By Wesley Hatt
August 8th, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
As time moves on, we continually see changes around us. In a day where profit margins are continually analyzed and extras are cut, we are now left with a red card with a triangle instead of Canadian Tire cold cash.
Canadian Tire money can now be bought on eBAy as a collectible.
As a child I was amazed when I heard that a neighbour just bought something big with a fat stack of Canadian Tire money that he had been saving. The feeling of paper instead of coins made it seem so much more valuable as a child. As a kid, I never had a stack of real cash, but I did enjoy the feeling of a stack of Canadian Tire money as though I was rich… even if most of the money was 5 cent denominations.
When covid hit, I actually had some Canadian Tire money and tried to use it. It was denied with the reason being Covid. I was offered a red card with a triangle to collect my Canadian Tire money. I was not pleased. Instead of the fun Canadian Tire money that I was expecting my children to experience, is instantly gone and replaced with a card. Arg, not another card in my wallet that I have to carry around with me! My doctor recently told me my wallet is too thick and is affecting my back. I tucked the red card in my wallet and reluctantly used it for the next couple of years.
When presenting my card a few weeks ago, I was told that there was over $20 saved up on the card and asked if I wished to use it. I said yes, but was then told I couldn’t as I did not register the card. I did in fact try registering the card when I got home. The instructions were to visit a website and complete the registration. I attempted to register online and was asked my email address. I then received an email stating,
“The final step is to verify your Triangle ID email address.” I clicked the link and was brought to a site to enter the Rewards card number. I did this and received an error message and was prompted to call a number to be able to add the card. This did trigger some alarms in my head as I have gone to a website that is now telling me to call a number.
I called the number and everything seemed to be going OK. She found the rewards number and was creating an account to associate it to. To setup the account, I was asked some personal information. This seemed okay, but the questions continued and I was asked much more information than what was asked online. I was asked my full name, date of birth, phone number, and then she asked me for my address. This seemed excessive as they now would seemingly have enough information for identity theft and that made me very uncomfortable.
They seem to be requiring information that they do not need. My year of birth and postal code should have been enough. I further absolutely do not want anything mailed or anyone showing up at my home. The representative went on about their policy and that they don’t sell information and so on, so there shouldn;t be a problem. I tried speaking with a supervisor, but that got me nowhere. Honestly, I don’t care for their internal policies they made up themselves. The audacity to think that the information is safe. We all know that once in a while a big announcement is made about a large compnay and that information on a serves has been accessed and personal account information has been exposed. This is of no direct loss of theirs it’s the customer personal information that they compromise.
So here I was, feeling uncomfortable about claiming my $20 that I had been collecting. I often paid cash or interact to be sure I received the rewards money. This in turn saved Canadian Tire the extra percentage that the credit card would have charged them, so when they didn’t have this charge, they passed it on to you.
Over $20, I ended up giving the card to my wife. She asked why I gave it to her. I asked her if she was willing to give her info to Canadian Tire for $20 on the card.
We have had an extremely worrisome situation with someone in a Canadian Tire Store who represented themselves as a store employee to Dave when they were actually working for the bank who own the Canadian Tire Credit Card. We will report back after we have managed to get together with the Store Manager on how this situation ends.
In the meantime if a person in a Canadian Tire store asks “Can I help you” ask who they are and who they work for. The offer of assistance resulted in our owning a Canadian Tire credit card we do not need, thinking it was a points card and could reduce our purchase price of the faucet we were there to buy, which was the case but only by a few dollars. It reulted in $100 plus credit on the card as we were persauded to pay with our card and then pay off with our debit card at the till as debit card is our normal method of payment.
We later determined our purchase was $40 cheaper at another store and returned it after ensuring the $40 cheaper product was exactly the same as we had purchased. However, the Canadian Tire returns person and a duty manager would not return the purchase price to anything else but the credit card.
That $100 sitting on a credit card we do not need was our grocery money for the rest of last month that we cannot use a Canadian Tire Card to purchase. It also meant our credit rating was affected by owning a credit card we do not need and will never use. Please Gazette readers learn by our mistake and check who is asking “Can I help you.”
The card administration office onboarding campaign team contacted us as we had not activated the card. They took a formal complaint, cancelled the card and are putting a cheque in the mail for the credit on the card. Evidently there are lots of people like Dave who were led to believe this was a points card that does not require a credit checkj. The responsibility is the Stores, they are the ones responsible for bringing someone in to promote the Canadian Tire credit card. Trying to get through to the Appleby Store Manager, Brad Gibson at this time has proved impossible but we will keep trying.
Good one!