Detroit Tigers opening day $500 parking fee victim finally gets justice

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Remember the man who was charged almost $500 to park his car on opening day? Well it turns out it was a big mistake.

"If you just drive out of a parking structure to receive a text message saying that you’re paying $472 - you don’t really think to do much other than trying to figure out why," said Steven Livings.

When Livings went downtown to watch the Detroit Tigers play on Opening Day, he expected to pay $50 for parking in total, when he parked at a Brush Street parking structure. Instead, he was charged $50 an hour.

"They probably made $20,000 off that parking structure and they must have thought, 'We had a great day,'" Livings said.

But Livings knew something wasn’t right. He called his bank, FOX 2 and Metropolis — the company that owns the parking structure.

And Friday he was refunded his money.

"What they said was that they set the prices for the event, and when we all logged into the hourly rate which they set it at $50 an hour instead of $50 for the event, when you scan the QR code," he said.

He now says he has some piece of mind — and that $472 back in his bank account

The Metro Detroiter is hoping others learn from what happened to him and if something doesn’t seem right - do some digging and start asking questions.

"That was my main goal just to let people be aware," he said. "I was following the FOX 2 Facebook page and people were saying ‘I was overcharged $50.’ Someone said ‘I was overcharged too,’ and they took care of it with their bank.

"So just to (raise awareness,) it’s a great accomplishment to get it all taken care of. But this shouldn’t have happened, but I’m in a better place for it now, than we were a week ago."