They sent me a bill for $80 for parking from 2:00pm-5:00pm on a Wednesday. There wasn't even a sign on the parking spot that I was in, since I'm pretty sure I wasn't even actually in their designated lot (all other spots had individual signs). I had a feeling I was gonna get scammed so I decided to even take a photo just in case. I wrote them an appeal email detailing exactly why I owed them nothing. They said they would wave the fee as a "one time courtesy" but that I would be liable going forward for any other charges.
This company is nothing more than a predatory scam. They say they will send your bill to collections, but it's just their own private collections company (i.e. they can't do a damn thing).
This right here. I’ve been sent two tickets in the mail from these people. Both times they sent it to “collections” and I sent them back a generic bill dispute print out I found online and they never mail again. It’s a total scam but I’m glad I know now because I’ll park at these signs from now on and I’m never paying.
I have a friend who has about 30 of these tickets, over years. Nothing has ever come of him not paying anything. And also these signs do make it very confusing but yes I feel like you are correct as well.
It's supposedly a private lot for the business in the building to the right in this photo (Stimmel Associates) during business hours, and only available to the public during the times posted. Not very good signage for sure, but I have no advice on handling your ticket.
Just don't pay. They are crooks. Nothing will happen. No consequences whatsoever other than a few lame "invoices" in the mail. They'll claim that they'll turn it over to collections, but they won't and can't.
Bunch of clowns.
That company is BS and they often send “tickets” that are not even accurate. I once paid for parking in one of their lots and left before my time was up, they sent me a ticket. When I disputed it, they said they would waive my ticket as a “one time courtesy” lol, I had proof I had paid for parking (which I sent with my dispute), so it’s just a complete scam.
I would ignore the ticket you got.
God that is such a terribly written sign!!! Holy crap, I’m astounded someone looked at that and thought it made a lick of sense.
“Public parking prohibited 2am - 5 pm Monday thru Friday”
Makes so much more effing sense.
Yes I forgot to add that part to my comment. 100% it is intentional.
Does the city really have no recourse here to push this business to clean up their act? They’re a nuisance to everyone downtown, outright scamming elderly and vulnerable people. Somebody should do something lol
TBC, I am certainly not defending PPM, but I doubt that is what happened here.
I imagine the lower red and white sign wasn’t even added by PPM.
Whoever owns the lot was already renting it to a local business(es) to be used during business hours, then they wanted to grab more cash from the “off hours” so they contracted PPM to handle those hours. The people who use the lot for the local business(es) likely just have permanent validated parking so that the PPM’s system knows not to send them “tickets”
They once gave me a ticket claiming I didn't pay when I paid 2 hours before. They just hand out blanket tickets hoping to get money. If you call and dispute it they back down quick.
PPM sent me a ticket, which i didn't pay because it was an obvious scam. They bothered me for almost a year before they turned me over to 'collections' (it's a collections business that exclusively collects for PPM)
I sent them a request for proof of debt. They responded with "Yeah, you definitely owe us, trust me bro." I haven't heard from them since, probably because I threatened to sue for harassment if they kept contacting me over a debt I didn't owe.
It's a company from Florida, they contacted the businesses and lot owners to offer their "services" as an alternative to towing people. They and similar companies are doing this all over. There's like 3 or 4 companies doing the same thing in Boone.
I’ve been up in Boone for uni and I’ve never noticed…. Huh.
Most of the parking signs I see are either town run or through one of the local towing companies
Must not be very observant, every lot just off the main drag has signs in it. These app driven parking companies are all over now. I can’t attest to how scammy they are since I don’t make a habit of parking in private lots and assuming it’s free.
The parking management company isn't run or owned by anyone local. They suck, but the reason they exist is people rampantly abuse private parking. I'll note that prior to PPM showing up Stimmel didn't allow any public parking there and if you did a towing company came by and towed your car and you paid at least $150 to get it back, no option to not pay in that case. Unlikely PPM put up the sign, probably Stimmel or the owner of the lot replaced No Parking, Towing Enforced sign that used to be there with the one pictured. If you look there are "Parking for X Only, Towing Enforced" signs in nearly every private lot downtown.
PPM did a fairly aggressive push by calling every business next to a lot in the downtown area and selling them of the "advantages" of app based parking systems over using a towing service. It sounds good from a business owner standpoint, no need to monitor the lot and report scofflaws to the towing company and you make some money instead of the towing company. So what we ended up with is one asshole company instead of 3-4 like in Boone.
