I have, on multiple occasions (in Austin, >10 years ago), paid for parking to an "attendant" at a lot I know is free. Those guys will just have your car towed — the whole scam just hangs together: the towing company charges you for the storage & processing, but not the nominal fee; the attendant gets cash. Win-win-lose.
In my city, in the rougher parts it used to be somewhat normal to pay someone to "look after your car", of course you were paying them not to vandalise it while you were away! Especially popular on football days when parking near the stadium.
It was only a couple of pounds or so. I haven't been to these parts of town for years so I have no idea if this practice still goes on.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by leesalminen on Saturday August 19, 2023 @05:21PM
(#37193349)
There’s a popular swimming around here that’s near a rough neighborhood. One elderly gentleman from that neighborhood guards the cars at the swimming hole. He even got himself a shirt that says “security”. You pay $2 and he makes sure nobody busts the windows out of your car.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by seabass-labrax on Saturday August 19, 2023 @07:25PM
(#37194376)
Do you think this is blackmail as described by your parent comment, or a genuine (albeit unofficial) offer of protection?
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by leesalminen on Saturday August 19, 2023 @08:13PM
(#37194694)
No, I don’t think it’s blackmail in this particular situation. Though that definitely does exist here in other spots. This is just an old guy who tries to quell the riff-raff of the youth of the neighborhood. He’s really sweet actually. And if you bring him a cold beer, he’ll do a quick cleaning of your windows to boot!
I'm aware, and have used, this practice in Oakland, CA, Los Angeles, SF, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle and Portland OR. One reason I keep a small amount of cash around - just for the vig.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by konschubert on Saturday August 19, 2023 @06:03PM
(#37193761)
It's extortion. You're paying protection money.
Yep, and my stuff was protected. Been doing it since at least 1995.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by konschubert on Saturday August 19, 2023 @07:18PM
(#37194330)
You have been financing crime.
I prefer to think of it as financing entrepreneurs.
At least the scale is much smaller than giving VC money to likes of Uber and AirBnB. So you have moral upper-hand.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by freediverx on Sunday August 20, 2023 @07:52AM
(#37198252)
Every tax dollar you pay finances one human crime or another.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by konschubert on Sunday August 20, 2023 @09:51AM
(#37199135)
I’m discovering an increasing number of edgelords here on HN.
You know that what you said isn’t true. Or you are really badly informed.
Canadianfella is correct. "Vig" is not the correct term. Vig, short for vigorish, is a yiddish/Slavic word used to describe the excessive interest on a loan from a lender of ill-repute. It's also used to describe the house's take of a book.
It's not just money you pay to shady people. If he charged you $5 for parking, but allowed you to pay when you came back, but it would be $10 instead, you could say the additional $5 was the vig as that represents a 100% interest on a short term loan.
This is common all over the developing world. I always give them a little something, despite the feel of extortion it has to it. It’s marginally better than begging, and they will really watch the car, and often help with parking and leaving. Fair enough.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by collaborative on Saturday August 19, 2023 @06:01PM
(#37193743)
I once confronted them in Morocco. They replied they needed to eat by moving their hand into their mouth. I felt bad
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by salad-tycoon on Saturday August 19, 2023 @06:10PM
(#37193824)
In the one of the Third world countries I lived in, the more attentive ones would also put a piece of cardboard on your windshield. A nice touch.
Not so much the guys that insist on spraying your windshield with soap at every traffic light.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by seabass-labrax on Saturday August 19, 2023 @07:35PM
(#37194431)
There is often a fine line between crime, commerce and even altruism. It is a shame that western society has been perhaps a little too effective at separating these concepts. The very same contract could be any of them in different contexts:
"Party A pays 1 Pound Sterling for the item owned by Party B"
Crime: Party A blackmails Party B into selling them the item at a discount
Commerce: Party B offers the discount to entice Party A to try the item out, so that they can sell more at full price in the future
Altruism: Party B wants to give the item to a good home rather than destroying it (if that would cost them, then it's even mutually beneficial altruism from both parties)
Clearly it is the context about how the contract was made that distinguishes the situations. It would be a mistake to try to classify every possible contract as legitimate based on its semantics alone.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by freediverx on Sunday August 20, 2023 @07:53AM
(#37198262)
“Soap”
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by NoZebra120vClip on Sunday August 20, 2023 @03:53AM
(#37197061)
That happened to me at least a few times; I never went for it, and nothing bad happened in those instances. In retrospect, I suppose I'm surprised. But perhaps it was sort of randomized, so that people wouldn't draw obvious conclusions?
