Debit Down @ Many Retailers
Interac is still down in some areas due to the Rogers outage after issuing this notice on Facebook:
“There is a nationwide Rogers outage that encompasses all their business and consumer network services. This is impacting INTERAC Debit and INTERAC e-Transfer. INTERAC Debit is currently unavailable online and at checkout. INTERAC e-Transfer services are unavailable at most financial institutions, impacting the ability to send and receive payments. We are waiting for updates from Rogers on their time to resolution.”
Rogers and Telus have outages through-our Canada but mostly concentrated in Ontario, where some credit card services are also down. But some service has been restored and will be restore shortly according to this statement from Rogers.
Those choosing to use free wi-fi service using their mobile devices should use VPN services to secure their devices.
UPDATE – July 9th, 2022 : The following was just posted on Twitter:
Following our previous updates, we have now restored services for the vast majority of our customers and our technical teams are working hard to ensure that the remaining customers are back online as quickly as possible. pic.twitter.com/IobL7Dze6i
— RogersHelps (@RogersHelps) July 9, 2022
Early Prime Day Offers
Although Prime Day is scheduled for the 12th and 13th of July this year, there are offers available now from Amazon and Prime Video, the later being film rentals at $2.99 and lower.
Details are available at Amazon.ca and Amazon.com. And yes, Canadians with a prime membership in the states can take advantage of the offers at the latter. But you can only use the free shipping offers there for American addresses, which is fine if you have a lot of friends and relatives in that country. Or if you have a second residence or vacation home there.
I believe Americans can also purchase a prime membership here in Canada to ship some of their Amazon.ca orders within Canada.
Canadian Tire/Apple Offer
Participating Canadian Tire stores are offering $5 in CT Money for every $50 Apple Gift Card purchased in their stores until June 30th, 2022. Please consult your local flyer for details.
Apple Gift Card Offer
Participating Real Canadian Superstores are offering 5000 bonus Optimum points on purchases of $50 Apple Gift Cards until Wednesday, June 22nd, 2022. Consult pcoptimum.ca for details.
Netflix / Optimum Offer
Optimum Points members can obtain 7500 bonus points when purchasing $50 gift cards for Netflix and Uber at participating Shoppers Drug Mart stores from Saturday, the 11th of June to Friday the 17th of June, 2022. Click here for more details.
eBay Purchases Subject to Taxes
Canadian eBay buyers should note that their Canadian purchases and purchases of digital downloads will be subject to taxes as of July 1st, 2022.
Purchases from Canadian retailers on eBay were already subject to the HST or GST and provincial sales taxes but taxes will be now extended to any purchase shipped from a Canadian address and digital product sales.
Unfortunately, First Nations buyers and businesses that have resale and/or provincial exemptions will be required to submit requests to the Canadian Revenue Service and/or provincial tax office for rebates and/or refunds.
Imports will be subject to the usual taxes, custom fees and exemptions.