A man from Colorado faced a staggering bill of nearly $20,000 for less than 30 minutes of parking at Denver International Airport (DIA) — marking the second incident of its kind in just a couple of months at one of the busiest airports in the United States.
Jim Boyd, hailing from Glenhaven, parked for 27 minutes in DIA’s garage on a Thursday to drop off his wife who was headed to Germany. He expected to pay a mere $7 for the short duration.
However, as he exited the parking garage, he was shocked to see a charge of $19,824 appear on his credit card.
“I heard a notification from Chase Bank saying $19,824 was charged to Denver parking,” Boyd recounted to NBC’s 9NEWS.
“My first thought was, oh no, this is reminiscent of something I saw on 9NEWS about a month ago.”
The receipt he received indicated that his vehicle had entered the garage on June 6 — over three months prior — with a recorded duration of nearly 169,000 minutes.
“I checked my calendar, and there is absolutely no chance that was me; I was not at DIA on June 6th,” Boyd stated. “It must have been a mistake.”
According to airport officials on Friday, the exorbitant fee stemmed from a system error that confused Boyd’s license plate with that of another vehicle.
The error was attributed to the only slight difference between the two license plates — a “B” instead of an “8.”
DIA said they were made aware of the situation on Thursday and promptly collaborated with their parking contractor, LAZ Parking, to issue a refund.
They confirmed that the erroneous $19,824 charge was reversed that same day, along with the actual $7 fee, and expressed their apologies for the mix-up.
The airport acknowledged that Boyd’s experience was not an isolated case.
In a statement to 9NEWS, officials reported that four similar incidents had been documented since June 1.
In a previous case from last month, a Denver woman was erroneously billed over $2,300 for 14 hours of parking after the system mistakenly indicated that her car had been there for more than two months.
That earlier mistake was attributed to an “entry ticket not properly closed out within the system.”
Initially, DIA communicated that the error was not widespread.
However, DIA now asserts that its parking system vendor, Flash Parking, has addressed the glitch and has updated the parking system software accordingly.
A fix was rolled out to all parking kiosks on Friday afternoon, just a day after Boyd’s unfortunate billing incident.
“It seems that these four cases have been the only ones recorded out of around 1.5 million transactions since June,” DIA stated.
“Our analysis shows this is not a prevalent issue.”
Boyd mentioned that he and his wife were fortunate enough to have adequate credit to manage the $19,824 hold while waiting for the refund.
“For others, this could have completely maxed out their options and caused significant trouble,” he noted.
“There need to be better safeguards in place, and they must resolve the issues with their system.”
The airport has advised travelers to carefully verify the amount displayed on the screens at kiosks prior to finalizing their payment.
Should the total appear incorrect, customers are recommended to cancel, rescan their ticket, or press the help button to seek assistance from an attendant.
DIA also announced plans to implement a new camera-based system within six months, which will not only read license plates but will also capture complete vehicle descriptions — a measure they believe will prevent future mix-ups.
Boyd expressed his apprehension about returning to the garage after the incident.
“I’m set to go back and pick my wife up in two weeks, and I’m definitely feeling a bit anxious about it,” he shared.
“I will be closely monitoring that screen as I enter my credit card details.”
