Why so little store accept interac debit online?

[laststar]

I got denied for my first credit card. The reason? I don't know, they never specify. So, I try to use my debit card for shopping online, but found out that 99% of the time they don't accept interac, why is that? My only option for shopping online right now is to buy pre-paid credit card or use my dad's credit card, both of which are quite a hassle.

[No Frills]

I got denied for my first credit card.

What credit card did you apply for? If you tried to get a visa and youre a student, try for a $500 limit student one. You might be able to get a low limit pc mastercard for your first card as well.

You should still try and get a CC...even if you plan on living with your parents until you can buy a house in cash you still need to establish a credit rating for hotel reservations etc.

I know what I said is beyond the scope of your question but I think establishing credit is more important than online shopping.

[chriskov]

Hello, Take a look on capital one, they work with people who have no credit. Also you could look at prepaid credit cards or a secured credit cards. There is always a way to get a credit card if you really need it.
But you could just use Paypal, many places accept it.

[hitman_24]

I got denied for my first credit card. The reason? I don't know, they never specify. So, I try to use my debit card for shopping online, but found out that 99% of the time they don't accept interac, why is that? My only option for shopping online right now is to buy pre-paid credit card or use my dad's credit card, both of which are quite a hassle.

Security


You should apply for a cibc classic card, I applied when I was 18 and only worked 1 day a week and they approved me for 1k

[Piro21]

Debit is horrendously insecure. If you really can't get a credit card by any other means, put up $500 and get a secured card. You'll be able to buy whatever you'd like.

[Jimboski]

I hope your first credit card Isn't something that requires high income + credit score..
Go for some easy that you can get approved easily, Probably those secured cards..

[death_hawk]

I just did some research into this recently and Capital One seems to be the best out of the secured card category.
You send in $X and they give you a credit limit of $X, where $X is $1500>=$X>=$300

If you don't want to tie up $X, you could also get a reloadable prepaid card from BMO. It's $7/year and doesn't cost anything to load/unload.
It doesn't build any credit though. It also doesn't seem to have a limit that I've discovered.

[laststar]

I wasn't the one that apply for the credit card. The guy that reopen my RBC bank account did it for me. He applied for a Student RBC Rewards Visa Gold. Like I said I'm not sure why I got denied they didn't give a specific reason. And if I keep trying to apply wouldn't it be bad for my credit report? But, I guess for now I'll just look into getting a secured card. Thanks.

[hitman_24]

I wasn't the one that apply for the credit card. The guy that reopen my RBC bank account did it for me. He applied for a Student RBC Rewards Visa Gold. Like I said I'm not sure why I got denied they didn't give a specific reason. And if I keep trying to apply wouldn't it be bad for my credit report? But, I guess for now I'll just look into getting a secured card. Thanks.

I'm assuming that you currently have a student account with RBC, and had proof of being a student upon application

[Jimboski]

I wasn't the one that apply for the credit card. The guy that reopen my RBC bank account did it for me. He applied for a Student RBC Rewards Visa Gold. Like I said I'm not sure why I got denied they didn't give a specific reason. And if I keep trying to apply wouldn't it be bad for my credit report? But, I guess for now I'll just look into getting a secured card. Thanks.

Hmm usually when the bank offers you a credit card you most likely won't be rejected.. What a bad advisor! LOL.

[zod]

Banks are also starting to rollout Visa Debit card which are supposed to be able to be used at quite a few online retailers. They have a similar number to a credit card, but they draw from your bank account (its pretty common in the US and Europe where the Interac system never took off).

TD has integrated Visa Debit into their regular debit card now. RBC is issuing a 2nd card for their accounts that is visa debit only. I'm not sure what the other banks are doing....

[TheDonkey]

Just a quick comment on the Visa debit cards (my experiences):

For me, it has worked everywhere I have tried it Online (Amazon.ca, Paypal, Steam, and a couple smaller retailers). Generally it won't work in stores in Canada though, I have only tried swiping it through the new Vending machines with credit card readers and that didn't work.

[gman]

I wasn't the one that apply for the credit card. The guy that reopen my RBC bank account did it for me. He applied for a Student RBC Rewards Visa Gold. Like I said I'm not sure why I got denied they didn't give a specific reason. And if I keep trying to apply wouldn't it be bad for my credit report? But, I guess for now I'll just look into getting a secured card. Thanks.

You should apply for credit card in the University (when they have promotion in the start of the school year) instead of in the bank.

[appleb]

No matter how secure interac would be if it were offered on the internet, I would never use it. Never give your main banking info online, if it gets compromised you are totally screwed bigtime, and imagine the headache having to change your bank account with all the other tied accounts. Whereas a compromised credit card is basically cutting up your old card and getting a new number.

[Dolfan-Neil]

No matter how secure interac would be if it were offered on the internet, I would never use it. Never give your main banking info online, if it gets compromised you are totally screwed bigtime, and imagine the headache having to change your bank account with all the other tied accounts. Whereas a compromised credit card is basically cutting up your old card and getting a new number.

Do you know anything about Interac Online?

