A Charleswood man is raising concerns about automated bill payments after his mother was charged an outrageous amount — nearly $150,000 — on her city water bill.
Tim Martin got an email Wednesday saying the bank account of his mother, Dorothy, was massively overdrawn. She is a senior on a fixed income, said Martin of the 86-year-old.
“I have online banking privileges to be able to view my mom’s account,” said Martin. “I went online and found that indeed there was an overdrawn account, and it was a debit of $146,000 by the City of Winnipeg’s water and waste department.”
Martin submitted a new meter reading to the City of Winnipeg, and is waiting for a new bill, but said the city is still going to charge his mother an NSF fee because she didn’t have enough money in her account for the $146,000 payment to clear.
“Perhaps $1,000, $10,000, $100,000? But in this case, $146,000-plus, and it’s just processed on somebody’s account, where their typical billing was $118 per billing period? I’m just surprised at the lack of oversight.”
City still charging NSF fee
Martin submitted a new meter reading to the City of Winnipeg, and is waiting for a new bill, but said the city is still going to charge his mother an NSF fee because she didn’t have enough money in her account for the $146,000 payment to clear.
“The first thing that they said to me was, 'Oh, you’re going to have to pay a 30-some-dollar NSF fee for this bill not going through,” said Martin.
“And I said, ‘In what sort of reasonable world would you have expected that a pre-authorized debit for $146,000 to somebody’s personal account would not go NSF?’”
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What an incompetent bunch of petty bureaucrats.