Lanier Parking Solution, Downtown Atlanta - Good, Bad or Ugly? (credit card, how much)

[MJelly]

I work in downtown and park my car on Lanier parking regularly, they charge 95$ monthly fee, so I paid a lot for the last year. My company started to allow us to work from home some days, therefore it became unreasonable to buy monthly parking pass and I decided to park outdoors. One day I parked my car on one of Lanier outdoor parking spots (Peachtree Rd and Ivan Allen Jr Blvd), and when I was going to get a ticket a nice man came to me and offered to use his parking ticket. He explained that he's leaving and don't need it anymore. I thought it was a great luck (silly me!!!), thanked him for his generosity and put a ticket on a dashboard. When I came back 1 hour later, the car wheels were locked and I got a note on my window stating that I have to pay 75$ fee now. When I called a number provided, two guys arrived and said that I left a parking and parked again, which was violation of their rules. I said that I never left parking, I parked just 1 hour before and that ticket was given to me by another person. They said that it's even worse and I shouldn't use a ticket that I didn't purchase myself. Of course, I shouldn't! But for me, all this situation didn't look like a simple coincidence. While I was there on a parking lot, I noticed that 2 more cars were locked. I bet they made the same mistake as me. When I called to Lanier Parking Solution office and explain the situation, they just said that these guys (agents) do everything in scope of their responsibilities and they don't see anything wrong about that. I offered to record the name of these agents (just in case if somebody will have similar complain), but they weren't interested either.
Just BEWARE!

Sorry for grammar mistakes if any (writing in a hurry)...

PS. I'm going to boycott Lanier parking from now on, but are there any other choices? Please advice parking spots around Reachtree Center Ave for a reasonable money.

[shivtim]

Originally Posted by MJelly

PS. I'm going to boycott Lanier parking from now on, but are there any other choices? Please advice parking spots around Reachtree Center Ave for a reasonable money.

MARTA has a stop at Peachtree Center.

[ATLTJL]

Yeah, parking can be a racket.

I remember many years ago I was livid because I went out to a club and slid my $5 into the little slot on the money taking box. When I came out a few hours later, there was a boot on my car and I had to pay $50 to get it off. I will never know if someone used tweezers to pull my $5 out, or if the boot people were crooked and took my $5 and just booted me anyway. I demanded to see the empty slot in the box, but they said no because I could have put $5 in it while waiting for them to arrive.

I was furious. I tried to dispute the charges with my credit card company, who is generally excellent at that, but the parking company responded to their inquiry and countered and the credit card company said they couldn't reverse the charges. I notified my representative on the Atlanta City Council and he said it's happened to him too and recommended only parking where a live person takes your money and gives you a ticket. I told him I thought Atlanta should require digital boxes where you receive a time stamped receipt so you can prove you paid, and I've noticed that a lot of places do have those now. So I would recommend only parking where you get a time stamped receipt and can prove that you paid and you still have time left on the ticket.

I always wanted to start the Midtoon Boot Brigade, a roving gang of thugs that shoots people who put boots on cars with shotguns. I figure we could terrorize booters so badly that nobody would be willing to take the job. Obviously, I didn't do that, but to this day, whenever I see someone booting a car, I roll down my window and yell at the person and tell them they are the most useless scum on the planet and then drive away. If we can at least degrade the people who do the job, maybe we can make it that much harder to find people willing to do it. I think anybody who takes that job is a degenerate because it is so crooked. One day if I have millions of dollars, I'm going to buy a fleet of junk cars and abandon them in parking lots all over Atlanta. Then parking lot owners will have to pay to boot them, then eventually have to pay to tow them. And then I'll just replace them with more junk cars.

We should start a non-profit that does just that.

[MJelly]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I always wanted to start the Midtoon Boot Brigade, a roving gang of thugs that shoots people who put boots on cars with shotguns.

Count me in ) BTW do you know can I complain somewhere? I'm not sure about police since everything seems "legal" from their side.

[belleislerunner]

You can find street parking for free on Currier one block north of Ivan Allen/Mcgill (between Piedmont and Courtland). Then it's only a 5 min walk to Peachtree Center. Save the money and get some exercise.

[ATLTJL]

The best place to complain is to your local government, but if you don't live in Atlanta and don't have a council representative, it might be difficult. Even the council members seem to hate the system and be sympathetic, but not really do anything about it.

