Negative service experiences at National Bank | National Bank | Discussion forum

My experience with National Bank of Canada today left me highly unimpressed. I recently activated my NBC accounts tardily as a former Motive customer. That process was relatively seamless. Yesterday, I had sent $2,500 from RBC to NBC and then turned around and tried to do an etransfer initiated on Qtrade's platform from NBC (my first activity on my NBC account). They had their fraud department initially prevent the etransfer from being processed. After I spoke with them, they approved the Qtrade transfer.

Today, I moved $4,000 from RBC to NBC and then attempted to move the same amount to Qtrade. My initial transfer of $4,000 failed. After contacting NBC they said that they had placed a hold on my transfer. As, it turned out (which I was informed after wasting many hours along the way) NBC's daily limit for Interac etransfers of $4,000 only applies to etransfers initiated on the NBC platform. The limit is $3,000 for Interac etransfers initiated on the recipient's platform (Qtrade in my case). There is no fine print anywhere that I have seen to communicate this dual limit on Interac etransfers.

They thought that this was suspicious. I explained to them that I have two RBC etransfer limits; one for online banking of $2,500 and one on the RBC phone app for $10,000 and I had yet to figure out how to transfer the $10,000 directly to Qtrade.
Plus, I told them that their risk assessment was incorrect, as Interac guarantees the RBC Interac etransfer, so they have no risk. Plus, I have done similar transfers with from RBC to EQ Bank and Tangerine and previously with Motive many times without getting the respective fraud department's excited.

On top of this, many of the transfers I tried were below $3,000 at the suggestion of NBC customer service (without the knowledge of the dual limits) and most of them failed (which I interpreted that they still had some kind of a hold on my funds; despite representations to the contrary).

Why buy a customer base, if you just intend to alienate them out of the gate.

Norman1 said
Like many brokerage accounts, QTrade accounts can be funded by bill payments: QTrade: Funding your account using Bill Pay.

One can bill pay directly from RBC without transferring funds to another financial institutution.

Royal Bank offers Interac e-Transfers. National Bank is likely suspicious because one could have sent the money to QTrade at Royal Bank, where the funds came in from.  

I was asking myself the same question. Perhaps it was to take advantage of the QTrade promo. Source of funds may have been a consideration.