A Cuban alerted in Havana that she had lost 36,000 pesos after making two transfers of 18,000 CUP that appeared to have failed during the process, but which she later discovered had been deducted from her account.
Mairie Pando reported in a video posted on Facebook that the incident occurred after taking her son to a haunted house and purchasing three sweaters, each costing 6,000 pesos.
Since he didn't have enough cash, he tried to pay the 18,000 pesos via transfer.
"I just lost 36,000 pesos due to transfers, and right now, I don't know whom to blame, to be honest," she started saying.
According to his explanation, he scanned the seller's QR code and tried to make the payment, but received a message stating "transfer failure" and suggesting he contact ETECSA if the problem persisted.
In light of that result, he decided to try again for the same amount. "I'm going to try again, to get past the 18,000 pesos, and I told him: 'Look, nothing, this is failing, already. Pay me in cash,'" he recalled.
Finally, she paid the 18,000 pesos in cash and left with the three sweaters, convinced that neither of the two electronic transactions had been completed.
The problem arose later when he noticed that money was missing from his account and checked the bank transactions.
There, according to his testimony, he verified that the two transactions of 18,000 pesos that had appeared as failed had indeed been processed and deducted from his balance.
The woman explained that the business is far from her home and found it difficult for the seller to remember her among the numerous customers he serves.
He also did not directly hold the merchant responsible for what happened: “I don’t even know what to do anymore, it’s lost,” he lamented.
The case precisely coincides with a warning issued months ago by specialists from Transfermóvil.
In May, Radio Ciudad del Mar explained the recommended procedure in case of a failed transfer: never repeat the operation immediately without first checking the balance and the last transactions of the card.
Experts pointed out that a transfer can appear to be failed for various reasons, including limits set by the account holder, errors in entering the data, connection difficulties, or delays in the response times of the payment router, banks, or the application itself.
The issues with electronic payments are part of the challenges faced by the highly criticized process of banking in Cuba.
In July, the state press documented the enormous difficulties of making payments through transfers, after recording numerous refusals from stores and businesses to accept this method.
Days later, the Central Bank of Cuba announced a new strategy to encourage electronic payments, with measures such as faster processing, reduced fees, and bonuses for consumers and businesses.
The most important change, however, was the removal of the 5,000 Cuban pesos limit for cash transactions between economic actors, replaced by a flexible scheme negotiated on a case-by-case basis between each commercial bank and its clients.
However, the difficulties with transfers are not new, as since 2022, the Banco de Crédito y Comercio (BANDEC) had warned about errors in transactions between cards and limited certain claims for incorrect transfers.
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