A Canberra man was issued with a parking ticket for $7178 at the Canberra Centre after he validated a ticket he forgot to cash in back in July last year.
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Nathan Craig, a wine salesman who bases his business from the Canberra Centre in Civic, has been parking at the complex almost every day for four years but was “completely shocked” when he read the total.
“When I saw that amount on the screen my eyes just widened,” he said. “I simply couldn’t believe it!”
Mr Craig said the old ticket must have been sitting in his wallet for nearly a year before he finally mistook it for his current ticket when he tried to leave the centre.
“It must have been of those days when the exit boom was left open at the car park and I’d driven out without cashing in the ticket,” he said.
Despite his surprise and initial fear, Mr Craig said he had no intention of paying the $7000 parking ticket and hadn’t been contacted by Secure Parking, the company who runs the parking complex at the Canberra Centre.
“I park my car there every day so the likelihood of having a redundant ticket every now and then is not beyond the realm of imagination,” he said.
He said he often sees redundant tickets left on top of the machines with expensive totals, but had never seen any close to $7000.
Mr Craig said most people were just as surprised as he was when they read the owing amount although some were more cynical than others.
“I got a few comments from people saying ‘yeah that’d be right, what did you do park at the Canberra Centre for a 30 minutes?',” he said.
A five-hour stint at the Secure Parking complex at the Canberra Centre will set you back $15, but if you’re there for longer than seven hours you’ll be slugged with a $30 ticket.
But the $7178 ticket issued to Mr Craig averages out at about $24 a day.
