Chicagoans still ticketed when using parking app

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Imagine paying for street parking and still getting a ticket. That has happened to hundreds of people who used the city's new pay-by-phone parking meter app.

The problem can be easily fixed, but it has made at least one driver reluctant to use it again.

John Maravilla has used the ParkChicago app a few times since it was officially rolled out in May. Six days ago, he used it to pay the meter for his friend who parked at LaSalle and Superior to run an errand.

So Maravilla accessed the app, punched in the zone number for the car's location, entered the license plate and a payment of $8.

Less than an hour later, his friend found a 65-dollar ticket on his windshield. Frustrated, maravilla tweeted what happened. That led ParkChicago to contact him the next day. They confirmed the payment and the ticket was dismissed.

More than 300 expired meter violations were improperly issued. This is out of more than 81,000 tickets written since the app became available.

A ParkChicago spokesperson says they are working with the city to solve enforcement glitches.

"I think they need to train their resources who are giving tickets and make sure that the person did pay for it and they're not going to have that sticker on their car," said Maravilla.

Maravilla says the app is convenient, but will hold off on using it again until all the kinks are worked out.

"It may work down here somewhere," he said, "but if you go on the North side where they're still implementing this and those people up there are working the meters and they're not used to it yet, I don't want to go through the same hassle."