More than 22,000 direct deposits sent to the wrong bank accounts – largest number of cases in nearly a decade
Amid a rush to put money into the hands of countless Canadians in need last year, the federal government misplaced tens of millions of dollars in benefit payments, according to a report tabled in the House of Commons.
Nearly $26 million in federal direct payments were deposited into the wrong bank accounts over the fiscal year ended on March 31, 2021, the report said. As detailed by CBC News, the government mis-sent 22,170 direct deposit payments, as compared to $6.6 million across 9,619 misdirected payments during the previous period.
The number of cases documented during the 2020-2021 fiscal year is the highest since at least 2012. The total amount that went into the wrong accounts – with $10.2 million listed in government documents as “not expected to be recovered” – is the second largest annual amount of misdirected cash in records going back to 2009.
The government has been able to recover the largest single erroneous payment last year, totalling $3.5 million, and it hopes to take back another $8.6 million in the coming years.
"There was a significant increase in payments issued from April 1, 2020 up to March 31, 2021 to individuals and businesses as a result of the actions taken by the government to support hardship created by the COVID-19 pandemic," said Stéfanie Hamel, a spokesperson for Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC). The Receiver General's office, a unit within the department, oversees government payments.
"In 2020 to 2021, the Receiver General issued 405 million direct deposits for a value of $494 billion," Hamel said. "This represents an annual increase of 35 per cent and 56 per cent respectively."
Hamel said the department follows “rigorous processes” and “makes a sustained effort … within the parameters of the law” to recover money that’s placed in the wrong accounts. She also noted that the misdirected deposits equated to just 0.0053% of the total amount paid out last year.
"Some reasons for misdirected deposits may include manual errors, wrong information received from the recipient (ie the recipient provides incorrect banking information), wrong information received from the department, and potentially, fraud," she said.
According to Conservative Treasury Board critic Kelly McCauley, many constituents have come to his office reporting that their benefit payments never arrived and they couldn't get through to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), which oversees many pandemic benefit programs. While McCauley understood things had to get done quickly in March and April 2020, he said issues continued long afterward.
"By October, the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) was telling us they had still not set up better guardrails to protect Canadians — either taxpayers from fraud or taxpayers from having their accounts taken over or money applied (for) on their behalf," he said.
