'Absolutely frightening': Winnipeg senior charged $146K for water bill

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.

Initially he thought the email was a phishing scam.

But after doing some digging he realized it was legitimate.

"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 went to his mother's bank and had the alarming charge reversed after filling out some paperwork. 

When Martin called the city to ask about the error, they told him this overcharge was a consequence of using an automated system.  He said the city needs to be more responsible for the systems they use to collect payments, and they should flag anomalies when billing.

"There certainly should be some sort of a threshold at which there's human intervention," said Martin.

"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."

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?'"

CanAge is a Toronto-based national seniors' advocacy organization. CEO Laura Tamblyn-Watts said it's shocking that a bill this large wasn't flagged, and it raises questions about what protections are in place.

"With our rapidly-aging population, we know that we need more financial support and protections, particularly for people who may be less familiar with online bill-paying technologies," said Tamblyn-Watts.