An investigation that started in late 2014 has led the Alberta Beverage Container Recycling Corporation to begin court action for what it calls inappropriate action by depots in High River, Cochrane and Strathmore.

The corporation has issued one statement of claim against the depots, employees and agents of each of the depots and nine ABCRC employees for losses suffered and damages totalling approximately $16 million.

A second, separate case has been filed against the Turner Valley Bottle Depot alleging  $41,859 in losses.

The President of the corporation, Guy West, doesn't believe customers were affected.

"As far as we can tell there was no impact on the consumer, like the activity that results in this action was between the depots and ABCRC, it did not impact the depots service or relationship with their customers," he says.

West says they won't tolerate any inappropriate activity by its staff or others involved in the business.

"We've implemented, since discovering the problem, improved internal controls that apply to all of the loads received from depots and we believe that we have plugged all of the holes," he says. "We do random checks on every depot as part of the random course of business."

Although at this point they're just allegations, it's a black mark on the bottle depot business, which West admits, many people think they get cheated on their returns.

"I've been in the industry for 27 years and I've heard that about many depots but I know that the regulatory board does regular testing on that with blind shoppers and the results are not as bad as I think consumers believe they are," he says.

None of the cases have been proven in court.