Parking in Los Angeles is a well-known hassle, but imagine being charged nearly $8,000 by an automated machine that wrongfully showed that you were parked there for three years. That’s what happened to Cate Daniels last Friday after a 45-minute visit to Glendale Memorial Hospital in LA County. The hospital parking structure’s automated machine charged Cate Daniels $7,829 after a visit that didn’t even last an hour. The receipt claimed that Daniels first parked in the structure in 2022, and when she tried correcting the issue, she said a parking attendant accused her of parking there for weeks and wouldn’t remedy the problem.
Daniels was visiting Glendale Memorial Hospital last Friday for a cancer screening, which is unpleasant enough without an $8,000 parking charge. She told KCAL News, “Two different people have said things like this happen in that lot. Makes me think I’m not the only one this has happened to.”
The parking company accepted fault, but it took a week and lots of hassle to receive a refund
Daniels reportedly tried reasoning with a parking attendant after she saw the charge on her receipt, and recorded the interaction where the attendant refused to accept her explanation of the issue. Since she didn’t receive the help that she needed to resolve the absurdly expensive charge, Daniels decided to reach out to news stations to publicize the issue.
Once the news story ran on Tuesday night, someone at the hospital reached out and asked her to return so they could issue her a refund. A hospital spokesperson told KCAL News, “the error, stemming from a computer malfunction within the parking system, incorrectly charged the individual for an extended period. We immediately acknowledged the error and began the process of crediting the charge back.”
The hospital apologized for the incident, and the parking contractor, Parking Company of America, acknowledges that the charge never should have taken place. The company also plans to replace the faulty parking machine.
