Thousands of people in Ottawa have seen their credit score dip or outright plummet because of old tickets and fines. Some go back as far as 2003.

“In January, the City contracted a new private collections agencies (sic) through a competitive process. Financial Debt Recovery (FDR) is the final collection agency in the process and only collects debts that have already been at previous City-contracted collection agencies and remain unpaid,” said Joseph Muhuni, deputy city treasurer revenue, in a statement to CTV News Ottawa.

“FDR attempted to collect the debt and to date, has subsequently reported 103,000 unpaid Provincial Offences Act fines and 3,000 unpaid water bills to the credit bureau.”