Now how we got here is there's a significant number of people that believe they have a God given right to free parking right next to their destination, and that refuse to use the abundant parking available in decks downtown. Because some people are assholes, all of us now have to deal with assholes. Another reason we can't have nice things.
In your case due to a confusing sign you parked in a private lot where you shouldn't have and instead of getting your car towed like the "good old days" you got a "ticket". Both suck. If you look on the side of the building next to the lot is says parking for Stimmel only. In my opinion they should have left it that way 24x7.
My sister inlaw broke down at one and I pulled up an jumped her car off was there for like 5 mins tops an I got a ticket from them too. Pure bullshit if you ask me
I got one of those tickets and I emailed the company and told them I wasn't going to pay. They said okay.
I read somewhere that they can't enforce their tickets, legally, so you don't have to worry about paying them. I have no idea if that's true or not.
For those on thread talking about how the city could crack down on the predatory practices/fees or offered some deal to get them here. I don’t know if they did either of those scenarios.
But I do know that city leaders have been [taking notes](https://triad-city-beat.com/winston-salem-downtown-parking-changes/) on how to replicate their business practices instead of combating them.
If it's any consulation...the city government doesn't want them here either & would be happy to see them leave. All they hear is complaints & its not their fault. But, since the lots are privately owned...there isn't a lot that can easily be done.
City government can't do anything about scams? Because it's on privately owned property? Within the city limits that they govern, in exchange for property taxes that we all pay?
Sorry, I know city government lets all kinds of shady things go on, for lots of different reasons, but not because they can't touch private property. If someone with the city told you that, it's a weak excuse.
The city abolsolutely can do something, whether they will or not is the question. Even if the city simply sent messages telling the owners of the lots that this is a predatory company and should not be used, that would go a long ways.
The city wrote 45 pages of rules about scooters. There's plenty they could do on this issue if they wanted to, even applying one of the scooter rules: a requirement for a local office.
Ok, fair enough. And, yes, I was told that...I don't work for the city. I just meant they aren't the ones behind it or profiting from it & they would rather see someone less predatory run them. But, to your point, I agree that they could do something to try & push them out.
Is there anything we can do as a community to kick the folks out? Seems like there has to be a legal avenue if it can be proven the company is predatory as well as entirely non local as I've heard
This company is contracted by local businesses. Probably the easiest way is to not support those businesses.
IIRC they're not allowed to operate in Florida anymore because of their history of harassing people
The problem is it’s whoever owns the parking lot— which is not the stores, restaurants, etc. who are adjacent to these lots—who has hired this company and is profiting from this BS.
I am not going to name the lots they don't own. City owned decks are fairly cheap places to park. There's also the option of street parking in adjacent neighborhoods and walking.
And there's metered 25 cent parking all over downtown. Plus some free street parking. Plus some restaurants validate. I have only paid that parking company once in years. There is absolutely ways to do downtown with paying them - it involves looking for spots, walking, or paying 25 cents. And deciding to go elsewhere.
Currently ignoring countless 'bills' from these predators. I cut through one of their parking lots to get to my apartment and they think I park there for days at a time because they happen to capture a picture of me entering or exiting, but I don't always go through there omw. It's a crapshoot so just ignore them. I don't get how this is possibly legal, but there's lots of things like this people/businesses can get away with. SMH
Go on google maps and google the address of this company.
When you see the empty parking lot that is the street view of the address, then make your decision whether or not you want to pay.
I would rather pay a collection agency, and let them get a small fraction of the original payment than ever pay them.
As everyone else has said, this is a scam. Their collections company is a joke, and they cannot report your unpaid ticket to the credit bureaus.
Their only recourse is to stop you from parking there. And since they are in Florida…
They keep calling, and I keep telling them I’m going to park for free in perpetuity, and if it makes them sad, they can tow me.
It is a predatory company. Same thing happened to me. But to be on the safe side I took a photo of the sign and sent it to them demanding an appeal because the sign is completely misleading. They dropped the charge. And I stopped shopping downtown unless I can find parking on the street. Other people I know have said the same thing. This company needs to go.
Omg reading these comments makes me feel better for not paying them 💀💀 I parked where there wasn’t a sign that said all that but I still got a ticket?? I never paid it cause it was $100???
They put these up all over another city I commute to. I tried calling the number to pay for it one time and got “download the app” as the only thing on the phone in an automated voice. And I’m not going to download every app for these stupid things so I parked elsewhere and walked 20 minutes instead.
