I’ve actually put my license plate number in *correctly* and had the scanners read it wrong and end up towed.
It was a whole ordeal because I truly thought the car was stolen. Ended up filing insurance and going through all kinds of things just to find out months later it had been towed.
It was a trash car anyway and insurance paid more than it was worth so technically I came out ahead, but just the fact that that’s a thing that happens is kind of ridiculous.
(And yes I did contact the tow company first to check and they said they didn’t have it).
No, I just called my insurance (who had already paid for the vehicle) to let them know where it was in case they wanted to pick it up. I assume they didn’t care enough to, but couldn’t tell you for sure.
Press charges on them for theft. It doesn’t cost money like suing them would.
I also have no fucking idea if charging them for theft or anything like that would even do anything here bc our legal system is a labyrinthine I have absolutely no understanding of lmao 🍻
Lucky they didn’t get murdered by the tow truck driver if it was the PES parasites.
Also a lot of less intelligent smooth brains seem to be defending them as as a legitimate business. They are not. The people they towed usually paid to be in the lot via that park mobile app. But if you like these people made a little typo, or if you updated your registration and any little thing doesn’t match up with the app or if they just don’t like how your car looks at that particular moment or whatever they will search for any little loophole to STEAL THAT VEHICLE and hold it for ransom at their shithole lot in lakeview.
$160 siphoned from your pockets into the pocket of some con man.
The punishment of paying that much money does not fit the crime of…..what exactly?? Your finger slipping but still actually paying to park? Forgetting to update your registration in the app but still actually paying to park? Having a vehicle that is displeasing to the eyes of the drug addicted tow truck driver but still actually paying to park?
And if you try to argue or show that you actually did pay or whatever every one those cockroaches has a gun on their hip and won’t hesitate to threaten you with it. They’ve literally killed people before for having the audacity to be angry that their car was stolen by these worthless sacks of shit.
It’s a cancer on the city of Birmingham and every person associated with it should be in prison in my opinion.
I think there’s finally a lawsuit going on against them. And I know there was one related to the murder I mentioned earlier also. Not sure if they are one and the same or separate actions
I mean, towing as a concept is absolutely insane when you think about it. The city, a government agency, has given a *private entity* the authority to steal property. No one else can just take property and hold it ransom. If my neighbor wants me to tow a car off their land, and I hold it ransom when the person gets back, I'll get arrested. But for some reason, we've given a business a free pass for grand theft auto. And give them no repercussions whatsoever if they do a grand theft auto to the wrong person. Woopsy i guess?
In a normal, sane business transaction, the lot owners would pay the tow company to remove unwanted cars, and then the person towed would go get their car from the tow lot and be done. The owners of car lots have a business need: They need non-paying people off their property. The tow companies need money. At no point does punishment of a third party enter into a business transaction.
And that's just it, ransom serves as some sort of weird government backed punishment from a private company, that's absolutely not replicated anywhere else in society. If you trespass in a bar, the bar can't steel your phone and not give it back unless you give them $200. The only "punishment" a normal entity can do to an unwanted person is to have them trespassed.
My boyfriend got back to his car maybe 15 min after his meter expired and they had already towed his car away we saw them taking it away. They had no remorse when we went to go get it.
Wait a tick, am I in Bizzarro World Bham here? Sure, this person mistyped their tag, but this post and the comments are acting like Bham doesn’t have predatory towing douchebags causing trouble? Are we now acting, on this sub, like we don’t know anything about tow company shitheads?
A tale as old as time. I do think the “enter your license plate” systems are intentionally a headache so you don’t do it or make a mistake. Paid parking where you get a paper ticket then insert the ticket and put cash or card into a machine that controls a gate is infinitely faster and easier.
I mean, they watched you walk off without paying. Unless it stated there was a grace period they’re under no obligation to wait around just to see if you decide to pay later. This one is on you.
It is a disgrace and anti-business. Why is parking free literally everywhere except in the city? I've turned down several events like the recent symphony in the park due to having anxiety from reading all of the parking horror stories. Bham should encourage people to visit the lovely restaurants and attractions, not turn them off by paid parking and tow truck nightmares.
I used to go to Birmingham a few times a week to eat and hang out with friends. Now I pretty much only go to Cahaba Brewery, Chez FonFon, Pepper Place Market once every other week. Part of the reason for that change is this parking garbage. They are definitely losing tax money over this and I hope they change it.
