Why did a major bank give away a Toronto woman’s debit number? It won’t say

A Toronto woman is speaking out after TD Canada Trust mistakenly assigned her debit card number to someone else and cancelled her card, leaving her to wonder if her personal information had been compromised.

After dinner one night last month, Mila Mayall tried to pay for the meal using her debit card, but the transaction wouldn’t go through.

So she went to a convenience store to take out cash, but that didn’t work either. It was only when she called TD Canada Trust that she was told her debit card had been cancelled and her number reassigned.

“They didn’t even call me to warn me that that happened,” said Mayall. “I had to call them.” TD Canada Trust has since admitted the error and apologized.

The first call she made was on Monday, Oct. 28. She says the employee on the phone told her that they weren’t sure how the error happened, but they’d look into it.

A few days later, Mayall called back and says the manager told her that the bank wasn’t investigating and that she had nothing to worry about, because her account wasn’t compromised.

“I still feel violated,” she told CBC Toronto.

“A complete stranger could have accessed all of my information.”

Mayall spoke to CBC Toronto about the situation on Wednesday, Nov. 14. CBC News reached out to TD Canada Trust the same day.

In an email to CBC Toronto the following day, the bank explained that “this situation does not reflect the level of customer service we are committed to providing and we apologize to our customer for the inconvenience.”

The email went on to confirm that the “error did not result in any unauthorized access to our customer’s accounts or financial information.”

TD says due to privacy concerns, it wasn’t able to elaborate on how exactly the mistake had happened.

Mayall says after CBC Toronto inquired on her behalf, the bank reached out to her Nov. 18 to explain that the mix-up was the result of human error.

She says the bank told her that the same day that the other customer had been issued a debit card with the same account number, and that both that card and Mayall’s were immediately cancelled.

Mayall says TD Canada Trust has also given her $500 to compensate her for the inconvenience the error caused.

CBC