Peggo’s automatic-reload feature goes into overdrive, charges transit riders $72,000

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This article was published 07/02/2018 (2798 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At $2.95 per trip, Scott Hazlitt could ride the bus once a day for the next 3,898 days — or, roughly, 10 years — before the balance on his Peggo card hit zero.

That’s a lot of bus rides.

The only problem is Hazlitt, 38, doesn’t want to ride the bus every day for the next decade. He hasn’t planned his transportation habits that far ahead. He also doesn’t want a Peggo card balance reading somewhere around $11,500.

But that’s the situation he found himself in last Friday after noticing his credit card had been charged in $50 increments roughly 230 times — purchases he didn’t make or want.  The charges eventually stopped, but only after his $12,000 limit card was maxed out.

The culprit behind the sudden change in Hazlitt’s financial situation wasn’t an identity thief or tech-savvy hacker, but Winnipeg Transit.

And it turns out the glitch in the Peggo system’s automatic reload feature that left Hazlitt staring down a decade’s worth of bus fares wasn’t isolated to him. In total, 36 Winnipeggers were hit with phantom Peggo purchases adding up to roughly $72,000.

“I have the auto reload feature set up. So any time my balance gets low, an extra $50 is automatically added and it sends you an email when the purchase goes through. I was actually sitting on the bus Friday morning when I got a constant stream of emails on my phone,” Hazlitt said.

“There must have been over 70 of them. I had to send them to junk mail, thinking it must have been a glitch with their email. I joked with a friend at work, saying, ‘I hope they didn’t charge me each time.’”

But that’s exactly what happened. Later, when checking his online banking app, Hazlitt saw his credit card — which previously had a balance of a few hundred dollars — was maxed out.

Hazlitt contacted Winnipeg Transit Friday and was told they would be in touch within one business day. That left him with a maxed-out credit card all weekend. On Monday, a transit employee called him to apologize and say a refund was on the way, he said.

As of Wednesday, Hazlitt said only $3,700 has been refunded. He highlighted, with frustration, that Winnipeg Transit was refunding him in the same $50 increments they had originally charged him, except, this time around, it was taking a lot longer to process.

To add insult to injury, when he went to take the bus Monday, his Peggo card showed insufficient funds, indicating transit authorities cancelled all payments on his account, including the initial $50 charge he actually needed, he said.

“The card isn’t cancelled, but there’s no balance. So I’ve had to try to explain the situation to bus drivers. This one driver didn’t believe me. She wanted to see proof about the story and asked to see the emails on my phone — a rush-hour bus in front of how many people, a packed house. It was embarassing,” Hazlitt said.

“I’m interested to hear what they’re doing about it so it doesn’t happen again. I would say (Winnipeg Transit’s customer service) hasn’t been good. They should have been the ones reaching out to people, not the other way around.”

Alissa Clark, Winnipeg Transit’s manager of communications, said they noticed the problem Friday morning.

“We immediately identified the problem, took steps to make sure it didn’t happen to anyone else and disabled the (automatic reload) system. Now we’re working to fix the problem on a more permanent basis. As soon as we’re confident it won’t happen again, it’ll be back up and running,” Clark said.

“We do realize that this had a significant impact to those customers affected. It was a glitch on our end. I do realize that it was a significant inconvenience to the customers affected and I do appologize for that.”

According to Clark, all affected customers were notified of the issue by email Saturday morning and by Wednesday all refunds had been processed.

But Hazlitt contradicts both claims. In addition to saying he’s still waiting on a full refund, he’s adamant he had to track down Winnipeg Transit to get the situation addressed.

“Nobody reached out to me. I had to reach out to them. They had my phone number through the Peggo card system. Nobody called. Nothing. And they didn’t even really give me an explanation, just that it was an error and they were processing a refund,” Hazlitt said.

“Why would it allow that many charges to go through? That it went up into the thousands is ridiculous. What if I had been out and needed to use my credit card for an emergency? What if I had been travelling? This still isn’t resolved almost a week later.”

Should there be any fees or interest in relation to the credit card charges, Clark said the city will cover them. She was unable to say when the issue would be resolved and the automatic reload feature back online.

Despite this latest glitch in a series of persistent Peggo problems since being rolled out in 2016, Clark said the city had no plans to make significant changes to — or scrap — the system.

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @rk_thorpe