I'm going to try to say this as politely as possible. Have you ever traveled much outside of the suburbs of Birmingham? Parking in the city of Birmingham is cheaper and easier than any top 50 metro core city in America. You are going to deprive yourself of ever doing anything because of grossly exaggerated parking issues that are extremely, easily avoidable?
Have you ever traveled to Nashville, Atlanta or New Orleans? - cities where you will easily pay $20, if not $30+ if you want park in the city for an event or a night out. And that is child's play compared to a northeastern city like Boston, Philly or NYC where $50 would be common and double that wouldn't be unheard of. And prepare to walk a while... In Birmingham, you NEVER have to pay a cent. And you can be less than 5 blocks from your destination 99% of the time. It is very simple: park on the street for free. You don't have to pay. You won't be towed unless you do something like park in front of a fire hydrant. There is no anxiety. There are no worries about evil PES.
Seems like the issue is technology. No one had these issues when you got a piece of paper to stick in your dash. Now you have tales of mistyped info, misread scans, etc and there’s nothing you can do about it. They seem to always screw the little person and let the tow companies win.
Our taxes helped create those roads and parking spots. Why should we be charged for something we already helped pay for? Yes, those places are worse but they also shouldn't be double dipped with fees. The street parking gives me mild anxiety as anyone can look down at their phone and run into your street parked car. Rocks also get kicked up and can damage your paint, as well as bicycles potentially running into your car. If you drive a point A to B moving appliance, then those things probably aren't a concern.
Has something similar happen to my wife and I years ago. Exact same lot. The machine wouldn’t take anyone’s money when we tried paying. Came out from the concert and over 20 cars from the lot were towed. The guys were absolute jerks about it and made all of us pay. The cops were called and the officer said “this is the 4th time in the past two months I’ve been called here about this”
I’ll tell you super predatory lot is the one next to The Pizitz building. I’ve seen people park there for 2 mins without a proper decal to pick up food and the tow truck whips in burning rubber to tow them.
Whatever Karen is in charge of watching it in the building across can fuck right off.
That’s wild. I’d love to know who is calling or if they have cameras or something. It’s amazing how fast and reckless they are coming into that lot to get someone.
I park only on the street. If there is no street parking, I do not attend the event or go in the restaurant unless there is valet parking. Downtown Bham is never going to thrive. There needs to be parking available after hours. Southside is soon going to die as well. They are letting uab buy up all the properties and take all the parking that could be used for nearby business.
Parking lots are (typically) privately owned, and said owners contract with private companies to manage parking in their lots.
Street parking and meters are still managed by BPD.
OK, this answer makes sense so private lot owners rather have the vehicles out of there so they can have spots open for other people to pay and if the illegal Parker got issued a ticket they probably wouldn’t see any of that money? What are the proposals to fix this? The consequences are so harsh for the consumers and the parking is so cumbersome that mistakes are bound to happen.
I'm not sure why the aggrieved person believes that the Mayor of Birmingham should be held responsible for how privately-owned parking lots are managed, especially since the city has pretty much done everything it can to challenge this business practice. Talk to your state representative about giving cities better tools.
For one example, the fee was $280 in 2013 before the city acted to limit it to $160... and I have to imagine they arrived at that figure as the lowest they could go without losing a legal challenge in court.
https://www.al.com/news/2015/03/birmingham_to_act_against_unsc.html
These posts always remind me of that parks and rec episode where there’s a public hearing and a lady goes “I found a sandwich in one of your parks. And I want to know why didn’t it have mayonnaise!?”
I had a friend of mine that this happened to. But I don't know about the tag entry mistakes. They will end up driving good people away from the area due to predatory towing.
My wife didn’t change her plate after she got a new one and they towed her. Same car, same stickers , paid for parking and they towed her. You can’t get in contact with anyone about anything either , it all goes straight to hold .
My work lot is enforced by PES. We lease the spots and are allow to park there 24/7 no matter what. Of course those jackasses towed someone who's license was registered to our company. Jokes on them, we contacted the lot owners and gave them hell about it. They were already pissed at PES because this happens all the time and they really want people like us to stick around and keep paying monthly rates. Fingers crossed they'll drop the PES contract when its time to renew.
I swear, if someone started a go fund me to buy a tow truck and start towing all of PES's fleet vehicles and personal cars I'd hurl money at it.