Getting a real resolution is pretty impossible. May I suggest a little street justice? Find out where the Lanier Parking Systems office is and go from there. A brick and a front windwo go a long way. Or so I've heard.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Yeah, parking can be a racket.

I remember many years ago I was livid because I went out to a club and slid my $5 into the little slot on the money taking box. When I came out a few hours later, there was a boot on my car and I had to pay $50 to get it off. I will never know if someone used tweezers to pull my $5 out, or if the boot people were crooked and took my $5 and just booted me anyway. I demanded to see the empty slot in the box, but they said no because I could have put $5 in it while waiting for them to arrive.

ATLTJL, I feel your pain. We had almost exactly the same experience.

We were lucky because we happened to see the boot van finishing up a job on another car as we came back to the lot. As they were pulling off one of the folks in our group noticed the boot on our car. So we ran over and blocked the van -- which was pretty stupid in retrospect because for a minute it looked he was going to run us over.

The driver was a big fat dude and he had a little skinny guy with him to do the legwork. They wouldn't get out of the van but we called the cops and they came right over. Just like you, the boot man was claiming we didn't put our money in, which was totally bogus. We made him open up the box and it was loaded with cash. However, the way they are made you can't really tell who puts how much money in which slot.

So you are kind of stuck with a swearing contest. My argument to the cop was that they had the burden of proving we didn't pay if they planned to confiscate our property. You can't just say, "He didn't pay so I'm having his car impounded" -- you've got to have some evidence.

The boot man was still dragging his feet but I told him he better call his boss because if he didn't take that thing off we would be getting some lawyers and coming after them for punitive damages and revoke their license, etc.

You could tell the police officer was kind of leaning our way, so he said "Why don't you just take it off?" The fat dude nodded at the little skinny guy and he got down there and took it off and we were able to go on home.

I am still steamed about it, however. How can these people go around booting cars with no proof that people didn't pay the parking? That's outlandish.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by MJelly

I work in downtown and park my car on Lanier parking regularly, they charge 95$ monthly fee, so I paid a lot for the last year. My company started to allow us to work from home some days, therefore it became unreasonable to buy monthly parking pass and I decided to park outdoors. One day I parked my car on one of Lanier outdoor parking spots (Peachtree Rd and Ivan Allen Jr Blvd), and when I was going to get a ticket a nice man came to me and offered to use his parking ticket. He explained that he's leaving and don't need it anymore. I thought it was a great luck (silly me!!!), thanked him for his generosity and put a ticket on a dashboard. When I came back 1 hour later, the car wheels were locked and I got a note on my window stating that I have to pay 75$ fee now. When I called a number provided, two guys arrived and said that I left a parking and parked again, which was violation of their rules. I said that I never left parking, I parked just 1 hour before and that ticket was given to me by another person. They said that it's even worse and I shouldn't use a ticket that I didn't purchase myself. Of course, I shouldn't!

PS. I'm going to boycott Lanier parking from now on, but are there any other choices? Please advice parking spots around Reachtree Center Ave for a reasonable money.

Good luck on boycotting and finding another parking purveyor who doesn't do the same thing. When I was doing a job downtown, I parked across from the Tabernacle at 9am, and my parking ticket said it was valid until 6am. I left at 7pm, and came back at 2am, parking in the same spot. I had a boot several hours later. When talking about it back at work, a friend said he had seen them booting my car when he got to work (5 minutes after me), but didn't know it was my car. They are sneaky little bastards. And they will get you.

As for taking a ticket from a person in a parking lot, don't do it. I don't know if your guy was actually honest, but there are a lot of people who hang out in parking lots and run various scams like "buying your ticket for you on their credit card if you give them cash" or "selling you their ticket for a discount".

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I always wanted to start the Midtoon Boot Brigade, a roving gang of thugs that shoots people who put boots on cars with shotguns.

That sounds awfully "law-abiding citizen" of you.

but to this day, whenever I see someone booting a car, I roll down my window and yell at the person and tell them they are the most useless scum on the planet and then drive away. If we can at least degrade the people who do the job, maybe we can make it that much harder to find people willing to do it.

Have you ever watched the show "Parking Wars"? It basically follows meter maids, and they get yelled at and called every name in the book. It rarely phases them one bit. Half the time they just laugh at the screamers.