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Minister of Transportation Todd Stone is photographed in his office at the B.C. Legislature on June 12.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Globe and Mail

B.C.'s transportation minister says he isn't surprised residents are angry after learning thousands of customers were charged the wrong amounts by the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.

Todd Stone says he was mad himself when he found out about the issue in February and told the public auto insurer it had to pay back the $39 million overcharged with interest.

The issue became public after a report in the Vancouver Province newspaper on Sunday. Stone says ICBC was keeping quiet on the matter because it was still trying to gather information on the matter.

"They're methodically going through those millions of individual transactions to make sure that they get their facts straight," said Stone. "It was felt a public announcement of this would best be made once they had the scope clearly understood."

He says he's told the Crown corporation it can't raise rates to recoup the money or require those who were undercharged to pay retroactively.

"Anyone who has underpaid will not be retroactively charged," said Stone "This was not their error so they should not be asked to pay retroactively."

Stone says the company must undergo a third party audit to make sure the problem has been fixed.

He says the issue started during an ICBC system upgrade when a number of vehicle identification codes were incorrectly entered.

"I expect the system to be fixed so this never happens again," he said. (CHNL)

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