Man given ‘runaround’ over failed prepaid card

A representative from Shoppers Drug Mart said a Sudbury man will get his money back nearly a month after he bought a prepaid MasterCard, and it failed to work.

On June 21, Ken McKnight bought $250 worth of prepaid “Vanilla” brand MasterCards — two $100 cards and two $25 cards — at the Shoppers Drug Mart location at the New Sudbury Shopping Centre. He said he planned to use the cards to pay off his cell phone bill.

The bill needed to be paid right away, and was told that if he paid cash, it would have taken longer for the phone company to get their payment than if he used a prepaid credit card.

However, one of the $100 cards and one of the $25 cards failed to work. McKnight said the $25 card became activated after about a week, but the $100 card never worked.

“I guess Shoppers didn’t activate it properly,” he said. “That same day, a couple minutes after purchasing (the cards), I went back and told them it wasn’t working. They said ‘Give it a couple of days. Sometimes it takes a while for it to activate.’

“I waited a couple of days, and it still wasn’t working. (Shoppers) told me to go to MasterCard. I called MasterCard, and they told me to go back to Shoppers. I go to Shoppers, they give me the runaround, and they tell me to go back to MasterCard. Back and forth.”

Because McKnight didn’t have the extra $100 to pay off his cell phone bill, his phone was ultimately cut off. He was left without a phone because he does not have a land line. He said this is dangerous for him because he lives alone and has medical conditions.

McKnight said he was happy to learn last week he’ll get his money back, but wants to be compensated for other costs related to the situation, such as the money it will cost him to reinstate his cell phone service.

Management at the Shoppers Drug Mart store at the New Sudbury Shopping Centre had not responded to Northern Life’s request for an interview at press time.

Tammy Smitham, director of communications and corporate affairs at Shoppers Drug Mart, said the company’s main office was only made aware of the situation July 9, after McKnight called their customer care service. She said he wasn’t given his money back right away because the number on his receipt didn’t match the number on the card.

“When that happens, they just require a bit more investigation time before they give the money back,” she said.

Smitham said the prepaid MasterCards come in a package, and they have a different number on them than the cards themselves.

“I think he returned the card without the package,” she said. “That’s why there was a disconnect.”

When asked why McKnight would be told to speak to MasterCard about the matter, Smitham said she thinks it may have been because he didn’t have the original packaging, and he needed to verify what the number on the packaging was.

Smitham said there has been some fraudulent activity concerning Vanilla prepaid MasterCards in the Sudbury area, although this was not suspected in McKnight’s case.

“Everything, unfortunately, is being fully investigated between the two companies because there’s been some fraudulent activity,” she said. “That’s why it took a bit longer to investigate this particular claim.”

As of Northern Life’s press deadline, representatives of MasterCard had not responded to Northern Life’s request for an interview.

Smitham said the company apologizes for any inconvenience the situation has caused McKnight.

“We’re going to compensate him,” she said. “Unfortunately, the claim did have to be investigated just because of the non-matching numbers.”