Woman appears to have been overcharged twice for Wrightsville Beach parking

WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH, NC (WWAY) — Earlier this month, several people were overcharged for parking at Wrightsville Beach, some by hundreds of dollars. Now the town may be in hot water again after one woman shares that it appears she was overcharged twice.

Ashlee Brown went to Wrightsville Beach with her husband, Tim, on July 5. They paid for three hours of parking, totaling $15. That $15 turned into $1500, Brown says she was charged 103 times.

Her money was refunded a couple of days later and she didn’t think much else of it, until checking her bank account on Friday. She discovered more than 60 additional $15 charges and she had not been back to the beach.

“That can be really life-altering for someone to have lost that kind of money and has to wait 14 days to get it back because that’s basically what they’ve told me, if this is our fault again then you will get your money back within 14 days,” Brown said.

She’s not the only one this happened to on Friday. A viewer emailed WWAY over the weekend with a similar story. After receiving a refund from the first glitch, he was charged another $160. He, like Brown, is working to get a refund.

Brown called the Wrightsville Beach Parking office and eventually spoke to the vice president of Pivot Parking, the company hired by the town to handle parking. She says they told her they did not have a record of the new charges and it was likely a bank issue. However, she called her bank and they say that is not likely. Brown says she’s not sure what is true.

“It also made me very nervous that this could have been some type of hack or something because now the parking company doesn’t have a record that I’ve paid more and the bank does. What is the truth?” Brown said.

Brown’s bank is investigating and, no matter the result, she wants people to be aware.

“The lesson I’ve learned is to probably check your stuff on a daily basis or every couple days more than once a week or twice a week,” Brown said.

Pivot Parking shared a statement on the issue that reads:

“Pivot Parking has been working with payment processor company Flowbird to refund customers who were charged incorrectly over the Fourth of July holiday at Wrightsville Beach, NC. A handful of customers reported similar issues on July 16, seeing “new” charges posted or pending on their accounts. Our records indicate that there are no outstanding double charges.

We now understand some banks may have removed the original pending charges from customers’ accounts, flagging them as potential fraud. If a dispute claim was not made, the banks may have allowed the original charges to post on a delayed schedule. Banks do not allow credit card processors to remove charges from customers accounts. As only refunds can be issued to offset original charges and refunds cannot be reversed by our credit card processor, we urge customers facing this issue to contact their banks and dispute their second charges.

No additional charges have been issued from Pivot Parking. Flowbird, the processor for the payments, has also created a 24/7 customer hotline number in which you can call and request assistance (1-855-443-2715). We again apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.

Our parking solutions in Wrightsville Beach are secure, however for those who would like an alternative payment method, cash at pay stations, the Text 2 Park feature or the mobile parking app via Flowbird are available options.

As we receive updates we will use the Pivot Parking website to communicate them with our
customers. If there are questions or concerns, please contact the Wrightsville Beach office of Pivot Parking at (910) 256-5453 or email WBParking@PivotParking.com.”