Advice please - UseMyFunds

[chayton]

Ok check this out, a couple of days ago I made a $30 deposit to Omni. I should say that I *tried* to - it got to the end and I got a server error from the UseMyFunds server, the funds weren't transferred to the casino and I didn't receive a confirmation mail. I logged into my bank and saw that the money had been removed from my balance. After about half an hour I still hadn't received a confirmation, so went back to the bank and looked in my history, and there was a bill marked as 'pending' - which if there's an error, it sits there for 30 days and then is transferred back into my account. So I cancelled the transaction, went back to Omni and tried again, I made a deposit this time for $29 (just to make sure the amounts were different) and this time it worked fine.

So it's all good, so I think. Then several hours later I get a confirmation mail from UseMyFunds that the first transaction has gone through. I log into Omni and sure enough, they've sent the $30 to the casino.

So I quickly get online and send UseMyFunds a message outlining the above, and that the first transaction errored out and that I had cancelled it and that now they're out $30 and asked how do I get it to them.

The next day I get some generic message saying this:

We have contacted the merchant with whom you dealt with and they are
currently investigating this matter and are aware of the funds that was not
received in your account.

I was like - did they not read the email that I sent? So I write them back and say, "You don't understand - the funds were received by the merchant, but because the first transaction errored I cancelled it from my bank....etc etc"

So now today I get another message from them:

You do owe that funds.
We have sent you the detail email how to remit funds

And right after that, a mail with a link to remit the $30 - but they've also added a fee of $10!

So by now I'm getting a little pissed - I'm trying to do the right thing and get them the money, they're sending me these stupid responses, their server is causing these errors and they want ME to pay them a fee?

So I wrote them back saying I'll pay the $30, that's fair - but I refuse to pay the $10 fine because as far as I can see it was their fault.
I went, I paid the $30 and probably I won't get a response again for another day....

Anyhow am I in the wrong here? Should I pay the fee? After all I did cancel the transaction, but that was because of the error. They paid the casino hours after I'd cancelled, I don't know how that works but you'd think they would have checked that the transaction was still valid before paying it. Or maybe I'm just being a dick because I don't like the way they responded.

 

[vinylweatherman]

You should certainly pay the $30 as they eventually transferred it in good faith to the casino. As for the fee, it is THEY who should offer YOU a goodwill gesture for getting you into a situation where you ended up paying $59 when you had only intended paying $30.

They are out $30 because they couldn't be arsed to read your entire email, but instead implemented a "canned solution" to the problem by sending the $30 through to the casino. Had they read the email, they could have let the failed $30 attempt lapse, and let you carry on with the $29 that worked.

It seems that money ends up in limbo a fair bit when it comes to online casino transactions, yet this system should be robust enough to "fail safe" when such things happen, ensuring that the transfer either completes properly, or is fully backed off such that the funds end up back at the source, not in some ill defined limbo state.

I don't think I would have been so quick to try fixing it myself by cancelling it at the bank and having another go. I would have contacted the casino to see if they could trace it and pull it through. For an eWallet, the money would eventually turn up in the eWallet account, so would not need to be cancelled at the bank. I presume Instadebit has only two valid states, money still in bank, or money at merchant, so a failed transaction can more easily be cancelled at the bank rather than trying to get the merchant to deal with it.

 

[chayton]

A couple of weeks ago I made a transaction to Ray - BMO has this thing where you can transfer money from your account to someone else - but I sent $750 and right after I sent it I realized that I'd used his old email address which he doesn't have access to anymore. I got on the phone quickly to the bank and they told me that the money would just sit there in limbo for 30 days and then if nobody had picked it up, it would be transferred back to my account. But since it was going to an email that maybe by this time someone else has, and I didn't want to wait a month, she walked me through how to cancel it.

I figured that this payment would be the same, since it didn't go through I could cancel it and just try again. I had no way of knowing that they (UseMyFunds) even got the request, let alone know that like 3 hours later they'd finally decide to put it through without checking to make sure that the payment was still valid.

I already paid the $30, and as for the rest...I mean it's only $10, and I know it sounds cliche - but it's not the money, it's the principle - it was me who brought their attention to the error in the first place and wanted to set it straight. And then I had to explain it twice!

And BTW, these kinds of errors happen a lot with UseMyFunds - contacting the casino doesn't help at all, they just tell you that you have to contact UseMyFunds. And then you usually have to wait at least a day for a response. But every other time this has happened the money is gone from the bank - the payment has been completed and is sitting in limbo on the UMF site somewhere waiting for someone to wake up and send it where it needs to go.