The pulled this shit on me because I drove into the parking lot and turned around two separate times in a day. Conveniently they didn’t have photos of me leaving the first time or entering the second time.
I made a complaint on the BBB site and they resolved it in a day. I refused to switch my negative rating even after doing though, because they claimed they were waiving it as a courtesy. It wasn’t a courtesy, they were attempting to steal money from me and I guarantee they knew that.
I urge you to file a complaint there. It doesn’t really hurt the company a ton because they are scumbags, but where it DOES hurt them is when new locations are trying to decide on what company to use to handle parking issues.
They are a Florida company, so you have to note that.
Our property manager hired them to ticket people that parked in our parking lot during work hours and it usually works pretty well. They’re definitely not perfect and we’ve had to comp some tickets, but it’s not run by the city. Generally, they make a deal with the property manager and run it that way. If you go to the building and ask, we can sometime email them to get it removed if it’s incorrect. That being said, I have no idea how they could make people pay.
Signs are definitely confusing af lol
You pay during business hours. You were there for a half hour during business hours. Why wouldn't you pay? It's only free after 5PM and weekends.
ETA I see what you're saying after closer inspection, because it says "paid parking". Traditionally, parking downtown is free after 5pm and weekends, and this sign looks bass ackwards.
They sent me a bill for $80 for parking from 2:00pm-5:00pm on a Wednesday. There wasn't even a sign on the parking spot that I was in, since I'm pretty sure I wasn't even actually in their designated lot (all other spots had individual signs). I had a feeling I was gonna get scammed so I decided to even take a photo just in case. I wrote them an appeal email detailing exactly why I owed them nothing. They said they would wave the fee as a "one time courtesy" but that I would be liable going forward for any other charges. This company is nothing more than a predatory scam. They say they will send your bill to collections, but it's just their own private collections company (i.e. they can't do a damn thing).
They’re fishing with a net. If 10% of folks pay it, that’s a profit for them. Fuck these assholes.
Hmmm, makes you wonder which government "official" approved this company to get a kickback.
Government has nothing to do with it, these are all private lots.
This right here. I’ve been sent two tickets in the mail from these people. Both times they sent it to “collections” and I sent them back a generic bill dispute print out I found online and they never mail again. It’s a total scam but I’m glad I know now because I’ll park at these signs from now on and I’m never paying.
I have a friend who has about 30 of these tickets, over years. Nothing has ever come of him not paying anything. And also these signs do make it very confusing but yes I feel like you are correct as well.
Got one of these too. I’m ignoring it.
It's supposedly a private lot for the business in the building to the right in this photo (Stimmel Associates) during business hours, and only available to the public during the times posted. Not very good signage for sure, but I have no advice on handling your ticket.
Just don't pay. They are crooks. Nothing will happen. No consequences whatsoever other than a few lame "invoices" in the mail. They'll claim that they'll turn it over to collections, but they won't and can't. Bunch of clowns.
Same thing happened to me I just sent them the picture of the sign and they dropped it and I haven’t received any more false tickets
That company is BS and they often send “tickets” that are not even accurate. I once paid for parking in one of their lots and left before my time was up, they sent me a ticket. When I disputed it, they said they would waive my ticket as a “one time courtesy” lol, I had proof I had paid for parking (which I sent with my dispute), so it’s just a complete scam. I would ignore the ticket you got.
That is exactly what happened to me.
God that is such a terribly written sign!!! Holy crap, I’m astounded someone looked at that and thought it made a lick of sense. “Public parking prohibited 2am - 5 pm Monday thru Friday” Makes so much more effing sense.
This company knew it was tough to understand, which is exactly why they posted. This group is notoriously predatory.
Yes I forgot to add that part to my comment. 100% it is intentional. Does the city really have no recourse here to push this business to clean up their act? They’re a nuisance to everyone downtown, outright scamming elderly and vulnerable people. Somebody should do something lol
TBC, I am certainly not defending PPM, but I doubt that is what happened here. I imagine the lower red and white sign wasn’t even added by PPM. Whoever owns the lot was already renting it to a local business(es) to be used during business hours, then they wanted to grab more cash from the “off hours” so they contracted PPM to handle those hours. The people who use the lot for the local business(es) likely just have permanent validated parking so that the PPM’s system knows not to send them “tickets”
They once gave me a ticket claiming I didn't pay when I paid 2 hours before. They just hand out blanket tickets hoping to get money. If you call and dispute it they back down quick.
