Manitoba Public Insurance customers who pay their Autopac bill using online banking might want to double-check their bank accounts this long weekend.

A glitch in the insurer's online payment system saw some customers charged twice this week.

The glitch left Winnipegger Nathan Back scrambling to get enough money together for a camping trip he'd planned with his kids this weekend.

"This morning I opened up my bank account to check my finances and I noticed they took a payment out yesterday and they took a payment out again today," Back told CBC News Friday.

"It's a long weekend — I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people in the same boat."

Back had been paying roughly $84 a month to insure a scooter, but that payment had been scheduled to drop to around $70 because he'd recently purchased a new scooter.

But he was surprised to see a payment of $84 taken out Thursday and $70 taken out Friday.

He quickly phoned his broker and learned he wasn't the only customer facing double bills.

"She said it's a good thing I called because apparently MPI had a glitch and a whole bunch of people got dinged," he said.

"She said they're not going to do anything for you. Their plan, apparently is to apply it to the financing and lower your payments for the rest of the year.

"Well that's not helping me, I live paycheque-to-paycheque."

'System error'

Manitoba Public Insurance spokesperson Brian Smiley confirmed a "system error" caused some customers payments to be withdrawn a day early. While he couldn't say what exactly went wrong, he said the problem was fixed within 24 hours.

Smiley couldn't say exactly how many customers were affected by the glitch.

He said anyone who notices a double payment on their account should contact their brokers.

MPI spokesperson Brian Smiley says customers who have been charged twice should reach out to their brokers. (Trevor Brine/CBC)

"We sent out immediate notification to the brokers to let them know that there had been a system issue and that our IT team was dealing with it immediately," he said.

"It affected a number of customers, but again, did not affect all of our customers."

He said in cases where MPI mistakenly withdraws payment, the insurer normally applies the money back to the customer's remaining financing.

That doesn't satisfy Back, who said he would have to borrow money for his camping trip.

"First off they shouldn't have taken my money in the first place and now they're just going to brush it under the table?" he said.

"If you can take the money out that fast, why can't you just put it back in?"

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