Visa Giftcard Doesn't Work

ohhoneyy · Dec 27, 2010

Hope none of this fiasco happened to any of our members! That must have been a pain to line up and not have your Visa giftcard work.

MONTREAL — Hundreds of Boxing Day bargain hunters in Montreal got an unpleasant surprise Sunday when their prepaid Visa gift cards failed to work at the cash register.

The MyTreat Visa cards, which essentially take the place of cash and were issued by the Citizens Bank of Canada, were not working properly at numerous Montreal stores, forcing some shoppers go home empty-handed after hours of waiting in line.

“I am just so ticked off right now,” said Candice Cairnduff, who gave her 17-year-old son, Jeremy Lepage, $250 worth of the cards for Christmas, only to get a call from him early in the afternoon telling her they were no good.

“He was being humiliated at the cash when it wasn’t being accepted,” Cairnduff said. “The cashier called Visa to authorize it over the phone, but they couldn’t give the number for authorization on a gift card.”

Cairnduff said that with the Boxing Day sales, her son easily could have bought $500 worth of merchandise with the $250 worth of gift cards. When she called Visa herself, they told her they were receiving hundreds of complaints about the very same thing.

“There must have been so many kids out there disappointed,” said Cairnduff, her voice shaking with frustration.

“I mean, this was supposed to be a Christmas gift.”

According to Amanda Brittain, who handles communications for the Citizens Bank of Canada, the problem was a technical issue that was recognized early in the day.

Visa did everything it could to fix the problem before the stores closed in the evening, she said, but the trouble may not have been limited to Montreal.

The cards would not work on the first swipe, but often they would function when run through the card reader a second time, Brittain added.

That was little consolation for Lepage, who walked into his mom’s house just after 6 p.m. last night with very sore feet, but no shopping bags.

“I went to the Eaton Centre at 8:30 a.m. and waited in line for about four hours, and then the card didn’t work,” Lepage said.

“They said it just wouldn’t swipe properly.”

He tried several more stores before finally giving up and simply following his girlfriend as she paid for her own purchases in cash.

“I know it’s not their fault,” he said when asked what he wants the bank to do in response to the faulty cards. “But it would be nice if I got a refund or a bit more money for it . . . I lost out on all those deals.”

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Visa Giftcard Doesn't Work

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