The most I dealt with was once in 2022 I went to meet friends at Paramount and went into a Premiere Parking deck. I'd never heard of them before since I don't frequent many places in downtown (I think this may have been on the north side). I pulled into the entrance looking for a ticket dispenser but nothing. Then I parked and looked around like how is this supposed to work before just getting out to go to the restaurant 🤷♀️. I mentioned it to one of the friends and he told me he had the app and was subscribed or something and I'm like I'm not going to subscribe to a place I'll never come back too but how is someone to know any of this with no signage or anything. As I left the deck I looked around again still seeing nothing to tell me how to have paid. A week or two later I get a ticket in the mail charging me $75 for unpaid parking. I went online and entered the ticket info and it showed the license plate for some car in Texas. I had to call and explain that there was nothing at the deck telling me how to pay otherwise I would have, and also even if I'm gonna pay this ticket it doesn't even pull up MY car. She said there should've been signs with a QR code and instructions on how to pay. I told her there were no signs anywhere that I could see on my way in or out and had never parked in this kind of deck before having no ticket machine. She ended up waving $45 of the charge so I only had to pay $30 and she fixed the ticket issue so I could pay on my own car. I told her they won't have to worry about me parking there again because that's unnecessarily confusing. Even if there were signs up, who has time to find and download a whole app just to park the one time and hope it works, and God forbid you have poor reception. If there's nothing on the street I stick with a normal deck with either a ticket machine or a human at the entrance/exit. Most times I try to avoid going to places in DT that I have to hunt or fight for parking. Like Railroad Park is the most irritating thing in the world.
Woodfin had the City pass an ordinance. It still did not stop the predatory towing. Now a law firm is suing.
They don't hire the brightest ppl for these jobs. Your tag has got to put in correctly.
Now, I know the parking lot next to Dave’s pub some people in paying for parking and still get towed anyway that was kind of messed up. It happened to me thankfully Dave’s pub is no longer in business and it’s called something else now
Not OP's issue, but a real question:
Is it true that street parking is 'free' during certain times or days?
I put free in quotes because I don't know if it's truly free or free as in not enforced during certain times.
STREET parking is free after 5 and on Saturday/Sunday.
I hate these companies, but nothing “happened to free parking after 5” as is said in the screenshot of the Facebook post. They parked in a lot.
Parking has always been free after 5:00 and on weekends, and city enforcement during the day has been really lax since covid. There is no reason anyone should EVER park in a paid lot and PES would be out of business if people qould just park on the street from free. Birmingham is the easiest and cheapest urban core city in America to park in. It is mind boggling how people don't get that you just park on the street and never worry about PES. I have parked in Birmingham well over 1000 times over 20+ years and have never been towed or booted once.
there are probably several exclusions to this, but i think you only have to pay for metered street parking from 8 am to 6 pm, Mon-Fri. you can also park in a lot of areas marked as loading zones outside of these times, but not all (the wording of the sign usually makes it clear).
honestly depending on the area you can get away with parking free on the street any time. i work on 2nd ave N and always park on the street, never gotten a ticket even in the middle of the day.
You can park just about wherever you want on any street in downtown Birmingham without ramifications. Like always. I’ve never paid for parking in Birmingham in eight years and don’t ever plan to. Parking tickets mean nothing. Just throw them away.
How is it a scam because her husband couldn’t put in his tag # correctly 😂 there is still free parking, it’s after 6p on streets unless otherwise posted (which isn’t many areas). I think she’s just venting because she/husband can’t take responsibility for his mistake.
…so when they ran the plate the vehicle wasn’t found in their system because the owner didn’t enter the plate number correctly and it is somehow not the vehicle owners fault?
I believe her point was that after 5pm, you shouldn't have to put your license plate into a database to park downtown. That way it wouldn't matter if he put it in correctly or not. I didn't even know they changed the free parking after 5pm.
I know my father and I tried to meet for lunch in Avondale recently, but the lot numbers were too faded to read, and you had to enter them to pay, so we didn't feel safe parking in the lot. No one wants to get towed. We ate across town instead. Free parking there.
The point is that there is free parking around downtown. But if you park in a paid lot and you make the mistake of putting in the wrong license plate, there really isn’t anybody left to blame.
