never have been taken in the first place.

Ben W Bell

And this kind if thing is why I don't use debit in Canada. I make all payments with a credit card which would have been much easier to sort it with.

However calling Interac themselves would also have helped, they will deal with this sort of thing directly.

scrubbedexpat091

If we had a useful credit card limit, we would use it more, it's just not a feasible limit to use for day to day stuff, takes 3-5 days for a payment to post, so debit or cash makes more sense, and cash I think will become our primary method of payment.

bc2015

When I transfer money to my credit card using online banking, the money is there within minutes.

Sounds like your issue here is definitely with Interac and not Home Depot or RBC.

I find my use of cash has dropped to pretty much nothing except transit since I got here - everywhere takes cards and it costs too much to take money out of an ATM that isn't your banks own (of which there are not many anyway).

scrubbedexpat091

Is the credit card with the same bank your making the payment from?

Our's is with Capital One and making an online payment through RBC takes just as long as any other bill, depending on day made and time, anywhere from 2-5 days to post on the other end.

Home Depot manager admitted their systems are having trouble and it's a well known issue in the company, so it seems it was indeed the store's system that was the issue.

RBC has tons of locations, it's rare for us to not find an RBC ATM nearby, as well our account allows 4 other bank ATM uses free of charge with RBC refunding the other banks charge, but we haven't used another banks ATM in Canada, always an RBC machine somewhere be it a branch, gas station, london drugs or elsewhere.

Zooper

Odd situation to be in. Glad you got it resolved. I wouldn't let it put you off from using debit. I've been using debit cards ever since Interac and debit cards came into existence and have never had a problem.
This is probably true for most people.

caretaker

I rarely use my debit card. Visa gives me a few cents for using them so I do for major purchases and gas unless it's at Regina Cabs (the bargain station politely asks for cash or interac, though they will take the card and smile), and at the liquor store. I'm old fashioned enough to use cash for the rest of my day-to-day purchases. I had a similar glitch with a little neighbourhood post office when a trainee mistakenly allowed me to buy a money order with a credit card, then the refunds exceeded their limit and the main office was closed, but true to the manager's assurance (and he was being optomistic) the limited refunds all appeared on my Visa account. All's well, etc...