I firmly believe we will be seeing more and more of this over the next month. Like many have said, cycles must be run before the problems begin appearing. Opinions?

R.

www.canoe.ca/OttawaNews/OS.OS-04-13-0018.html

********************************************************************************* Tuesday, April 13, 1999

City computer snag taxes patience

By KATHLEEN HARRIS, Ottawa Sun A computer glitch at city hall caused some property taxes to be withdrawn from bank accounts without warning.

Accepting full blame for the mistake, Ottawa's treasury department is mailing out letters of apology to residential taxpayers on the pre-authorized payment plan.

Due to a computer system error related to fixing the Y2K bug, interim tax notices weren't issued before the payments were pulled from accounts on Feb. 26.

Of the city's 77,000 residential taxpayers, about 2,700 weren't forewarned of the date and that the amount that would be withdrawn.

"Our policy is to give people notice of at least one week," Ken Hughes, manager of treasury services, said yesterday.

"That didn't happen, and that's not right. It's inexcusable and we're taking steps to ensure it doesn't happen again."

Hughes has personally spoken with about 100 taxpayers since the error was first recognized.

Last week he became aware of a second category of residential ratepayers who also had not been advised of the tax payments.

City resident Erwin Dreessen was tired of waiting for an explanation and fired off an angry letter to city hall.

His bank account was "raided" for $1,880 without prior notice.

"Mr. Mayor, in all the years that I have put my trust in pre-authorized payments I have never had any surprises," his letter said.

"To have this happen now by my local public authority is truly shocking."

The letter landed on Mayor Jim Watson's desk yesterday.

The city regrets any inconvenience caused by the mistake and will reimburse citizens for any additional bank charges stemming from the error, Watson said.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), April 13, 1999

Answers

Too bad Peter DeJager wasn't one of them!

-- toofunny (nofanofpeter@dejager.com), April 13, 1999.

"Accepting full blame for the mistake ... letters of apology ... that's not right. It's inexcusable and we're taking steps to ensure it doesn't happen again." ... personally spoken with ... "

Wow! Must not have been USA, eh?! They didn't blame the bank account holders! There's that niggling desire to move to Canada popping up again -- too cold, too cold, no time left, don't have $1,000,000. *sigh*

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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), April 13, 1999.

There's that niggling desire to move to Canada popping up again -- too cold, too cold, no time left, don't have $1,000,000. *sigh*

Ashton & Leska in Cascadia

You forget a 1,000,000 Canadian is just a few hundred thousand in US currency :o) Making your money go farther

-- Brian (imager@ampsc.com), April 13, 1999.

Ashton and Leska, I don't have $1,000,000 either and hope to survive ;-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), April 13, 1999.

But Tricia, aren't you already a Canadian citizen? Once you're in, the $1,000,000 entry fee isn't retroactive. *That* would be a helluva tax! Didn't Canada make the $1,000,000 plus employing two Canadians a criteria for entry in the 1980s somewhere?
Brian, we don't have a few hundred thousand in US $$ either ;-(
In fact, after writing out a couple of checks to Fed & State gov today, we have nothing! The Ides of April that bite American hides hard -- ouch. Bet the War causes a tax hike; not that The System As We Know It will look the same this time next year ...

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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), April 14, 1999.