As a business owner with property in the City of Prince George, I require a business license for the city. This year, they changed the categories and the way to pay.
I contacted the city and was told the current category was no longer available and they said that it was now changed to a different category and forwarded a copy of the bylaw for business licences.
When I opened the bylaw what I had been listed under was still there so I sent another email to city staff.
The city then credited me for this and reissued the licence at the old rate.
By this time, they had spent time and resources to now rebill for my license. Then I was told I could pay through the bank which I then paid on Dec. 12.
I got an email on Jan. 5 saying my payment had been rejected as they don't except payment this way. They only except cheques or credit card through the new system.
My experience with credit card is they charge a fee for this payment up to 3.5 per cent, which the city of Prince George pays as that is what they pay to use our credit card. This still needs to be applied to the proper account.
Then the bank, which has already taken the money and sent it to the city, gets informed by the city that they the bank need to refund for the payment .
The taxpayer has now paid city staff to send money back to bank, office personnel to do all the emails and letters and refund paperwork and a fee to credit card company instead of taking money paid online through the bank and sending it to the business license department who have to process payment received anyway.
The bank needs to do a refund when the city finishes sending them notification and then taxpayers pay for this stupidity.
Dick Martin
Prince George