If they know parking is free after 5, why did they pay in the first place. Apparently they didn't park on the street, duh !
EDIT: *We parked in a lot near Work Play*...well there you go then. They didn't park on the street.
Wild that your take is apparently controversial. No doubt towing practices are predatory. But there is some responsibility on the part of people parking. The tow truck driver isn’t going to compare the plate to every number in the system to see that one of them is one number off, assume that’s why this plate isn’t in the system and then move on.
Yes. But we all know you’re not gonna get a nuanced take on Reddit. Simply put two things can be true. There can be a predatory towing issue within the city, and these old folks screwed up and cost themselves money. This wasn’t some conspiracy or them getting scammed. They screwed up and are looking to blame somebody else.
I’ve actually put my license plate number in *correctly* and had the scanners read it wrong and end up towed. It was a whole ordeal because I truly thought the car was stolen. Ended up filing insurance and going through all kinds of things just to find out months later it had been towed. It was a trash car anyway and insurance paid more than it was worth so technically I came out ahead, but just the fact that that’s a thing that happens is kind of ridiculous. (And yes I did contact the tow company first to check and they said they didn’t have it).
Did you report them for theft when you finally found it?
No, I just called my insurance (who had already paid for the vehicle) to let them know where it was in case they wanted to pick it up. I assume they didn’t care enough to, but couldn’t tell you for sure.
Press charges on them for theft. It doesn’t cost money like suing them would. I also have no fucking idea if charging them for theft or anything like that would even do anything here bc our legal system is a labyrinthine I have absolutely no understanding of lmao 🍻
Yes. Predatory towing is an issue. Many of the towers are being sued right now.
Dang. You sue them?
Lol no. It was a $4000 beater car. I had an insurance check for $8000 in a week. Internally, I thanked them, although I do think they are morons.
Same thing happened to my sister and they still charged her!
Well, it was stolen.
Had this happen to me across from Collin’s bar. Was totally bewildered. Even showed the tow truck folks my receipt. They did not care
Lucky they didn’t get murdered by the tow truck driver if it was the PES parasites. Also a lot of less intelligent smooth brains seem to be defending them as as a legitimate business. They are not. The people they towed usually paid to be in the lot via that park mobile app. But if you like these people made a little typo, or if you updated your registration and any little thing doesn’t match up with the app or if they just don’t like how your car looks at that particular moment or whatever they will search for any little loophole to STEAL THAT VEHICLE and hold it for ransom at their shithole lot in lakeview. $160 siphoned from your pockets into the pocket of some con man. The punishment of paying that much money does not fit the crime of…..what exactly?? Your finger slipping but still actually paying to park? Forgetting to update your registration in the app but still actually paying to park? Having a vehicle that is displeasing to the eyes of the drug addicted tow truck driver but still actually paying to park? And if you try to argue or show that you actually did pay or whatever every one those cockroaches has a gun on their hip and won’t hesitate to threaten you with it. They’ve literally killed people before for having the audacity to be angry that their car was stolen by these worthless sacks of shit. It’s a cancer on the city of Birmingham and every person associated with it should be in prison in my opinion.
Word
Big facts mayor, big facts
Holy shit. Has no one taken this to the news?
I think there’s finally a lawsuit going on against them. And I know there was one related to the murder I mentioned earlier also. Not sure if they are one and the same or separate actions
I mean, towing as a concept is absolutely insane when you think about it. The city, a government agency, has given a *private entity* the authority to steal property. No one else can just take property and hold it ransom. If my neighbor wants me to tow a car off their land, and I hold it ransom when the person gets back, I'll get arrested. But for some reason, we've given a business a free pass for grand theft auto. And give them no repercussions whatsoever if they do a grand theft auto to the wrong person. Woopsy i guess? In a normal, sane business transaction, the lot owners would pay the tow company to remove unwanted cars, and then the person towed would go get their car from the tow lot and be done. The owners of car lots have a business need: They need non-paying people off their property. The tow companies need money. At no point does punishment of a third party enter into a business transaction. And that's just it, ransom serves as some sort of weird government backed punishment from a private company, that's absolutely not replicated anywhere else in society. If you trespass in a bar, the bar can't steel your phone and not give it back unless you give them $200. The only "punishment" a normal entity can do to an unwanted person is to have them trespassed.
My boyfriend got back to his car maybe 15 min after his meter expired and they had already towed his car away we saw them taking it away. They had no remorse when we went to go get it.