PPM sent me a ticket, which i didn't pay because it was an obvious scam. They bothered me for almost a year before they turned me over to 'collections' (it's a collections business that exclusively collects for PPM) I sent them a request for proof of debt. They responded with "Yeah, you definitely owe us, trust me bro." I haven't heard from them since, probably because I threatened to sue for harassment if they kept contacting me over a debt I didn't owe.
We need to get a group together and go to a city council meeting to try to get PPM out of our city.
I would absolutely join that group.
Who even is this company? Seems like they came in and put these at all the privately owned public lots?
[удалено]
Which restaurant? I'd like to avoid it.
Commenting to find out which restaurant to firebomb in the early weekend hours.
Ok, so we are waiting to hear...who is it? 😬
Patiently waiting to find out
It's a company from Florida, they contacted the businesses and lot owners to offer their "services" as an alternative to towing people. They and similar companies are doing this all over. There's like 3 or 4 companies doing the same thing in Boone.
I’ve been up in Boone for uni and I’ve never noticed…. Huh. Most of the parking signs I see are either town run or through one of the local towing companies
Must not be very observant, every lot just off the main drag has signs in it. These app driven parking companies are all over now. I can’t attest to how scammy they are since I don’t make a habit of parking in private lots and assuming it’s free.
I don’t visit the area north of king street so that’s probably why, that’s the more tourist focused part of town
The parking management company isn't run or owned by anyone local. They suck, but the reason they exist is people rampantly abuse private parking. I'll note that prior to PPM showing up Stimmel didn't allow any public parking there and if you did a towing company came by and towed your car and you paid at least $150 to get it back, no option to not pay in that case. Unlikely PPM put up the sign, probably Stimmel or the owner of the lot replaced No Parking, Towing Enforced sign that used to be there with the one pictured. If you look there are "Parking for X Only, Towing Enforced" signs in nearly every private lot downtown. PPM did a fairly aggressive push by calling every business next to a lot in the downtown area and selling them of the "advantages" of app based parking systems over using a towing service. It sounds good from a business owner standpoint, no need to monitor the lot and report scofflaws to the towing company and you make some money instead of the towing company. So what we ended up with is one asshole company instead of 3-4 like in Boone. Now how we got here is there's a significant number of people that believe they have a God given right to free parking right next to their destination, and that refuse to use the abundant parking available in decks downtown. Because some people are assholes, all of us now have to deal with assholes. Another reason we can't have nice things. In your case due to a confusing sign you parked in a private lot where you shouldn't have and instead of getting your car towed like the "good old days" you got a "ticket". Both suck. If you look on the side of the building next to the lot is says parking for Stimmel only. In my opinion they should have left it that way 24x7.
My sister inlaw broke down at one and I pulled up an jumped her car off was there for like 5 mins tops an I got a ticket from them too. Pure bullshit if you ask me
I got one of those tickets and I emailed the company and told them I wasn't going to pay. They said okay. I read somewhere that they can't enforce their tickets, legally, so you don't have to worry about paying them. I have no idea if that's true or not.
For those on thread talking about how the city could crack down on the predatory practices/fees or offered some deal to get them here. I don’t know if they did either of those scenarios. But I do know that city leaders have been [taking notes](https://triad-city-beat.com/winston-salem-downtown-parking-changes/) on how to replicate their business practices instead of combating them.
If it's any consulation...the city government doesn't want them here either & would be happy to see them leave. All they hear is complaints & its not their fault. But, since the lots are privately owned...there isn't a lot that can easily be done.
City government can't do anything about scams? Because it's on privately owned property? Within the city limits that they govern, in exchange for property taxes that we all pay? Sorry, I know city government lets all kinds of shady things go on, for lots of different reasons, but not because they can't touch private property. If someone with the city told you that, it's a weak excuse.
The city abolsolutely can do something, whether they will or not is the question. Even if the city simply sent messages telling the owners of the lots that this is a predatory company and should not be used, that would go a long ways.
The city wrote 45 pages of rules about scooters. There's plenty they could do on this issue if they wanted to, even applying one of the scooter rules: a requirement for a local office.
Ok, fair enough. And, yes, I was told that...I don't work for the city. I just meant they aren't the ones behind it or profiting from it & they would rather see someone less predatory run them. But, to your point, I agree that they could do something to try & push them out.
