A computer glitch resulted in hundreds of Winnipeggers receiving notices of unpaid parking violations — even though they had not been ticketed.

The notices were issued in the spring by the Winnipeg Parking Authority and sent to some 800 people. Colin Stewart, spokesman for the parking authority, said the problem was corrected and nobody was charged.

But nobody was notified, either.

'When this occurs, we don't have the ability to easily pull the data to send out 800 letters, so what we do is wait for people to call and we flag those particular violations.'—Colin Stewart, Winnipeg Parking Authority

"I've not received any official notice either way, whether it's still outstanding or whether I've been cleared. There's been no contact," said Louise Newfeld, who received a notice in March for a violation that allegedly occurred in 2006.

The ticket was assigned to a car that had actually been removed from the road and was in a Manitoba Public Insurance compound following an accident in September 2004. The car was written off and never put back on the road in Newfeld's name.

When she called the city to check on the reason for the ticket, Newfeld was told by the operator at 311 (the phone number for government information and non-emergency services) there were hundreds of similar tickets and that it was MPI's fault.

When she called MPI, Newfeld was told to deal with the Winnipeg Parking Authority.

"The whole story didn't make sense. Both sides were saying the other one was at fault, so I didn't really know what to do," Newfeld said.

When CBC News called 311, the operator said, "That's the answer I've been told to give because I don't know all the intricacies of it. But all I know is, during a recent upgrade to the vehicle information for Manitoba Public Insurance, old information was inadvertently applied to a number of customer accounts."

According to Stewart, a "filtering box" wasn't checked on the computer program, which resulted in the information not being properly stored. Those affected weren't contacted because the process is too unwieldy, he added.

"When this occurs, we don't have the ability to easily pull the data to send out 800 letters, so what we do is wait for people to call and we flag those particular violations," he said.

When asked why the incorrect information was given to a person who called 311, Stewart said, "That was an inaccuracy by our operator."

He also said the computer glitch is the first one the authority has experienced and he maintains the personal information kept in the computer system is safe.