Hand in the Cookie Jar?

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Hand in the Cookie Jar?

Postby bigbry » Sat Aug 08, 2015 10:47 am

The TD Bank with branches in the USA and Canada, has been caught with their hand in the cookie jar, by putting hundreds of dollars worth of charges through on a Visa credit card, that was not activated by the user. TD charges interest every month on that money and if the person, which has been a loyal customer since 1978, can’t make the minimum payment they make even more. Let’s think about the millions of dollars that might be made if the TD or the other big banks have done this to countless others.

Ok, here’s the story and I’ll let you figure out who the bad guy is.
A TD Visa card holder buys a juice product from Xango. Xango sends the product out every month with pre-authorized payments on her Visa card. There comes a time, that the clients Visa expires thus making it null and void. The TD Bank sends her a new credit card. This new credit card has to be activated to be used. I’m sure we’ve all been in a situation where you haven’t activated your old card to new card, and it was turned down. This client does not activate the new TD Visa card. A representative from Xango calls and tells her, shipments cannot go through until they have the new credit card information. Even the TD Bank sent a letter saying that, until the Visa card was activated, she would not be able to use it and pre-authorized payments would not go through. This is fine with the client. She wants to hold off activating the new card to pay down her debt load. Two shipments from Xango arrive at the clients house and hundreds of dollars has been charged on a Visa card that has not yet been activated by the TD Bank. That’s the story in a nutshell.
You could say that there are 2 schools of thought on this. It’s Xango’s problem for sending out the product. On the other hand, it’s TD’s problem for letting the credit go through.

The TD Bank is charging interest and “over-limit” charges on money that they voluntarily put on the card. Yes, those charges put her ‘over limit.’ When contacted by the client, they said, and not in a customer friendly way, it was all Xango’s problem and would not reverse the hundreds of dollars in charges. When I contacted the TD for comment by sending out over 10 emails, I received one call and she said she’d get back to me, well I’ve had to shave nine times and I’m still waiting. I ended up calling Customer Service and talked with Robert Anderson, a customer service supervisor. Anderson explained and very nicely I might add, that they do put through pre-authorized payments even on a card that hasn’t been activated, as in having a health club membership, but they will not put through a single charge, like from a store. So if you needed life saving insulin from the drug store, sorry you’re out of luck.This is all normal practise for the TD Bank.
When given the chance to comment, Visa ignored it.
Trying to get a comment out of Dustin Gardner, Treasury Manager for Xango was as easy as trying to get the Beatles back together again.

Some might yell, “fraud or embezzlement.” What side of the fence does your laundry fly?

Fraud, which is “wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.”

Embezzlement, which is “theft or misappropriation of funds placed in one's trust”.

The RCMP say, we can’t yell that on a National stage because this is a Civil matter, not Federal.

Canadian Banks have made record profits, but with that, they seem to have given up on customer satisfaction. A J.D. Power study puts customer satisfaction at an all time low with the major banks. The main reason, fees and more fees. We must tell you, that the TD Bank, has for the last 10 years, rated #1 in Customer Satisfaction.
Lets keep an eye open on your credit card statements. We live an age where complete strangers can steal your identity. We would never think that the big banks would use your identity to steal interest and other fees, or do they? Hey TD and Visa, Get Off My Lawn!
Bryan Cox
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Re: Hand in the Cookie Jar?

Postby jon » Sat Aug 08, 2015 11:31 am

Banks may well think that they are doing you a favour by honouring payments on expired or cancelled credit cards. I suspect that it falls under the same laws as writing a bad cheque. The practice likely comes from the bank's policy of forwarding cheques from cancelled accounts to any account you may have replaced it with, typically by changing branches, or even banks.

Things get even more convoluted when you add "pre-authorized" payments either from credit cards or chequing accounts. Nonetheless, I suspect the banks follow the same policies.

What is worse than how easy it is to forget that you have a monthly, quarterly or annual charge "pre-authorized", is how hard some companies purposely make it to cancel a pre-authorization that you have given them. And sometimes even how long they wait to actually stop charging you, or how many times you have to call back to actually make it happen.

Weirdest one I remember was a local restaurant waiting a year before processing its American Express credit card charges. By which time, of course, I had cancelled my card because, since then, American Express had raised their fees to retailers who, in turn, stopped accepting American Express credit cards.

Sure enough, I got a bill from American Express a year later, 9 months after I cancelled the card. Was I legally required to pay the bill? Yes, definitely, since the transaction was dated before I cancelled the credit card.

But I phoned the restaurant General Manager and he gave me an apology and a couple of free dinners that added up to over half the credit card bill.
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Re: Hand in the Cookie Jar?

Postby bigbry » Sat Aug 08, 2015 3:02 pm

Oh JON....LIKE. Hitting the LIKE button!
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