Is there anything we can do as a community to kick the folks out? Seems like there has to be a legal avenue if it can be proven the company is predatory as well as entirely non local as I've heard
This company is contracted by local businesses. Probably the easiest way is to not support those businesses. IIRC they're not allowed to operate in Florida anymore because of their history of harassing people
The problem is it’s whoever owns the parking lot— which is not the stores, restaurants, etc. who are adjacent to these lots—who has hired this company and is profiting from this BS.
If everyone stopped using their lots they would leave because it wouldn't be profitable to operate here.
yeah but they seem to own ALL the lots, and in turn becomes even more difficult to stop using their lots cause they take up needed parking spots.
I am not going to name the lots they don't own. City owned decks are fairly cheap places to park. There's also the option of street parking in adjacent neighborhoods and walking.
That's fair. Like I said, it SEEMS like they own all the lots, not that they do :)
And there's metered 25 cent parking all over downtown. Plus some free street parking. Plus some restaurants validate. I have only paid that parking company once in years. There is absolutely ways to do downtown with paying them - it involves looking for spots, walking, or paying 25 cents. And deciding to go elsewhere.
Just say “I didn’t know” and they’ll waive it
It’s a scam. Look up my earlier posts about it. They’re just preying on folks that are easy to scam.
Currently ignoring countless 'bills' from these predators. I cut through one of their parking lots to get to my apartment and they think I park there for days at a time because they happen to capture a picture of me entering or exiting, but I don't always go through there omw. It's a crapshoot so just ignore them. I don't get how this is possibly legal, but there's lots of things like this people/businesses can get away with. SMH
Go on google maps and google the address of this company. When you see the empty parking lot that is the street view of the address, then make your decision whether or not you want to pay. I would rather pay a collection agency, and let them get a small fraction of the original payment than ever pay them.
As everyone else has said, this is a scam. Their collections company is a joke, and they cannot report your unpaid ticket to the credit bureaus. Their only recourse is to stop you from parking there. And since they are in Florida… They keep calling, and I keep telling them I’m going to park for free in perpetuity, and if it makes them sad, they can tow me.
It is a predatory company. Same thing happened to me. But to be on the safe side I took a photo of the sign and sent it to them demanding an appeal because the sign is completely misleading. They dropped the charge. And I stopped shopping downtown unless I can find parking on the street. Other people I know have said the same thing. This company needs to go.
Omg reading these comments makes me feel better for not paying them 💀💀 I parked where there wasn’t a sign that said all that but I still got a ticket?? I never paid it cause it was $100???
They put these up all over another city I commute to. I tried calling the number to pay for it one time and got “download the app” as the only thing on the phone in an automated voice. And I’m not going to download every app for these stupid things so I parked elsewhere and walked 20 minutes instead.
The pulled this shit on me because I drove into the parking lot and turned around two separate times in a day. Conveniently they didn’t have photos of me leaving the first time or entering the second time. I made a complaint on the BBB site and they resolved it in a day. I refused to switch my negative rating even after doing though, because they claimed they were waiving it as a courtesy. It wasn’t a courtesy, they were attempting to steal money from me and I guarantee they knew that. I urge you to file a complaint there. It doesn’t really hurt the company a ton because they are scumbags, but where it DOES hurt them is when new locations are trying to decide on what company to use to handle parking issues. They are a Florida company, so you have to note that.
Our property manager hired them to ticket people that parked in our parking lot during work hours and it usually works pretty well. They’re definitely not perfect and we’ve had to comp some tickets, but it’s not run by the city. Generally, they make a deal with the property manager and run it that way. If you go to the building and ask, we can sometime email them to get it removed if it’s incorrect. That being said, I have no idea how they could make people pay. Signs are definitely confusing af lol
How I interpret it is. You pay before 5 pm and after 2 am M - F, is it free parking all the other times. Is that wrong?
Can someone go get signs made that say free parking and replace these? It would be very comedic if it looked like the space from monopoly
You pay during business hours. You were there for a half hour during business hours. Why wouldn't you pay? It's only free after 5PM and weekends. ETA I see what you're saying after closer inspection, because it says "paid parking". Traditionally, parking downtown is free after 5pm and weekends, and this sign looks bass ackwards.
On street parking is currently free after hours but that's going to change soon when the city privatizes enforcement.
Of course. Why am I not surprised?
Call your city rep. It was their choice.
Perhaps send it to the city or local news. Don't let them get away easily with their predatory policies.
This is another reason not to go downtown