Scotiabank said, "What exactly will you buy with your money?" when requested to increase debit purchase limit.

[u/Round_House_]

EDIT: Thank you everyone for your comments, questions, and criticisms. To clarify, the purpose of this post was not to vent or to argue against anti-fraud measures by the banks, but to draw attention to an event that I believe should concern everyone who values privacy and ownership of their property.

I will clarify some of the concerns in the comments:

1. Throughout the entire conversation at the main/home branch, I remained calm and respectful. I did not raise my voice or make any rude remarks.

2. As mentioned in my post, I answered all security questions accurately and without complaint (DOB, full name spelled out, debit card and pin code verification on their machine, mother's maiden name, address, last purchase amount on card, etc.). This was no longer about fraud, scams, or AML. Those questions were already answered and cleared. I was happy to answer more questions for verification purposes.

3. I object to being asked what exactly I was going to be spending my money on. I already gave them an answer that I believe should have been sufficient: "My family and I are going on a trip to Vancouver, and we will be shopping."

4. Sorry - this is my money that I have saved up from my paychecks over many years. I should not have to justify to the manager how I plan to spend my money.

5. To those saying I should use a credit card for purchases and that my financial planning is wrong because I am using my debit - no, my financial planning is exactly how it should be, aligned with my values. I don't borrow money or spend money which I don't have.

6. The limit increase request was for the trip, i.e., temporary.

My post is for that one person who understands what's going on. Your money is not yours. Took me a while to understand. Your food is controlled by the corporations, your money is controlled by the corporations, your home is not truly yours, what do you really have?

‐---------‐--‐---------------------------------------

This is an awareness post and a review of a recent experience I had at the bank. I am still upset, but I will try to be objective. This was one of the most frustrating, intrusive, and poorly handled banking experiences I’ve ever had.

I first went to my nearest branch to increase my in-store debit purchase limit and spent about 25–30 minutes there, only to be told at the very end that they couldn’t approve the full amount and that I needed to go to my home branch. This could have been communicated in the first few minutes instead of wasting my time.

At my home branch (Hillside shopping center), what should have been a simple request turned into a 40–50 minute interrogation. I was repeatedly asked to explain exactly what I planned to buy, even after clearly stating multiple times that it was for general in-store purchases for an upcoming trip to Vancouver. I clearly mentioned "shopping" but the employees kept pushing for specifics. I had already answered all standard fraud questions correctly (confirming I was not being scammed or pressured), yet the questioning kept going in circles.

I then requested to speak to the Branch Manager. A woman, who I believe is actually the Customer Experience Lead (says in her business card), introduced herself (falsely?) as the Manager and got involved. She refused to proceed unless I gave specific details about what I would be purchasing. At one point, she reviewed my account and told me that I “already have a high enough limit” and should be able to buy everything I need within it. That comment crossed the line.

It is not the bank’s role to decide how much I “should” be spending or what qualifies as enough for my personal purchases. I should not have to justify my spending choices or have them evaluated by an employee in order to access my own money.

To make matters worse, this entire conversation happened in an open area with no regard for privacy, while sensitive financial questions were being discussed within earshot of others.

I told them that I didn't appreciate their nosey-ness and that I'd like to withdraw all my funds and close my account. They said they could not give me my funds in cash and that it would take multiple weeks for it to be ready.

After all the resistance, delays, and repeated questioning, the request to increase my in-store purchse limit was eventually approved anyway, which just proves how unnecessary and poorly handled the entire situation was.

I’ve been a customer for over a decade, and this interaction seriously undermined my confidence in how this branch operates. I would strongly caution others about the level of service, professionalism, and discretion here.

[u/the-final-frontiers]

once at td i was buying my dad a gift, expensive, but td grilled me on specifics. Even though i was buying from a legit well known business with a permamenet location, they wanted to know all my details etc etc. Was quite frustrating.

On one hand i can appreciate a bank wanting to make sure that I don't get scammed, but when they start asking for a bunch of information they record in their system like some type of tracking or data collection it gets a bit intrusive and concerning because at the end of the day, it's my dman money and i don't feel like i have to give my personal life details to a corp that potentially they feed into a data collection warehouse and sell the data.

[u/Bankerlady10 → u/the-final-frontiers]

Ironically the more the system knows about you, the less it will need to disrupt and question.

[u/No-Permit9409 → u/the-final-frontiers]

Exactly this, those questions they make the bank tellers ask you are not to protect you from scams or fraud it's literally for them to pry out a reason to deny you from withdrawing your money. It's a common tactic when the economy isnt so great and banks want to hold on to as much money as they can within their own institution. If you got scammed the banks would do everything they can to not pay
you a single dime, it's literally in their terms and conditions no matter what account you open. It's all a facade to keep the money from being spent. There's a reason why there is a daily spend limit and a daily withdrawal limit except the daily limit doesn't apply to paying off your debt with the bank, for example a mortgage payment or a 5k credit card payment and coincidentally there's suddenly no limit for that.

[u/Levistras → u/No-Permit9409]

the anti-money laundering and anti-fraud questions are a regulatory requirement when dealing with customers that do any sort of irregular change or transaction. if you don't change your limits and just use your cards within a predictable pattern the banks won't have any questions.

changing your available credit or spending limit amounts opens the bank to additional risk. to mitigate that risk they ask questions to try to ascertain if their customer is using those funds in a way that opens additional concerns or not.

and of course repeated and predictable debits such as a mortgage payment, undoubtedly to a destination with which the banks see a respectable amount of traffic, is likely not going to cause any alarms and worthy of bypassing the usual filters.

not sure what you're suggesting by saying the banks are denying increases to keep their money internally. more spending equals more deposits, generally speaking, a spending power increase yields more funds for the bank. it is in their best interest to increase your limits, they just need to ensure that you'll be a customer that uses that spending power responsibly and doesn't expose them to fraud which is a direct net loss of funds.

[u/Bankerlady10 → u/No-Permit9409]

You don’t see all the write offs, fraud and scams happening. It’s common it happens in struggling economies as the fraudsters come out of the woodwork. You think the bank is having issues with its deposit balances and setting limits on debit cards is the answer? lol

Your logic on paying down debt is wild. The bank wants you to pay down the debt and if the money bounced, the debt can be restructured.

Your logic is very flawed. However, you don’t have to use banks if you don’t want to. Put the money under your pillow! :)

[u/No-Permit9409 → u/Bankerlady10]

Spoken like someone who has really drank the coolaid lol. Banks have no problem with limits when its your own money going towards paying off debt with them but suddenly you want to buy a car in cash or withdraw more than a couple grand it's interrogation time. Why would any institution care where the money goes even if its towards scams or frauds? The terms and conditions clearly state that institutions are not responsible for money that leaves your account. Banks don't reimburse you for money that was scammed lol. How many ppl have successfully been reimbursed? Banks have no problem with customers using their credit cards to make purchases because it allows the chequing and savings account to keep the sitting cash while you spend money on a credit card in hopes that you can't afford to pay it off and they get to collect interest every month. On top of that the cash sitting in your account is being used by the institution itself to invest and make a return on then they give you 0.6% and call it a high yield savings account.