Feb 11, 2026
Technology has made our financial lives much more efficient. Want to check your outstanding balance? Just a couple taps on your smartphone and voila. Technology also has its limitations, however, and one family from P.E.I. is finding that out the hard way — with money set aside for their children’s education caught in the middle.
Max Deller-Lestage and his wife, Marie Pascal, told CBC News they opened a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) at TD bank for their two children, (1) who have a combined surname from both parents: Pascal Deller-Lestage. When the couple filled out a digital form to open the RESP, the children’s names didn’t fit in the prescribed section. The couple told the news outlet that TD chose to remove the hyphen and a space from the last name so it would fit into the form — a critical detail that would end up causing issues.
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Later, the family tried to transfer the RESP to a different bank to get a better interest rate. They ran into a roadblock because the financial institution used the children's full legal names instead of the adjusted surname TD opted for.
The result of such a tiny change? The family’s funds are still with TD after more than a year of trying to resolve a typo.
“The issue could have been escalated to somebody who could fix the problem, because the local branches didn't know what to do,” Deller-Lestage told CBC, adding, “Every time I would explain the situation to them, they would sort of kick it down the road and ask to get back to me in 10 days, two weeks, a month.”
The devil in the details
Since the couple’s new financial institution and TD’s bank record don’t match, the transfer continues to stall. Pascal told CBC that TD assured them the name adjustment wouldn’t be an issue. And the couple feels as though the delay is potentially due to a combination of “overreliance on technology” and the amount of money held in the RESP, which currently sits at $6,000.
The news outlet reported that TD Bank was not available for comment. However, the bank did state that it is examining the issue and “prioritizing remediation as soon as possible.”
To make matters more complicated, the couple has had their hands tied with simply withdrawing the money themselves and depositing it into the new RESP. Doing so would disqualify their children from receiving the Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG), which adds around $1,000 to the account.
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The best way to save for your children's education
RESPs are a staple for Canadians saving for their children’s post-secondary education, with nearly $90 billion in assets held in these accounts as of 2024, according to the Government of Canada (2). There’s a good reason for that — multiple actually.
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For starters, RESPs allow parents, grandparents, relatives or even friends to save or invest funds for a child’s education on a tax-deferred basis — any money saved is not taxed until it is withdrawn by the contributor or by the beneficiary (3). Funds from an RESP can be used for tuition costs and ancillary expenses related to education such as rent, tools, books and transportation.
More importantly, families that use an RESP to save for a child’s education also receive government grants to help fund their child’s learning (4). The Canada Learning Bond is a federal grant that can add a lifetime maximum of $2,000, per eligible child, into an account. There's also the CESG, which can add up to $7,200 in education funding per eligible child. Additionally, governments in British Columbia and Quebec also offer grants at the provincial level.
While these grants and benefits are major boons, they also come with responsibilities that administrative errors can complicate. Even small typos may trigger major issues that could impact grant amounts — or transferability, in the case of the Pascal Deller-Lestage family — that cause financial and emotional stress for everyone involved.
How to avoid major issues from minor mistakes
What might be a minor clerical adjustment at the beginning can later morph into a financial headahce if it goes unnoticed— here are some ways you can avoid that from happening:
- Get everything in writing. If administrative changes are made for even simple, common sense reasons, make sure you get an explanation of the change in writing. This can prevent issues from precipitating further in the future.
- Double-check information prior to changes. Before adding a new beneficiary or transferring an account to a new bank, examine your RESP records to make sure all information is correct. Dealing with errors before making a transaction is much more efficient.
- Report clerical issues immediately. If you notice an error, report it to your financial institution immediately, no matter how small it is. If an error isn’t reported in a timely manner, your bank may have to send documentation to the CRA to correct it (5).
Read more: The ultra-rich are bailing on volatile stocks right now — these 4 shockproof assets are their new safe havens
Bottom line
A minor typo turned into an administrative nightmare for Deller-Lestage and Pascal, effectively preventing them from capitalizing on better interest on their RESP balance for over a year. That’s money they’ll never see, even if it isn’t substantial. But their case reveals an important truth: Always be wary when dealing with small changes in details, especially when it comes to your finances.
Article sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
CBC News (1); Government of Canada (2, 3, 4, 5)
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Brett Surbey is a corporate paralegal with KMSC Law LLP and freelance writer who has written for Yahoo Finance Canada, Success Magazine, Publishers Weekly, U.S. News & World Report, Forbes Advisor and multiple academic journals. He and his family live in northern Alberta, Canada.