The merchant never gets your banking information. When you are making your purchase and want to pay through Interac Online, you get directed to the Interac site to choose your financial institution and then approve your purchase at your bank's online banking site. The information that is sent back to the merchant in the transaction flow is the approval and a one time use reference to the payment so that when the transaction comes through the back end Interac system it can be confirmed and reconciled.

To sum it up, from the standpoint of what the merchant sees in the transaction flow the merchant does NOT see your banking information.

[mofesto]

Banks are also starting to rollout Visa Debit card which are supposed to be able to be used at quite a few online retailers. They have a similar number to a credit card, but they draw from your bank account (its pretty common in the US and Europe where the Interac system never took off).

TD has integrated Visa Debit into their regular debit card now. RBC is issuing a 2nd card for their accounts that is visa debit only. I'm not sure what the other banks are doing....


This.

Or PayPal. Transfer money from your bank account to your PayPal account, then buy anywhere PayPal is accepted (most places online).

[death_hawk]

Visa debit doesn't work at a lot of merchants in Canada.

[aggronieszka]

Just a quick comment on the Visa debit cards (my experiences):

For me, it has worked everywhere I have tried it Online (Amazon.ca, Paypal, Steam, and a couple smaller retailers). Generally it won't work in stores in Canada though, I have only tried swiping it through the new Vending machines with credit card readers and that didn't work.

I have the td visa debit card and the two online places I've tried using it (service Ontario and city of Toronto for a parking ticket), it was declined.

I use the bmo prepaid travel MasterCard and it works everywhere I need it to. It was maybe 10 bucks and good for 3 years.

[qster]

I got denied for my first credit card. The reason? I don't know, they never specify. So, I try to use my debit card for shopping online, but found out that 99% of the time they don't accept interac, why is that? My only option for shopping online right now is to buy pre-paid credit card or use my dad's credit card, both of which are quite a hassle.

Who do you bank with?
If your bank has it, apply for the Visa Debit and you can pay for goods online (most online stores are starting to accept Visa Debit)

[lildevilx]

if you're a student try BMO's SPC card too~

[laststar]

I applied for a RBC Visa Debit Card and got it a couple days ago, it seems like a lot of stores also doesn't accept Visa debit card. I got denied on most of my purchases. And I got a paypal account link with my bank account which I've been using to buy things online for the past few years (mostly ebay), but it seems like paypal is not really popular in Canada a lot of the big major online store in Canada doesn't accept it. Anyway, I applied for a Capital One secured card with a $300 credit limit and I have to provide a $300 security funds. Seems like they really don't trust me lol...

[death_hawk]

That's the entire point of Capital One is that they'll give credit to anyone, which automatically means they don't trust them.

[laststar]

How many months/years does it take to build a good enough credit so I don't get rejected anymore? I wanna get out of Capital One as soon as possible since there's no benefit with them ($59 anual fee + $300 security funds :() except for the fact that they accept anyone. And since I have a $300 limit how much should I spend every month to build a good credit? I'd would assume going over $200 would be considering bad? Would spending around 50-$150 every month be good? I am looking to doing only small purchase and paying my phone bill with it since I can't do much with a $300 limit anyway.

[Jon Lai]

30-50% utilization is what I would do to build credit, so for you that would be $90-150 per month. Anything over 70% is bad for your credit. Remember to pay it off every month.

How old are you anyways? Roughly how much do you make and are you a student? If you are, you should have been approved for a student credit card no problem. Don't see why you would get rejected.

In my experience 6 months should be enough to build your credit for a plain old credit card, but at the end of the day your annual income that you report will be most important.

[kcorscadden]

How many months/years does it take to build a good enough credit so I don't get rejected anymore? I wanna get out of Capital One as soon as possible since there's no benefit with them ($59 anual fee + $300 security funds :() except for the fact that they accept anyone. And since I have a $300 limit how much should I spend every month to build a good credit? I'd would assume going over $200 would be considering bad? Would spending around 50-$150 every month be good? I am looking to doing only small purchase and paying my phone bill with it since I can't do much with a $300 limit anyway.

You can max out your cc every month at $300, as long as you pay it off before or at the due date. Do not go past the due date as that is not good.

What you can do as well assuming you have online banking is to use your cc for all purchases and then when you get home pay back all your purchases to your cc through online banking, thus always having a $300 a credit

[matdwyer]

To answer your question about WHY the stores don't take it - CC's charge a % fee - anywhere from 1.5% to 3% depending on a number of factors. Typically debit in store is a flat charge - usually under 10¢ - therefore it is much, much, much cheaper then a credit card. When Interac saw the online trend they decided that they want to get in on the online payments game, so they developed interac online payments (login through your banking, etc) - but instead of doing flat fees, they made it a %. There really is minimal benefit for an online store going through the process of taking debit online as the % is just as high as Visa/MC, it's another thing to integrate/maintain, and it has a very low rate of adoption.

Some sites (Cineplex, the source, chapters) do - I looked into it 3+ years ago and my position on it stands the same. Debitway.ca has a list of some more larger sites listed here: http://www.debitway.ca/iop_merchants/interac-online-merchants/