Driver at River Valley car park gets S$100,870 fee after parking for 5 minutes, management apologises for inconvenience

A driver pulled into a car park in River Valley on Sep. 25, stayed roughly five minutes, and left well within the free grace period.

However, the system recorded the visit as slightly longer.

Its reading put the duration at 7,204 days, 22 hours and 51 minutes, which translated to a S$100,870 fee.

That is roughly 20 years of parking.

Card was set to auto top-up

The driver posted about it on Reddit under the title, "accidentally parked for 20 years".

One commenter asked whether they had enough in the CashCard to be debited in the first place.

The driver replied that the card was in the in-vehicle unit at the gantry, and that it tops up automatically.

They wrote:

"It has the auto top up to top S$50 from my credit card when it goes negative. I didn't know if it will run infinitely until it hit $100k! Luckily it didn't."

The driver called the car park hotline to ask what had happened, and the system had apparently not detected his IU going in, even though the gantry opened.

The car park management's response

The car park's management said it became aware of the incident after it began circulating on social media, and sent someone down immediately, Shin Min Daily News reported.

The affected part has since been replaced.

A spokesperson said the issue had been resolved and that the car owner did not suffer any losses as a result.

The management also apologised for the inconvenience and said measures have been taken to address the issue.