COLUMBIA, S.C. — Columbia parking meters have transitioned to a two-payment option.
This means at most meters in the city, drivers have the option to pay with coins or the city's mobile passport app.
But some app users say they're still getting ticketed despite paying on their mobile devices.
Laura Caskey voiced her frustrations on Facebook.
She says on Friday she went to Five Points for lunch and paid for two hours of parking on the passport app.
When she returned to her car the app notified her that she had one hour left on the meter but despite her payment and remaining time she was still ticketed by Columbia Parking Services.
Caskey says she's glad she used the app because there was a record of her payment.
“If I had used coins I don’t think I would’ve had the purchase and I think 8 dollars or proof of purchase, I don’t think $8 is enough for people, they don’t think $8 is enough for people to complain about," Caskey said.
The director of Columbia Parking Services says Caskey's experience isn't unique for two reasons.
The first reason, people who get ticketed even after feeding the meter or the app are part of the problem with user errors like choosing the wrong vehicle, entering the wrong zone number or license plate number or state.
Director of Columbia Parking Services, Tori Salavant says another reason for the "wrongful" ticketing is the passport app itself.
“Sometimes they have outages, then normally passport will send us a notification that there is an outage in the area," Salavant said.
If you think you've properly entered your information into passport without error, Salavant says there are steps you can take.
“We have on the back of the citation where they can do an appeal. There they can let us know they did pay for parking and send us the citation where they paid for it and we’ll go ahead and void," she said.
Caskey says she did exactly that.
“I drove down to the parking office because I was going to have to go down there anyway to pay off the ticket. I showed them the ticket they took it away and said it must’ve been an error on their end," Laura Caskey said.
The Columbia Parking Center says there are one-time exceptions for incorrect information in the app.