Pre-Paid Credit Cards in Canada | Page 2 | Credit card reward programs | Discussion forum

An update on my EQ Bank card. I was quite a fan and used it extensively in Europe this spring enjoying the absence of foreign exchange charges and near universal acceptance.

Problem began in early November when my account somehow got compromised. I have no idea where the verification details got stolen or leaked but I suspect they got published on the "dark net". Within 30 minutes my account was drained of nearly $1000 [since it was earning 2.5% interest plus a rebate on purchases, it was convenient to load it once a month]. All was fine at 9am when I made an online purchase. I was on the subway, got off and my phone lit up like a Vegas casino with notifications with purchases coming in from every continent except AUS; mostly for games, betting and young women's fashion merchants.
I was able to get EQ on the phone within less than 5 minutes and suspend the card which was good. The bad part is that, because it was a prepaid, rather than credit, card the investigation was in the hands of Mastercard and would take 90 days or more. I was assured my money was protected against fraud, and the EQ customer service rep acknowledged immediately it was obvious the card was compromised. BUT, 45 days in, only about $140 of the $1000 has been refunded and I'm not completely confident it will be resolved easily. I was told refunds are much faster with credit cards.
Meanwhile, I receive notifications every few days that someone has tried to use the cancelled card and was denied. To date, attempted and fraudulent charges add up to double the amount I had stored on the prepaid card. I'm cautious that if the investigation gets dropped or goes badly, there might be an attempt to draw funds from my EQ Bank savings to cover the unauthorised charges. It's not a priority for Mastercard which already has $1000 of my money. Accordingly, I transferred all my savings out of EQ Bank [CDN and US accounts; $2.00 each left to keep the accounts alive] and have no intention of using the prepaid card again.
Just a word of caution; credit and prepaid cards may [are?] not treated equally.

Briguy said
Sorry to hear about that. Wealthsimple card is very similar to EQ card, so I guess it's important to keep these prepaid credit cards locked when not using. EQ forces you to move the money from the savings account to the card to spend money, so it should be easier to keep safe than WS. WS card automatically pulls off the connected cash account. It would be nice if Wealthsimple allowed you to have more than 1 Cash account so you could connect the card to a cash account with very little money inside.

Another way of keeping your card safe is to use it through Google Wallet and Apple Pay, not directly  

Thanks. Things I didn't know about Wealthsimple's card. Automatic pulling of funds could be a lot more serious than my monthly transfer to cover anticipated 4-weeks of charges. Good advice to keep the card locked via the phone app when not being used. I will admit not thinking of that when I got off the subway train and my phone was binging like a slot machine. I'm a senior and some of these conveniences are not first of mind. I was just grateful when the EQ Bank rep answered on first-ring and locked the card immediately.

I have never carried the plastic card except when I headed to Europe, not knowing how accessible NFC payment would be [very good actually]. At home, I use Apple Pay almost exclusively with only one plastic card in my wallet as fall-back. Again, I have no idea of the possible source of the leak. I wonder if organised hackers have computers trying endless combinations of account numbers and dates until they get something that works?? It concerns me that despite the customer service rep cancelling the card and telling me "it's obvious your account has been compromised", Mastercard converted about 30 transactions from "pending" to "posted" over the following few days.

We all need to remain vigilant and keep transaction notifications activated so we can take action as quickly as possible.

Alexandre said

countysaver said

I was able to get EQ on the phone within less than 5 minutes and suspend the card which was good.

Just FYI: with EQ app on smartphone it is possible to lock the card instantly, without calling bank. Also, makes sense to keep card locked when not used.  

Very good point. I admit [as an old guy] not thinking of that in the heat of the moment when my phone was pinging like a Vegas slot machine. Keeping the card locked is an option as long as one remembers to unlock it before getting to the Tim Horton's/Starbucks cashier with an impatient line-up behind. 🙂

Final [?] update, see above. EQ Mastercard completed refunding the fraudulent charges on my card 85 days into the promised 90 day window. One wonders if it takes that long to confirm or they just want to pad their receivables for 90 days. 😉

It was a challenge to match all the charges to the credits. The charges were truly international in multiple currencies. The refunds seems to have been impacted by exchange rates so e.g. a $16.13 charge resulted in a $16.17 refund. As best I can tell, I was out <$2 at the end of the procedure and I won't be chasing it down spending hours on the telephone.

One other complaint/warning. EQ Bank Mastercard monthly statements never show a balance, starting to ending the month. All they show are credits and debits forcing users to go on-line, check the balance and then reconcile the statement adjusting for pending charges/credits. It's an unnecessary pain and a reason I haven't activated the replacement card sent to me after the fraud/hack. My EQ Bank balances have been reduced to $0.00 in all accounts and I'm done with this virtual bank.