The City of London has apologized after $17 million was taken from bank accounts set up for automatic property tax payments this week.
The 33,000 accounts are set up for monthly property taxes, which were withdrawn as normal on June 30th. According to a city official, the issue came with a “second file transmitted in error” on Wednesday July 5, prompting Londoners to be double billed for July’s taxes.
One of them was Jodi Thibodeau, who saw the double transaction in her bank account while making some online bill payments.
“I called the city. It took a little bit to get through. I had a feeling maybe something was going on or amiss, because the city tax office didn’t answer right away and they usually do,” she said.
After 15 to 20 minutes on hold, Thibodeau was told there was a “glitch” and that she wasn’t the only Londoner impacted.
“I could just imagine if this was tomorrow, because I have some loan payments that come out on the seventh of every month,” she said. “If the money had been taken by the city and I’m thinking that I’ve got that covered for my loan payments tomorrow, I could very well be looking at a $50 NSF charge from my bank and another charge from the loan company…. I’m one of the lucky ones where I do have enough to cover.”
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According to Jim Logan, the City of London’s division manager for taxation and revenue, the city learned of the issue Thursday morning, immediately correcting it by issuing a “reversal,” aimed to refund the money back to ratepayers’ accounts.
“We’ve acted to correct the situation,” Logan said. “We apologize for the situation, but it has happened.”
Logan pegged the value of the transmission at $17 million, calling it a “human error situation.”
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Despite this, Logan said that it’s the first such issue in 20 years, and his team is working to prevent it from happening again.
“There’s going to be a thorough review of exactly what happened and why,” he said. “And there will certainly be additional controls in place for that to never happen again.”
In addition to the refunded payments, Logan said the City of London will also reimburse Londoners for the cost of any bank fees incurred.
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