BMO | Financial Crooks

OK, first I sent a friend a bit of cash from my EQ Bank Account using a free Interac e-Transfer: Now I want to see how he can deposit the money into his own bank account.

Reading the Interac e-Transfer Message from EQ Bank

Open the email entitled: INTERAC e-Transfer: Sender’s Name sent you money.
In my email inbox, this note arrived with a green shield and an exclamation mark.

The message tells me

who sent the money,
whether it’s CAD Canadian dollars or something else
what message the Sender wrote to me
when the offer will expire (I sent the transfer on April 5 and it expires on May 3)

and it includes a big link button called: Deposit your Money

Cashing an Interac e-Transfer

Open the email message and review the details.

Make sure this is not a scam email phishing for your banking information! If the message is unexpected, contact the sender and check that they really have sent you money by email! Hover your cursor over the Deposit your Money link button and check what address will open if you click on the link. Take any other precautions you can think of!

If everything is ok, click on the Deposit your Money link.

Make a note of the Reference # given in the upper right side of the message, just in case.

You will see icons for most of the common Canadian banks including

ATB Financial
BMO
CIBC
Desjardins
HSBC
Manulife Bank
National Bank
PC Financial
RBC
Scotiabank
TD

Or you can select a Financial Institution from the drop-down list.

Or you can select a Province or Territory from the drop-down list, and then Select a Credit Union from its drop-down list.

If you don’t bank online or your financial institution is not available, you can click on the Other Options button.

One scary option is you can register your account for online banking through this website, and they will only charge you $4 to do so: No this is NOT a good deal!!! If you can’t deposit the money this way, maybe you should phone the sender and discuss other ways to receive payment.

For most people, click on the link to your bank or select it from one of the drop-down lists.
It may take a bit of time to connect.

It takes you to your regular online banking sign in page.

A Receive Money page will open (or at least it did at BMO.)

In the Response field, type the answer to the secret question.

From the Deposit to Account drop-down list, select your preferred account.

Click on Deposit Money

Make a note of the Confirmation Number in case of issues.

You can check your account balance to see what happened. My friend’s shows the money as deposited and off hold immediately. (There may be a hold for some accounts: check with your bank.)

Sign out of your bank account, clear your cache and cookies and close your browser session.

You’re done!

Is It Easier to Deposit an Interac E-Transfer of Cash than a Tangerine Email Money Transfer?

Yes, if the person getting the money does not bank with Tangerine.

To deposit an email money transfer from Tangerine in an account that is not at Tangerine, the receiver has to type in

their bank’s “Institution Number”,
their bank account “Transit Number” and
their “Bank Account Number.”

Many people don’t like this.

When depositing an Interac e-Transfer the person receiving the money just clicks to select the bank into which they want to make the deposit, and then sign in to their online banking like they regularly do. They don’t need to know the Institution Number, Transit Number or even often the Bank Account number.

Related Reading

Join In
Do you use Interac e-Transfers to send money to your friends or relatives? Please share your experiences with a comment.

I’ve used Tangerine’s free email money transfers many times. I’ve never used an Interac e-transfer from Tangerine or PC Financial, though, because they both charge a fee for the service. EQ Bank lets me send 5 Interac e-transfers per month for free, so I’m going to test how it’s done by sending some money to a friend to deposit into his BMO bank account.

What Do I Need Before I Send an Interac e-Transfer?

You need to know the email address of the person that you want to send the money to.

You will need to think of a question that has a one word answer that will be the security question for the person receiving your money.

That person will need to know three numbers for their own bank account:

the bank account number
the bank branch transit number
the bank’s “institution” number

Many people don’t know their bank’s institution number. You may have to help them figure that out.

How Do I Send an Interac e-Transfer from my EQ Bank Account?

It wasn’t immediately obvious WHERE to start to send an Interac e-Transfer. By wandering through the menus, though, I found the link.

Click on the tab: Pay & Transfer

From the drop-down list for the From: field, choose your EQ Bank account from which you are going to send out the money.

From the drop-down list for the To: field, choose: Send Interac e-Transfer

Creating Your Sender Profile

If this is your first e-Transfer, you will be prompted to Create Your Sender Profile.

Check the following information is correct or change it:

Name
Email address
Mobile phone number, if applicable

Receive notices by, choose

Email or
Email and mobile phone

Click on the Create Profile button.

