Can’t speak for everyone, but among all the circles i’m in, lots of us just go for the cheapest bank account, often since it’s easy to get the fee waived by opening a CC or whatever; at which point you can put as many transactions as possible on the CC to stay under the debit limit. It just doesn’t make sense to hand over the 12$ or whatever per month when it’s overall not terribly difficult to minimize debits in the first place.
For students it’s easy, since many banks offer student accounts with unlimited debit regardless of balance; for the rest of us though, unfortunately not everyone is in a situation to maintain the 3-5+ thousand in the chequing to get the fees completely waived.
Yeah but even the $17 a month I pay is just two Venti iced frappa-whatevers a month, or three days’ worth of vape juice. For me it’s easier to minimize those.
Doesn’t mean that those with free bank account can afford Venti iced frappe-etc !
I went with ING like 20 years ago just because I was tired of having to keep a 1000$ in the account to not have to pay to use my money ! Today, the unlimited account of Desjardins ask to keep a minimum of 4000$ to waive the 16$ monthly fees… Sure, 16$ doesn’t seems a lot, but it’s just a principle that I don’t want to pay to use what is already mine. They already make me pay for each interac transaction, so I don’t get why I should pay even more (or be rich enough to waive the fees) to use my money.
I keep the crappiest Desjardins account with 12 transactions and I’m just super mindful with the 12 I have. Everything else goes on credit so I don’t use up transactions taking out cash. If I mess up its like a $4 fee the first time, then like $1.25 for every additional transaction that month. I make it work, but totally get why that wouldn’t make sense for other people’s situations.
Jean-Coutu takes credit when I go reload my opus. They even take American Express (which the ARTM does not) to get those sweet, sweet points.
Interesting… both jean coutu’s near my place (as well as the pharmaprix) are all very strict about cash/debit only for OPUS reloading, to the extent of separating the bills if i buy other stuff as well and want to use my CC. It seems then that it’s not a uniform rule on what payment methods are accepted at deps/pharmacies, which seems… annoying, at best lol
Unfortunately… More cons than pros with Scotia acquisition. Became a Tangerine with the transition. I can tell that customer service went down the drain. Good thing I hardly have to call them cause it became really complicated to talk with someone overtime.
Why can’t you tap to pay on Montreal public transit?
You can now buy tickets for Montreal’s 747 airport bus line on your phone, but the city still lags behind most major cities when it comes to paying for public transit. The Société de transport de Montréal has looked into changes, but bureaucratic setbacks have held up the process.
That’s so humiliating for Montreal. He takes one shot after another at the ARTM and the payment system, and all of them are well deserved. The way he ends that report really sums it all. The entire thing is a story of incompetence. Security? I mean seriously, if other agencies can figure it out, why can’t Montreal? Why can’t they just use an existing plug and play system?
Also, let’s be really honest here. Data safety is illusory at best in today’s world. Third party phone apps will find a way to get the data that they want and “hackers” always seem to find a new way to get into systems. I put “hackers” in quotation marks because the biggest threat to most computer system nowadays is social engineering. In any sizable organisation, there’s usually at least one employee that is going to do something foolish on his computer and compromise the entire organisation. Humans are typically the weakest link in any safety system. The ARTM isn’t going to escape that.
I’m still waiting for a positive story about the ARTM. They sure do make it hard to praise them when it seems like their mission is to kill as many good ideas as possible.
What’s odd about all this criticism is that… there is a plan in place to take us to par with other cities… What more could you possibly want? It’s already been announced.
That answer does not cut it for me. It clearly isn’t a plug and play system given that its going to take them several years to implement. Its taking way too much time to implement something that most world class cities have had for at least 5 years. In some of them, phone payments were possible even before the era of the flip phone ended. It is absolutely ridiculous just how slowly the ARTM moves.
