Questions remain unanswered over car park fiasco

Questions remain unanswered over a council blunder that has seen more than a thousand drivers charged multiple times for parking in the city.

At least 1,500 drivers are believed to have been needlessly charged several times for parking in Worcester because of a problem with card payments.

Worcester City Council has not responded to questions about how much money it expects to have to pay back because of the blunder or why drivers were overcharged again just over a year after the same problem happened at the city’s car parks.

The council has also ignored a request to explain why some drivers were being charged for stays in car parks they had not made.

The city council said on Monday that all duplicate payments would be refunded automatically by October 7 and any bank fees incurred because of the blunder would also be repaid.

A similar issue just over a year ago saw drivers charged several times for stays at the city council’s car parks – with many forced to pay for trips they had made months earlier.

Many of those drivers hit by the unexpected string of payments have called for compensation from the council over the stress caused.

Those who have been overcharged have not only been left out of pocket during a cost-of-living crisis but are also facing extra fees from banks after being forced to freeze and cancel debit cards to try and stop the payments and regain the money.

The council blamed Flowbird, which runs the ticket machines on its behalf, for the disruption saying it had released a month’s worth of payments in one go after not charging cards for several weeks.

The council had told Flowbird which then began sending through a month’s worth of delayed payments to a different provider Elavon, which is responsible for processing card payments, leading to the repeat charges.

The council said it was then forced to tell Flowbird to stop sending through payments in a bid to stop the wave of overcharging but despite reassurances that no more money would be taken after September 29, drivers have continued to be hit with more fees.

It was first revealed last Wednesday (September 28) that several drivers had been charged multiple times at once for parking in Worcester due to a “software issue.”