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EDITORIAL: Don’t be duped by bogus bills

Pay attention to your bills. If you don’t, you might pay out more hard-earned money than you should
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A Surrey water meter. (Photo: Amy Reid)

It’s always a good idea to check your bills carefully, and to count the change you get back from a cashier.

Of course these are obvious things to do, but often we forget to as we rush from one thing to the next in our busy lives.

Trusting souls that we are.

But this past week, we were dealt two reminders on the importance of vigilance.

News media revealed that as many as 150 motorists per month get dinged with specious bills in the mail from transportation authorities charging them for toll-bridge crossings they did not make because, as it were, technology does not always get it right.

If a photo of a licence plate is blurry, they say, a computer might misread a number and send out a bill to the wrong person.

Also, a Surrey condo was overcharged by $4,500 by the City of Surrey on its water bill.

The City, to its credit, has since corrected the error.

But the bill might never have been fixed — or even discovered — if a Fleetwood resident hadn’t investigated what his bill was telling him and confirmed it to be in error.

The moral of the story is, don’t let yourself be overcharged. Pay attention to your bills. Because if you don’t, you might be paying out more of your hard-earned money than you should.

Now-Leader