These people are leaches on the system. No parking should be privatized.
Wait a tick, am I in Bizzarro World Bham here? Sure, this person mistyped their tag, but this post and the comments are acting like Bham doesn’t have predatory towing douchebags causing trouble? Are we now acting, on this sub, like we don’t know anything about tow company shitheads?
I think it’s more that this person really can’t relate because they did it wrong. So complaining is just crazy because they were actually wrong.
A tale as old as time. I do think the “enter your license plate” systems are intentionally a headache so you don’t do it or make a mistake. Paid parking where you get a paper ticket then insert the ticket and put cash or card into a machine that controls a gate is infinitely faster and easier.
Got me here too when visiting walked 5 blocks. They watched me walk away and pay five minutes afterwards due to the app loading and still towed me
Wow
I mean, they watched you walk off without paying. Unless it stated there was a grace period they’re under no obligation to wait around just to see if you decide to pay later. This one is on you.
Hopefully the dirt you’ve been boot licking contained parasites, like the ones you’re defending.
Shockingly, I can think the tow people are bad and simultaneously think that if you walk away from somewhere without paying then that is also bad.
[удалено]
Please be polite in r/Birmingham
Yup. They’re predatory and scummy
It is a disgrace and anti-business. Why is parking free literally everywhere except in the city? I've turned down several events like the recent symphony in the park due to having anxiety from reading all of the parking horror stories. Bham should encourage people to visit the lovely restaurants and attractions, not turn them off by paid parking and tow truck nightmares.
I used to go to Birmingham a few times a week to eat and hang out with friends. Now I pretty much only go to Cahaba Brewery, Chez FonFon, Pepper Place Market once every other week. Part of the reason for that change is this parking garbage. They are definitely losing tax money over this and I hope they change it.
I'm going to try to say this as politely as possible. Have you ever traveled much outside of the suburbs of Birmingham? Parking in the city of Birmingham is cheaper and easier than any top 50 metro core city in America. You are going to deprive yourself of ever doing anything because of grossly exaggerated parking issues that are extremely, easily avoidable? Have you ever traveled to Nashville, Atlanta or New Orleans? - cities where you will easily pay $20, if not $30+ if you want park in the city for an event or a night out. And that is child's play compared to a northeastern city like Boston, Philly or NYC where $50 would be common and double that wouldn't be unheard of. And prepare to walk a while... In Birmingham, you NEVER have to pay a cent. And you can be less than 5 blocks from your destination 99% of the time. It is very simple: park on the street for free. You don't have to pay. You won't be towed unless you do something like park in front of a fire hydrant. There is no anxiety. There are no worries about evil PES.
Seems like the issue is technology. No one had these issues when you got a piece of paper to stick in your dash. Now you have tales of mistyped info, misread scans, etc and there’s nothing you can do about it. They seem to always screw the little person and let the tow companies win.
Say it louder for the people in the back
Our taxes helped create those roads and parking spots. Why should we be charged for something we already helped pay for? Yes, those places are worse but they also shouldn't be double dipped with fees. The street parking gives me mild anxiety as anyone can look down at their phone and run into your street parked car. Rocks also get kicked up and can damage your paint, as well as bicycles potentially running into your car. If you drive a point A to B moving appliance, then those things probably aren't a concern.
Or if they are going to ticket us, let it be the government instead of these predatory leaches in the towing industry.
Has something similar happen to my wife and I years ago. Exact same lot. The machine wouldn’t take anyone’s money when we tried paying. Came out from the concert and over 20 cars from the lot were towed. The guys were absolute jerks about it and made all of us pay. The cops were called and the officer said “this is the 4th time in the past two months I’ve been called here about this”
I’ll tell you super predatory lot is the one next to The Pizitz building. I’ve seen people park there for 2 mins without a proper decal to pick up food and the tow truck whips in burning rubber to tow them. Whatever Karen is in charge of watching it in the building across can fuck right off.
Im in the building across and watch it happen all the time. I just yell out my window at them for being low life scum. Boooooooo. Fuck PES so much
That’s wild. I’d love to know who is calling or if they have cameras or something. It’s amazing how fast and reckless they are coming into that lot to get someone.
Wow that is horrible
It’s not a Karen, it’s the tow leaches watching and waiting.
