After a two-month battle with the banks, the CIBC Ombudsman determined that the bank was not at fault, but offered to return half of his money as goodwill.
After GoPublic called the bank, he immediately repaid the entire amount.
The couple was told by the TD that the lost money was the responsibility of the CIBC, as the money was transferred to someone else’s account after the TD had successfully remitted it.
But according to the CIBC’s ombudsman, instead of supplying the Behans the transit number for their current Calgary branch, TD should have given the transit number for the Burlington, Ont., branch, where his son had set up his account decades earlier.
According to Antweiler, such failures are a direct result of Canada’s faulty wire transfer system – a system called Lynx that has been plagued with problems despite the fact that it only launched last September. With a few exceptions, Lynx is used by most Canadian banks, including CIBC.
