CLEVELAND (WJW) – One day after the FOX 8 I-Team revealed a man was charged $768 to park in a downtown Cleveland lot, the parking lot company says an error caused overbilling that may have affected dozens of customers.

Mary Brennan Coursey, a spokesperson with LAZ parking, released the following statement to the FOX 8 I-Team.

“It has been brought to our attention that during some special events, to assist with traffic flow, LAZ Parking personnel raised the gates at Arena Lot at 522 Prospect Avenue East and allowed our parkers to leave without proper checkout,” Coursey said. “Since customers provided their credit cards when they enter and leave our garage, there may be no record of some customer’s parking sessions ending during these events. This has resulted in some of our customers being billed in error for their parking session. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused to our customers and we are in the process of identifying and refunding those who were accidentally overcharged. If you parked at this location in the past six months during special events, we ask that you check your bank and credit card statements to see if you were overcharged. If so, please contact LAZ at 855-966-3215.”  

The man, who was charged more than $700 to park for a few hours, says he reached out to the I-Team after he called the company numerous times and did not receive a return call.

“I was really frustrated. That’s a lot of money,” the man said. “I think they would have continued to be radio silent if they didn’t see it on the news and I definitely thank you guys for that.”

Several other people reached out to us Wednesday, saying they too were overcharged.

One woman says the parking lot tried to bill her credit card for $4,000.

Amy Straky says her bank card was charged $1,704 when they went to an event downtown in December.

“It took several days to get it fixed and it was very stressful,” Straky said.

Todd Zufra says he was charged hundreds of dollars when he and his wife went to a basketball game a few weeks ago.

“We both got dings on our phone that we got charged. I can’t remember the exact amount, but it was over $800,” Zufra said. He said his wife spent several days sending emails and making phone calls before they were reimbursed.

Many of the customers that were overcharged tell us they are thankful company officials are now looking into the matter.