The City of Miami Beach is promoting a parking deal to bring more people to the beach in what is traditionally the slower season. But some drivers say the discount disappeared at checkout. 7’s Heather Walker investigates.
Traffic to Miami Beach tends to slow down in the summer time.
But even with fewer cars on the road, finding reasonably priced parking can be a pain when you’re trying to enjoy a day or night out on the beach.
Randall Hall: “To hang out with friends, or restaurants.”
Randall Hall lives in Miami but likes to go out to eat in Miami Beach.
Randall Hall: “Just to have a good time.”
So when he saw the city was offering parking for just $1 an hour through the ParkMobile app — he figured the offer was too good to pass up.
Randall Hall: “The beach is struggling; there is no other way to say it: it’s struggling and $1 an hour to get people here — that’s a great thing.”
Until it wasn’t.
Randall Hall: “The promo comes up on the app right away.”
When he went to pay to park, the promo popped up on the ParkMobile app. He applied the discount but when he clicked to pay, the total was still more than $5 for less than three hours of parking, adding up to more than $1 an hour, as advertised.
Randall Hall: “Double the price at check out.”
Randall says it happened not once, not twice, but three times.
And he says other people he talked to had the same problem.
Randall Hall: “The frustration is exactly that.”
When he reached out to the city, the parking department apologized and told him the issue has been “addressed and resolved” and gave him a “$3 promo code” for his next parking session.
The day after that email was sent, 7Investigates tried using the promo and received a message saying: “We couldn’t calculate the total price for this parking session. Try again,” but after a second try, it still didn’t work.
Heather: “What’s your message to the city?”
Randall Hall: “Fix it, take care of reimbursing those from the beginning of the month.”
7Investigates went to the city. A spokesperson told us the problem 7News had using the promo code must have been an “internet issue,” telling us the problem is now fixed.
The city also says it will be issuing refunds to drivers who were affected, which makes Randall happy because he says it’s not really about the money — it’s about doing what’s right.
Randall Hall: “They got a lot of people that I see that need to be taken care of.”
We checked again and this time, the discount worked. Randall hopes it stays that way so that he can keep coming to the beach without a parking headache.
The $1 an hour deal runs through the end of October.
Heather Walker, 7News.
CONTACT 7 INVESTIGATES:
305-627-CLUE
954-921-CLUE
7Investigates@wsvn.com
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