Shopping online

Key Learnings:

• Before buying online, make sure you understand the rules of the online payment method you have chosen.

• Interac e-Transfer does not offer purchaser protection for fraudulent transactions that are authorized. 

Mr. H agreed to purchase a restaurant-size smoker from a private seller on Kijiji. He transferred $8,000 to the seller, via multiple authorized Interac e-Transfers. The seller had promised to ship the smoker to Mr. H upon receipt of the full payment. However, Mr. H never received the smoker he had paid for. He contacted police and learned that the seller had been reported for two other fraud cases. Mr. H had used both Interac and PayPal in the past and believed that, like PayPal, Interac would provide the purchaser with a guarantee with respect to the items purchased.

Mr. H reached out to his bank and was told that its agreement says that clients who use Interac are responsible for all authorized transactions, and since in this case Mr. H had authorized the e-Transfers, he was not covered by Interac’s Zero Liability Policy (ZLP) or the bank’s Electronic Banking Guarantee (EBG). Mr. H then brought his complaint to OBSI.

Our review of Interac’s policies showed that it only protects the user from unauthorized or fraudulent use of the Interac system, which is what is covered by the ZLP. Unlike PayPal and some credit cards, Interac does not offer any purchase protection, since it can be used like cash. Mr. H’s bank agreement said that the cardholder is responsible for the full amount of all authorized activity resulting from the use of the cardholders account or secret identification code by any person.

We also noted that Kijiji’s Safety Notice recommends that transactions should take place in person and in cash, and that users should not ship items and/or use other payment methods. Similarly, the Interac website states that users “should send money using Interac e-Transfer only to people you know and trust, the same way you would with cash.”

Unfortunately, the fraudster took advantage of Mr. H’s trust and took the $8,000 that had been transferred without shipping him the smoker he thought he had purchased. Based on our investigation, OBSI was satisfied that the bank correctly applied its agreement and the Interac ZLP, and therefore, we were unable to make a recommendation in favour of Mr. H. 

This complaint was not upheld. 

(2016)