 "Colorado man charged nearly $20,000 for under half an hour of parking at Denver airport")
Jim Boyd, from Glenhaven, was charged $19,824 after parking for 27 minutes at Denver International Airport (DIA) to drop off his wife for a flight to Germany. Boyd said the correct fee should have been $7, but his credit card statement showed a charge nearly 3,000 times higher.
Boyd’s parking receipt indicated his car had entered the garage on June 6, nearly four months earlier and had been parked for more than 169,000 minutes. Boyd confirmed this was incorrect, stating he had not been at DIA on that date.
Airport officials later confirmed a system glitch caused the error by confusing Boyd’s licence plate with another vehicle’s plate that differed by only one character — a “B” instead of an “8”. DIA worked with its parking contractor, LAZ Parking, to reverse the charge and issue the correct $7 fee, apologising for the mistake.
Repeated incidents
DIA admitted Boyd’s case was not isolated. Since June 1, four similar incidents have been recorded. Last month, a Denver woman was incorrectly billed over $2,300 for 14 hours of parking after the system showed her car had been parked for more than two months. DIA attributed that error to an “entry ticket that had not been closed out in the system.”
Officials said their parking system vendor, Flash Parking, has corrected the problem and updated the software. A fix was applied to all parking kiosks on the afternoon following Boyd’s incident. DIA stated these four cases were the only known errors out of roughly 1.5 million transactions since June and described the issue as not widespread.
Boyd expressed concern that others may not have the credit capacity to cover such errors and stressed the need for safeguards. DIA has advised travellers to verify charges on kiosk screens and, if amounts seem incorrect, to cancel the transaction, rescan their ticket, or contact an attendant.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe airport plans to install a new camera-based system within six months that will read licence plates and capture full vehicle descriptions to prevent future mismatches. Boyd said the experience has made him hesitant to return to the garage.
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