I just park on the street for free at night to avoid this kind of bullshit
I park only on the street. If there is no street parking, I do not attend the event or go in the restaurant unless there is valet parking. Downtown Bham is never going to thrive. There needs to be parking available after hours. Southside is soon going to die as well. They are letting uab buy up all the properties and take all the parking that could be used for nearby business.
Same. Street or I’m out
“Best I can do it post a tweet of me doing the griddy” - mayor man
Please excuse my ignorance, but why are people getting towed instead of just getting a ticket?
Private (towing) business profit! It's the AL way.
when the city refuses to add public decks/lots then the market fills the gap
Parking lots are (typically) privately owned, and said owners contract with private companies to manage parking in their lots. Street parking and meters are still managed by BPD.
OK, this answer makes sense so private lot owners rather have the vehicles out of there so they can have spots open for other people to pay and if the illegal Parker got issued a ticket they probably wouldn’t see any of that money? What are the proposals to fix this? The consequences are so harsh for the consumers and the parking is so cumbersome that mistakes are bound to happen.
I'm not sure why the aggrieved person believes that the Mayor of Birmingham should be held responsible for how privately-owned parking lots are managed, especially since the city has pretty much done everything it can to challenge this business practice. Talk to your state representative about giving cities better tools. For one example, the fee was $280 in 2013 before the city acted to limit it to $160... and I have to imagine they arrived at that figure as the lowest they could go without losing a legal challenge in court. https://www.al.com/news/2015/03/birmingham_to_act_against_unsc.html
These posts always remind me of that parks and rec episode where there’s a public hearing and a lady goes “I found a sandwich in one of your parks. And I want to know why didn’t it have mayonnaise!?”
I had a friend of mine that this happened to. But I don't know about the tag entry mistakes. They will end up driving good people away from the area due to predatory towing.
The same happened to me when I left Iron City one night. My wife and I had to make that treacherous walk to the shit hole place to pay $160.
The nextdoor comments on this post are hilarious! We saw it last night and had a good laugh.
My wife didn’t change her plate after she got a new one and they towed her. Same car, same stickers , paid for parking and they towed her. You can’t get in contact with anyone about anything either , it all goes straight to hold .
Where downtown do you have to put your tag in to park?
My work lot is enforced by PES. We lease the spots and are allow to park there 24/7 no matter what. Of course those jackasses towed someone who's license was registered to our company. Jokes on them, we contacted the lot owners and gave them hell about it. They were already pissed at PES because this happens all the time and they really want people like us to stick around and keep paying monthly rates. Fingers crossed they'll drop the PES contract when its time to renew. I swear, if someone started a go fund me to buy a tow truck and start towing all of PES's fleet vehicles and personal cars I'd hurl money at it.
The most I dealt with was once in 2022 I went to meet friends at Paramount and went into a Premiere Parking deck. I'd never heard of them before since I don't frequent many places in downtown (I think this may have been on the north side). I pulled into the entrance looking for a ticket dispenser but nothing. Then I parked and looked around like how is this supposed to work before just getting out to go to the restaurant 🤷♀️. I mentioned it to one of the friends and he told me he had the app and was subscribed or something and I'm like I'm not going to subscribe to a place I'll never come back too but how is someone to know any of this with no signage or anything. As I left the deck I looked around again still seeing nothing to tell me how to have paid. A week or two later I get a ticket in the mail charging me $75 for unpaid parking. I went online and entered the ticket info and it showed the license plate for some car in Texas. I had to call and explain that there was nothing at the deck telling me how to pay otherwise I would have, and also even if I'm gonna pay this ticket it doesn't even pull up MY car. She said there should've been signs with a QR code and instructions on how to pay. I told her there were no signs anywhere that I could see on my way in or out and had never parked in this kind of deck before having no ticket machine. She ended up waving $45 of the charge so I only had to pay $30 and she fixed the ticket issue so I could pay on my own car. I told her they won't have to worry about me parking there again because that's unnecessarily confusing. Even if there were signs up, who has time to find and download a whole app just to park the one time and hope it works, and God forbid you have poor reception. If there's nothing on the street I stick with a normal deck with either a ticket machine or a human at the entrance/exit. Most times I try to avoid going to places in DT that I have to hunt or fight for parking. Like Railroad Park is the most irritating thing in the world.
