I went into Money Mart with the intention of simply cashing a cheque. While I was waiting for it to process the clerk offered a sales pitch regarding all the many benefits of having titanium plus prepaid MasterCard. It sounded like a good idea; I wanted to have a card to use on the internet. She told me that there was an initial processing fee, and that there are fees for transactions just like using a real credit or debit card. All of this seemed reasonable so I signed up for it. I paid the initial processing fee of $20.00 and loaded the card with another $30.00. She issued me a temporary card right there on the spot and told me that the real one would be sent to me in the mail in a few weeks time.
After about 5 months the actual prepaid card arrived in the mail. There was a toll free number on it which I called in order to activate it. I called the number but when I followed the automated features I was unable to activate my card.instead I had to navigate the system and then wait for at least an hour just so I could talk to an actual human being. Just so I could ask them to manually activate my card. Eventually I did get an operator and they did activate the card for me.
After having to wait all that time I wanted to make sure that I could actually use the card. I let the operator know that there was an item on E-Bay that I wanted to purchase and that it was getting close to the deadline. The operator told me that I could use the card as it had been activated, but that I would have to reload the card before I could make any transaction because my balance was $0. I was puzzled and I let the operator know that.
I told the operator the card had never been used, that not one transaction of any kind had been made. I said that the whole purpose of this phone call is that I am just now activating it for the first time. Not being able to make any sense of this I asked him to search the records. When I got the card I had already spent $50.00 on it. I had paid the initial $20.00 processing fee and I had loaded the prepaid Credit Card with $30.00.
The operator then informed me that the remaining funds on my Card totaled $0. When I asked how that could be considering I had never used the Card, he replied that it was due to a charge of nearly $8.00 that is tallied every month as a so called Maintenance Fee. I just couldn't believe it! I was literally blindsided by this. I felt like my hard earned money had been stolen from me, like I had been bamboozled.
Why am I just now hearing about this monthly fee? I told him. The clerk at Money Mart, your representative, the person who actively went out of their way to sign me up to this gimmick never said anything to me about a monthly fee! The only fees the clerk had told me about were of the reasonable variety an initial processing fee, and fee's whenever I actually use the card, like a debit card at an ATM or a Credit Card at a store. They only told me about standard fees that one would expect for the service your company is providing.
I would never have signed up for this card if I had known that you would be charging me every month for holding my own money. How is having my money in holding a burden that you can charge for? The money is accruing interest, it is an asset. What exactly are you maintaining that would warrant an $8.00 a month service charge? What is the service you are providing that justifies charging me? If anything you should be paying me interest for the privilege of holding my money!
He said that it was not up to the clerk to explain it to me. That I was responsible for reading the fine print on the agreement. I asked him if he had ever heard of the phrase informed consent? I did not seek this. It is obvious that Peoples Trust Company in conjunction with Money Mart are actively marketing a scheme that is designed to separate people from their money without offering anything that could even remotely justify what they are charging for.
I told him that you can't simply slip things by a person by burying it in fine ambiguous fine print. This is not a loan or a line of credit; there no reasonable person would read all the fine print for a service that is supposed to be straight forward. The representative for Peoples Trust Company is legally obligated to inform the customer of all fees. I said that I think their company is running a con scheme and that they cannot claim to have informed consent.
I said that I wanted a full refund of both the $20.00 processing fee and the $30.00 I had loaded onto the card.
He told me that I should contact the distributor (money mart) and take up the problem with them. I told him that this is a totally unethical business practice and that I am an unhappy customer. I asked for his name and to talk to a managerthat is when the little creep hung up on me.
A really pissed off dude
Ken
fort langley, British Columbia
Canada
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