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The retired visual arts teacher and painter from South Porcupine, Ont., quickly realized her mistakeÌý— but not quickÌýenough for the bank to stop the transaction.

Since last July, Maki and her daughter Aili had been pleading with Koodo to return the massive overpayment.Ìý

Koodo, they said, repeatedly promised a refund.

“First they said wait eight to 10 weeks,” Aili said, “and then it was eight to 10 business days.”

Aili called for updates and Hazel wrote emails and “a rather snarky letter” but the money never came.Ìý

The Problem: A comma instead of a decimal point

“I think they were really hoping I’d die before they paid me,” Maki, who is 84, tells me with a laugh over a video call.Ìý

The accident happened on July 10 last year after Maki inserted a comma instead of a decimal point while typing in the amount of her cellphone bill to make an online bank payment.

She sent Koodo $13,061 instead of $130.61.Ìý

When the Makis reported the error to Koodo by phone, email and letter, the company promised to issue a refund.Ìý

Instead, Koodo treated the overpayment like a massive credit and continued to deduct payments from her account for the next five months, drawing down the balance to $12,500.

In December, Maki cancelled her Koodo contract and closed the account. “The idea being,” she explained, “that any assets left in the account would be transferred to me, which they have not been.”

On its website, Koodoo promises that when customers close their accounts, the company has a policy to refund “any amount above $5 … within seven days from the first bill after cancellation” and issue a refund to the payment method on file.Ìý

The Star Steps In: Why couldn’t Koodo pull the trigger on the massive refund it owed Hazel?Ìý

The Makis were frustrated. They couldn’t understand why they were getting the runaround on such a significant sum of money. Hazel’s accidental overpayment amounted to 10 times her monthly pension.

Why couldn’t the company just redirect the money back into her bank account? Ìý

Maki can’t pinpoint the year she signed up with Koodo. It’s been “quite a while,” she said. When she and her husband, also a retired arts teacher, were spending summers at the cottage, it made sense to have a way to keep in touch with family members rather than pay more for a landline.Ìý

They’ve lived in South Porcupine, which Maki jokingly refers to as the “middle of nowhere,” since the late 1980s. It’s about 700 kilometres north of Toronto, near Timmins.Ìý

The Makis bought a cellphone plan that would allow them to connect with relatives back home in England.

“There was a time when you had to use the phone at the top of the parking lot of the cottage, fighting with the mosquitoes because that’s where you got reception,” Maki said, but as new cellphone towers were built, that inconvenience vanished.

Maki said she never dreamed it would be this hard to get her money back. She’s never made a banking error like this before.Ìý

“Every time I call or she calls,” Aili said, “we get put on hold while whoever we’re talking to consults with somebody else about what to do. The last time I got transferred to some higher up and they also put me on hold forever. You think they have notes in their computer records of the last time they spoke to us. They seem to just not be able to actually pull the trigger on sending the money.”

Maki said she and her husband have stayed on top of their bills despite the loss, but could have used the money to fix her home’s baseboard heating system.Ìý

The Makis reached out to me in early April for help. After they forwarded their records of the overpayment and a copy of their last Koodo bill, I reached out to the company and its owner, Telus, on their behalf.Ìý

What was holding up Maki’s refund, I asked? I also pointed out that her money would have been collecting interest in the bank and wanted know if either company would make up for this loss.

The Resolution: A cheque for $12,502.65 plus 4.7 per cent interest

Three days later, a Telus spokesperson got back to me and Koodo got back to Hazel Maki with an apology and assurances that a cheque was in the mail.Ìý

The spokesman sent me a written statement that he said should be attributed to Koodo:Ìý

“We are deeply sorry about Mrs. Maki’s experience, which is not reflective of the customer service we strive to provide our customers. We’ve taken immediate steps to process a full refund with interest for Mrs. Maki, and will stay closely in touch with her to ensure she has received the refund.”

The company added it is “reviewing our internal processes to ensure that this does not happen again. Our policy is to return any overpayments promptly, and we are taking steps to reinforce that commitment across our teams. We are grateful this was brought to our attention and thank Mrs. Maki and her daughter for their patience.”

Three days after that, Maki’s cheque arrived.Ìý

Issued by Telus, the cheque amount was $12,502.65, less than we expected.

What about the interest?

The Telus spokesman quickly called and emailed to confirm a second cheque was en route.Ìý

“Mrs. Maki will receive an interest payment of $440.71,” Martin Nguyen wrote in an email on April 10. “The interest was calculated at 4.70% (for nine months), which is higher than typical savings account rates.”Ìý

A week later, Nguyen said the cheque should be in Maki’s hand by Tuesday.Ìý