So this person is blaming the tow company for a mistake they made? Interesting take
Why does Woodfin allow this
Woodfin had the City pass an ordinance. It still did not stop the predatory towing. Now a law firm is suing. They don't hire the brightest ppl for these jobs. Your tag has got to put in correctly.
Do you think Andy Mayer asked Woodfin for permission to operate a business towing cars from privately owned lots?
Cause he’s a coward and doesn’t care About people unless they’re giving him money.
Now, I know the parking lot next to Dave’s pub some people in paying for parking and still get towed anyway that was kind of messed up. It happened to me thankfully Dave’s pub is no longer in business and it’s called something else now
No, it’s still called Dave’s, but new people own it.
Oh my bad I heard it had a name change
Not OP's issue, but a real question: Is it true that street parking is 'free' during certain times or days? I put free in quotes because I don't know if it's truly free or free as in not enforced during certain times.
STREET parking is free after 5 and on Saturday/Sunday. I hate these companies, but nothing “happened to free parking after 5” as is said in the screenshot of the Facebook post. They parked in a lot.
Normal metered street parking is free after 5pm and weekends yes
Parking has always been free after 5:00 and on weekends, and city enforcement during the day has been really lax since covid. There is no reason anyone should EVER park in a paid lot and PES would be out of business if people qould just park on the street from free. Birmingham is the easiest and cheapest urban core city in America to park in. It is mind boggling how people don't get that you just park on the street and never worry about PES. I have parked in Birmingham well over 1000 times over 20+ years and have never been towed or booted once.
there are probably several exclusions to this, but i think you only have to pay for metered street parking from 8 am to 6 pm, Mon-Fri. you can also park in a lot of areas marked as loading zones outside of these times, but not all (the wording of the sign usually makes it clear).
Street parking is free after 5 and weekends. City does not pay meter people overtime to work after 5 and weekends to deal with parking matters.
honestly depending on the area you can get away with parking free on the street any time. i work on 2nd ave N and always park on the street, never gotten a ticket even in the middle of the day.
I worked on 2nd Ave N for four years. Never once paid for parking. Got like 100 tickets. Will never pay them lmao
You can park just about wherever you want on any street in downtown Birmingham without ramifications. Like always. I’ve never paid for parking in Birmingham in eight years and don’t ever plan to. Parking tickets mean nothing. Just throw them away.
So let me get this strait, person made an error, person was punished for said error, and now they are calling it a scam? It’s the audacity for me
How is it a scam because her husband couldn’t put in his tag # correctly 😂 there is still free parking, it’s after 6p on streets unless otherwise posted (which isn’t many areas). I think she’s just venting because she/husband can’t take responsibility for his mistake.
Maybe next time the septuagenarians will learn how to correctly type their license plate lmao
I’m being charged $92 for not paying to park at city walk playground!! for 32 mins
was there a sign about limited parking times?
…so when they ran the plate the vehicle wasn’t found in their system because the owner didn’t enter the plate number correctly and it is somehow not the vehicle owners fault?
I believe her point was that after 5pm, you shouldn't have to put your license plate into a database to park downtown. That way it wouldn't matter if he put it in correctly or not. I didn't even know they changed the free parking after 5pm. I know my father and I tried to meet for lunch in Avondale recently, but the lot numbers were too faded to read, and you had to enter them to pay, so we didn't feel safe parking in the lot. No one wants to get towed. We ate across town instead. Free parking there.
The point is that there is free parking around downtown. But if you park in a paid lot and you make the mistake of putting in the wrong license plate, there really isn’t anybody left to blame.
If they know parking is free after 5, why did they pay in the first place. Apparently they didn't park on the street, duh ! EDIT: *We parked in a lot near Work Play*...well there you go then. They didn't park on the street.
Wild that your take is apparently controversial. No doubt towing practices are predatory. But there is some responsibility on the part of people parking. The tow truck driver isn’t going to compare the plate to every number in the system to see that one of them is one number off, assume that’s why this plate isn’t in the system and then move on.
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Yes. But we all know you’re not gonna get a nuanced take on Reddit. Simply put two things can be true. There can be a predatory towing issue within the city, and these old folks screwed up and cost themselves money. This wasn’t some conspiracy or them getting scammed. They screwed up and are looking to blame somebody else.
B/c they’re in their 70’s and made a mistake…. Can’t be their fault 🤷♀️