We don’t expect to have to pay cash advance fees when buying scratch cards and 6/49 tickets at a Loto-Québec kiosk. However, this is what happened to CIBC clients in recent weeks.
Posted at 3:29 a.m.
Updated at 6:30 a.m.
Linda wrote to me: “I stopped at a Loto-Québec counter, in the entrance of a Walmart, and bought a $4 lotto ticket with my CIBC Visa card. A few days later, what was my surprise to find that I had been charged a $5 cash advance fee related to this transaction! »
The woman picked up the phone and contacted her bank. “I had to wait almost an hour to speak to an agent so that he could explain to me this mysterious jargon that appeared on my statement: FS AV ESP/VIR SOL/CHQ PR/VERS. I still don’t understand the logic behind this policy…”
As I reported on Monday, for a reason that remains unexplained, CIBC charges $5 cash advance fees and increased interest on certain payments, including those made in Quebec courthouses1. The bank did not explain its reasoning to me. At the Department of Justice, we have been aware of the situation since at least January, but we do not know why CIBC is acting in this way. “No other financial institution interprets this code as a cash advance,” writes a spokesperson.
It was not the Quebec Ministry of Justice or the courthouses that decided to treat these transactions as cash advances, but rather CIBC.
Ministry of Justice spokesperson
A lawyer told me that she had already seen these fees on her statement after having paid by telephone the fees for copying a judgment at the court office.
“I contacted Visa CIBC […]. I said they were photocopies, I was charged $5. I thought it was the same for all institutions, but I see in your article that it’s not… It’s so ridiculous! A cash advance for photocopies! »
Maxime says he experienced the same thing “by paying a parking ticket on the website of the Longueuil municipal court”.
Lottery enthusiasts also discovered that they had been subjected to this curious practice when making a purchase at a Loto-Québec kiosk.
A man who bought $10 worth of tickets at the Mail Champlain kiosk in Brossard, with his CIBC Dividendes Visa card, deplores that the terminal did not tell him that fees would be charged to him “like when you withdraw money from an ATM of a banking institution other than ours.”
“After my outrage, they refunded the fee the next day, which is much appreciated, but I still have to pay the 21.99% interest! A real joke! As if I had withdrawn money with my credit card. I only bought lottery tickets. »
In fact, interest on a cash advance begins to accrue the second the withdrawal is made and the interest rate is generally higher than that for purchases.
Loto-Québec has known for a long time that certain financial institutions charge cash advance fees to those who deposit money into their online gaming account. Money can be withdrawn there at any time, so the website could be used as an ATM. CIBC’s logic could be explained this way.
But in the 75 kiosks installed in shopping centers and Walmarts?
Loto-Québec explained to me that credit card payments have been possible there since “very recently”, i.e. only about a month.
“You will be warned.” [l’entreprise qui fournit les terminaux de paiement] incorrectly coded the transactions. On October 28, we requested that credit card payments be suspended while Moneris adjusted its coding,” says spokesperson Renaud Dugas.
For its kiosks, Loto-Québec had obtained the “lottery merchant” code which should not generate cash advance fees. But it seems that it is rather that of “games of chance” (the same as online) which was recorded by mistake. In theory, the situation was resolved on Tuesday and credit card payments “should gradually resume”.
The Crown corporation does not know which card issuers charged fees. Double-check your statements and request a refund.
Of course, customers frustrated by these fees and increased interest don’t know if it’s Loto-Québec’s fault or their bank’s. “Inconceivable way of doing things. For me, no more buying lotteries online and paying by credit card at a kiosk. Loto-Québec should display these “hidden” fees on its site and at its kiosks,” a customer at the Fairview Pointe-Claire shopping center kiosk wrote to me.
Spokesperson Renaud Dugas insists that Loto-Québec must live with the consequences of the code assigned to it, that it cannot change it and that it gains nothing when its customers find themselves with fees of $5 per transaction , quite the contrary. Online, a warning is also included to encourage deposits by Interac transfer.
The Ministry of Justice, for its part, seems indifferent to these unexplained cash advance fees, even if Simon Jolin-Barrette presents himself as the defender of consumers by having new laws adopted to strengthen their protection.
1. See the article on fees imposed by CIBC
