Parking violation collection texts proving effective, councillor says

Text alerts are being credited with helping the city ramp up its collection of unpaid fines, as it aims to obtain millions of dollars in outstanding revenue.

In March, the city announced new steps to crack down on overdue parking and bylaw offence tickets, which included allowing its collections agency, CBV Collections, to begin sending text message reminders about unpaid tickets.

Under a previous contract, the city’s past collections agency recovered an average of $171,414 per year in unpaid fines between 2021 and 2024. CBV Collections has recovered $582,023 since March, city officials confirmed Tuesday.

“Now the new collection agency, which is big on texting, (has) collected nearly $600,000 within the first (several) months of their contract… Clearly it works. That’s really positive,” said Coun. Janice Lukes, chairwoman of public works.

The move is one of a few changes the city made to tap into millions of dollars of unpaid fines.

As of June 30, more than $7.5 million in parking fines remained outstanding in addition to just over $5 million in fines for bylaw offences, including uncut grass, noxious weeds and excess garbage.

In February, the city also began referring overdue tickets to credit bureaus, so those who fail to pay the fines risk impacting their credit scores. A poor credit history can make it tougher for someone to obtain a credit card, a loan or a mortgage and can also lead them to pay higher interest rates on loans.

Lukes (Waverley West) said the increase in fine payment indicates the city’s collection agency should continue using texts along with all other initiatives.

“By using the text messaging, it’s much more effective than mail… I know people that don’t pick up their mail for weeks,” she said.

In an email, city spokesman Adam Campbell noted the city’s collections agency also uses phone calls and direct mail to reach people with unpaid fines.

Lukes said the cash-strapped city needs the money it is owed.

“(It’s important) so we don’t have to raise taxes…. The city’s got a lot of needs and $12.5 million would help us greatly,” she said.

The use of texts to seek penalty payments has been questioned in the past, however, with some councillors expressing concerns legitimate parking violation reminders could be mistaken for scams and ignored.

In a Friday evening press release, the city warned residents that scammers claiming to be from the Winnipeg Parking Authority sent fraudulent texts seeking fine payments.

The release noted the Winnipeg Parking Authority does not directly send texts, though its collection agency does send texts that can include payment links.

The collection agency’s texts “always direct the recipient to “call Wpg 311 to validate” the penalty, which all residents should do any time they’re not sure a parking-related text is valid, the city advised.

Coun. Markus Chambers, who previously expressed concern collection agency texts could be mistaken as fakes, said the warning to call 311 before paying up offers an important safety measure.

Chambers (St. Norbert-Seine River) said he also believes the text option has been effective.

“(Texts) enable the collection agency to quickly reach a larger number of clients (with) notifications about outstanding debts,” he said.

However, Chambers still worries about confusion between real and fake payment reminders and believes the city should monitor and evaluate the text option.

“If it’s determined that the collection rate slows and people are saying (they thought the texts were) a scam… then we’d have to course-correct,” he said.

Text scams targeting the parking authority predate the alerts from the current collections agency, so taking away a communication option from a legitimate collector wouldn’t necessarily alleviate that risk, said Lukes.

“The scammers out there are so professional. People just have to be overly cautious. They should not be doing any payments unless they’re 100 per cent sure they’re dealing with a legit company,” she said.

In emailed statements, Winnipeg Police Service officials said it’s difficult to determine exactly how many people were affected by the parking text scam or how much money has been lost.

“According to the financial crimes unit, they have only received a couple of reports in the last few months involving this type of scam. We do get frequent reports of people’s online banking being compromised where the mechanism of the breach is not reported or is unknown…. It is possible in some of these instances there was a phishing attack involved that the complainant was unaware of,” wrote WPS Const. Claude Chancy.

Police noted this type phishing scam is similar to many others, where culprits try to instil a sense of urgency to get the recipient to click on the malicious link and enter personal information.

“These frauds can lead to significant financial losses to the victims. Caution should be exercised if an unsolicited text message of this nature is received and personal information should never be disclosed,” wrote WPS Const. Stephen Spencer.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

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