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.
Unfortunately, all utilities are kind of slippery that way. They have a funny habit of overestimating your usage, then refunding you when they finally get around to actually reading your meter. Guess what they did with the interest on their ill-gotten gains in the meanwhile? This case is utterly ridiculous, though—usually they’re skimming less than a third of the normal bill.