I was in Toronto last fall, having a good time until my phone rang. The person on the other end (a TD rep) called to see if I had withdrawn $1,200 a couple hours earlier. No, I had not, I told her.
Immediately my debit card was cancelled, and I had to find a TD bank to get a new one. They told me that an investigation would commence immediately, and that I'd likely be reimbursed within a couple of weeks.
6 weeks later, I still had not heard from the bank, so I called to find out what was up. They told me that either
a) My pin was too easy to guess
or
b) I had (at some point) given out my pin to someone, and that they were the likely culprits.
or
c) I was careless when punching in my pin, and basically gave it away.
Either way, it was partially my fault & therefore, I was S.O.L.
Naturally, I was furious. I went through the logic. I said
a) My pin was 4255. I was not born in '42 or '55 or 4255. My parents were not born in those years either. Its not my phone number, my girlfriends phone number, or anyone else's. My sin, my AHC, my DL, none of them have a 4255 in there. In fact, it was a random number. How can you get any more random with 4 digits to work with?
b) I have never given out my pin to anyone (ok, my girlfriend knows it, but I didn't tell them that because I knew that she was not the 'culprit')
c) When entering my pin, I cover the thingie with one hand to quash an overhead electronic surveillance attempt, and to block people in front or beside me from seeing. As for me being able to see, I have to leave the back side open so that I can punch in the number. The only way someone sees the pin is by looking over my shoulder. How the hell am I going to know that someone is looking over my shoulder? Mount some mirrors on my chest? (She laughed at that suggestion, which only made me madder).
I then demanded to speak to the ombudsman, and got the phone number. I spoke to the lady in his office and went through the same rant. I then told her that $1,200 may not be a big deal to a multi-million or billion dollar corporation, but to me its a big effing deal. Its already been 6 weeks, and I NEED that money.
I went on to tell her to contact my bank, get my balance prepared for withdrawl, I am closing my accounts & I'd be talking to the media about my plight.
She told me that she couldn't have my balance prepared for withdrawl on such short notice (I think I had about $6,000 in that bank) to which I responded with even more anger.
"What the hell? You guys, with your easily compromised cards, lose $1,200 of my money, then you pin it on me, and now you wont give me the rest of my meagre savings? What the hell kind of bank am I dealing with" "Rah rah rah... I'm p*ssed off... I'm going to the media. I want my money"
She listened to me rant for about 5 minutes, then told me that she'd call me back.
10 minutes later, I got a call from the manager at my branch telling me that the money would be reimbursed within 24 hours, and that they were sorry for the inconvenience.
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