Man’s warning after $16,000 red bin nightmare that took him 12 years to realise: ‘Make sure you’re not being taken advantage of’
- Geoff Oppert had only used one waste bin
- Kiama Council on NSW’s South Coast charged for two
- This led to an extra fee of $8,610 over 12 years
A man is warning all Australians to check their council fees after his nightmare experience with a bin saw him charged double what he should’ve been.
It took 12 years for Geoff Oppert to realise Kiama Council, on NSW’s south coast, had been billing him for two red lid general waste bins instead of one, leaving him with a $16,610 bill.
Mr Oppert raised the issue with his local council but was refused a refund for more than two years.
A single red lid bin was supposed to have cost the Oppert family $8,000 but the double-up meant he was thousands of dollars out of pocket.
Mr Oppert took his fight to A Current Affair and was eventually given a refund for the mix-up but he warned others to ‘examine your rates notice’ to make sure they avoid a similar fate.
Geoff Oppert had been billed for two red lid general waste bins instead of one, leaving him with a bill of $16,610 over 12 years
Mr Oppert said the fee had slipped below his radar for so long because of the ‘bureaucratic jargon’ in council notices, but he immediately requested a refund once noticing something was wrong.
‘In total, we spent $16,000 on garbage disposal over 12 years, which should have only been half,’ Mr Oppert told A Current Affair.
‘However, they would only provide us with a reimbursement for two years and cited a tax statute as the reason, it’s unjust and just plain wrong.
‘It wasn’t our fault — they made the mistake and admitted it — [so] examine your rates notice to ensure you’re not being taken advantage of.’
A Kiama Municipal Council spokesperson defended what had happened, explaining that the onus was on Mr Oppert to check his fees.
‘Like any bill or bank statement, the onus is on the customer to check their documentation and notify the issuing authority of any discrepancies,’ the spokesperson said.
‘When this matter was brought to our attention, Kiama Council acted and refunded the amounts of $805.72 for 2021-22 and $818.61 for 2022-23.’
Going forward, the council also committed to checking if anybody else in Kiama was similarly being over charged.
‘In addition, Kiama Council is now working on an audit of all our urban and residential waste services to ensure our charges are correct,’ the spokesperson said.
One red lid bin would have cost just $8,000 in the same period, leaving Mr Oppert thousands of dollars out of pocket after Kiama’s Council only refunded the last two years
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