From:	XXXX
Sent:	December-04-13 2:05 PM
To:	Consumer Code / Code consommateur
Subject:	Financial consumer code

Good afternoon, 
 
The Toronto Star mentioned this email address and that the federal government is looking at creating a 
new financial consumer code.  
 
The number one thing I would like to see the government address would be the absolutely obscene fees 
that banks are able to charge.  I would also like to see banks not be able to lower the amount of 
transactions covered in a plan while simultaneously raising the price of the plan.  The same applies to 
raising the minimum amount of money that has to stay in a bank account in order to avoid the monthly 
fees.  If the fees are higher, the consumer should be getting more, not less, out of their plan.   
 
In particular, I think it's ridiculous that banks are able to charge fees for self-service transactions, like 
doing transactions online or using tele-banking.  If you go over your maximum allowed transactions for the 
month (which is a measly 7 if you have the cheapest plan at my bank), even the self-serve transactions 
are 60 cents each.  I don't think that banks should be allowed to charge fees on self-service transactions 
at all.  If they must be allowed to, those fees should be miniscule - five cents per transaction would be 
reasonable.  After all, the effort is all on the part of the consumer unless the website or tele-banking line 
goes down. 
 
Regarding credit cards, I would like to see more regulations in place that protect the consumer when 
there is a dispute between a business and the consumer.  I once had a gym membership with XXXX.  The club I was going to got shut down because they weren't paying their rent and so I put my 
membership on hold.  I had paid for the whole year's membership all in one go on my credit card and did 
not authorize XXXX to renew my membership.  Nor did I pre-authorize any payments.  Yet, they 
started taking monthly payments when my membership would have been renewed, with no notice.  When 
I contacted XXXX, they told me to try to resolve the issue with XXXX.  I did, to no avail.  In 
order to reverse the charges and halt future ones, XXXX was trying to ask me for a copy of the 
contract as well as for proof that the gym had shut down "because we have to protect the merchant 
too".   The burden of proof should be on the company, NOT the consumer in disputes like 
this.  Eventually, I got the issue resolved with XXXX, but only because I spoke to someone senior in 
their problem resolution department who found a loophole in their rules. 
 
Regards, 

XXXX