Hart received the notice last month. It’s a reminder to pay $25 for a parking violation. So this week, after paying $3 for parking in the lot across the street and standing in line, the judge told Hart what he already knew. There was a mistake and he wasn’t the only one.
Four-thousand people got the same notice. Apparently the vendor the city uses to generate them had a computer problem.
“It was just a glitch of the system that happened at that particular time,” Liliana Rambo with the Houston parking management division told us.
Case closed, right? Wrong. What about Hart’s $3 that he paid for parking, multiplied by the others who may have done the same thing? .
“Three dollars times 4,000. That’s $12,000 and that’s just the bare minimum we’re talking about,” said Hart. “It could be more if people paid money without contesting it.”
At first, he was told he couldn’t get his money back
“The city is going to make money off of it,” he said. “It’s revenue they shouldn’t be making.”
We took the issue to the parking commission.
“We’ll be able to refund him the three dollars for being in the parking lot,” said Rambo.
How many people won’t come forward for refunds? That little “glitch” could turn into a nice chunk of change for the city.