Making a Transfer

From the list on the left side of the screen, click on: Transfers

The Send Interac e-Transfer Page

Beside the phrase Transfer To, click on the link Add New Recipient

The Add New Recipient Page

Type to fill in the following fields

Name
Email
Mobile Phone Number (if applicable)

From the drop-down list, select the Preferred Language from English and French

From the drop-down list, for Send Transfers By select

Email;
Email and Mobile Phone;
Mobile Phone

In the Security Question field, type of question that only your recipient will know how to answer. The question must have a one word answer.

In the Answer field, type the one word answer

Click on the Add Recipient button.

Review the info. If it’s correct, click on the Confirm button.

Now the Transfer To: field has the email address of your New Recipient.

The Send By field has the type you selected for that recipient.

From the drop-down list for the Transfer From field, select the bank account from which you wish to send the money.

In the Amount field, type the amount in dollars and cents.
For example, I typed: 4.47

If desired, you can type a short note in the Message field.
I typed: testing the e transfer system

Click on the Continue button.

Rats
“An error occurred with your transaction, please check your account or try again later (code 942)
If you require further assistance please call 1-844-437-2265 (844-4EQ-BANK) or email our technical support at contact@eqbank.ca.”

I clicked on the Search Transfer History link to the left, but found no transfers listed.

I clicked on the View/Resend/Cancel Pending Transfers link on the left, but found no transfers listed.

I clicked on the Logout button.

I signed in to my EQ Bank account to try again!
(I think it may just have timed out because I was typing out instructions instead of working steadily on sending my transfer.)
Ah ha!

This time, I selected the recipient, and the method of transfer, and from which account and typed in the amount and clicked Continue

And I’m on to a Confirm screen.

I read the info.

It says it will take out the money I am sending and a fee of $0.00.

It all looks OK so I clicked on the Confirm button.

It says the Interac e-Transfer has a status of Completed. Success!

Make a note of the Confirmation Number in case you need to cancel the transaction or discuss it with customer service.

It is not yet listed under pending transactions.

However, it is listed as an account transaction item, showing the debit of the $4.47 I sent by email Interac e-Transfer.

Click on the Logout button.

If you are finished banking with EQ Bank, click on the Sign Out button.

Clear your browser history and cache, and close your browser session.

As expected, I have not yet received the email with the transfer information. I’ll check again in a while.

Well, I didn’t get a chance to check for quite a while, but the email is dated 5:31 p.m. so it took about half an hour to be sent by EQ Bank.

How Else Are People Using These Free Interac e-Transfers from EQ Bank?

I’ve read online that some people are using their Interac e-Transfers to move money between their own bank accounts.

Why? Although you can link your chequing accounts to EQ Bank by calling them first, then depositing a cheque, that link takes time to create. It’s also not possible today, April 4, 2016, to link a savings account to your EQ Bank savings account.

So by sending yourself an Interac e-Transfer, you can move your own money out of EQ Bank and into one of your other bank’s accounts.

How Long Does It Take for the Interac e-Transfer to Take Place?

Unlike Tangerine email transfers, it can take up to an hour for the person you send the Interac e-Transfer to, to receive the email notice with the security code.

Then, after the person receives the email and deposits the money into their bank account, there may still be another delay. Most banks put a hold on funds received by Interac e-Transfer and other types of electronic transfers. The length of the hold will depend on that bank’s terms and conditions. For example, BMO usually puts most Interac e-Transfer deposits on hold for 2 business days, although there can be exceptions.

Oops! Can I Cancel an Interac e-Transfer?

Not if the person you sent it to has already deposited it. So be careful!

If the receiver has not deposited it, and the transfer has not reached its expiry date, you can cancel it.

What Are the Limits for Sending Out Interac e-Transfers from EQ Bank?

You can only send 5 for free each month.

If you want to send more that month, it will cost you $1.50 per Interac e-Transfer, as of April 5, 2016.

As of April 5, 2016 there are also some maximums to watch out for:

There is a daily maximum for sending out money by Interac e-Transfers of $2 500 per day.
There is also a weekly maximum of $10 000.
And there’s a monthly maximum of $20 000.

If you’re thinking: hey, 5 x 2 500 = $12 500 which is below the monthly maximum, remember you can send additional e-Transfers if you pay a fee of $1.50 per transfer. You will still be capped at the $20 000 per month, though, even if you pay for more transfers.

Next I’ll have to have my friend deposit the e-Transfer and see how that works.