How can they have it towed if it’s free. That’s just theft.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by KRAKRISMOTT on Saturday August 19, 2023 @05:26PM
(#37193400)
A lot of the blue collar professions are in cahoots with organized crime (and similarly many adjacent white collar industries like real estate)
In New York it has gotten so bad that even first responders have been subverted
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/gang-members-and-others...
“Fire Mitigation” are not first responders: they’re private entities that listen to the FDNY’s radio frequencies and follow them around. They’re ambulance chasers and that’s always been a scummy domain; it’d be much more surprising (and worse) if FDNY themselves were somehow involved.
Towing companies enjoy special privileges and presumed innocent, e.g. no penalties for "towing the wrong car."
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by jakelazaroff on Saturday August 19, 2023 @05:47PM
(#37193609)
I mean, everyone is (supposed to be) presumed innocent. But point taken about the special privileges.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by WirelessGigabit on Saturday August 19, 2023 @06:28PM
(#37193981)
It approaches qualified immunity.
Consider an AWD BMW without badges. If it's a 3 series or above all you know is that it's either RWD or AWD.
If they tow it by the rear wheels you blow up your transfer case. But try and prove that it was THAT action that blew it up.
The proper way to deal with this is to lift the car using a crane and put it on a platform like this https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/seeligstadt-germany...
Call your buddy at the towing company, give them $20 cash.
Criminals are quite efficient at getting things done
Two things. Sometimes these venue areas have other central business district employers who don’t allow overnight or weekend parking for the public, but don’t enforce it. (But they are signed to allow towing) The fake parking guy probably has a relationship with the tow driver.
Also, tow operators are generally pretty shady. Because they operate in a second responder capacity, they have personal relationships with cops and sheriffs, repair garages, etc.
That goes beyond fraud though. That sounds more like a protection racket.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by NikolaNovak on Saturday August 19, 2023 @05:48PM
(#37193632)
I'm from a developing country with humongous corruption. I now live in Canada and love it. But to certain degree corruption is just less visible. For example, apparently majority of our towing industry in Toronto is just organized crime. With murders and arson and everything - in the seemingly simple and innocuous towing industry. And when opening a restaurant in downtown, near one of the stadiums, protection money is just normal line item.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/44749/inside-the-tow-truck-maf...
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by FirmwareBurner on Saturday August 19, 2023 @08:39PM
(#37194831)
> majority of our towing industry in Toronto is just organized crime
All industries who's generous profits depend on monopolizing a fixed pie, they need to tightly control the amount of competition in order to maintain their profits, so they eventually devolve into a maifa-like organization, regardless if they're blue collar or white collar.
"The only difference is the blue-collar mafia is way more visible as they solve their difference with valence, while the white-collar mafia doesn't need to resort to barbaric acts but simply lobbies their political friends in power to put enough laws and regulations in place to stop any newcomers entering their turf."
Ah, Brujah vs Ventrue.
Similar experience here, and from your name we’re either neighbors or from the same country originally. People from our region usually have some idealized fantasy about western countries. After I moved to the US I was shocked to find out that it is just as corrupt as the Balkans, just in a different way.
My pet peeve is hearing how I don’t understand corruption because I live in a functioning country now.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by NikolaNovak on Monday August 21, 2023 @07:42AM
(#37208163)
To be fair, it IS different, and I think Canadians cannot fathom the concept of taking a bottle of booze / carton of cigarettes / box of chocolate with you for normal bureaucratic activities. Similarly, it took me a while to understand where Canadian corruption lies and I'm sure I only understand and am aware of tiny percentage - I happily live a straight and narrow, middle class, ignorant kind of life. As such I'm only sure there's many other types of corruption in other places I'm blissfully ignorant of :-:
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by konschubert on Saturday August 19, 2023 @06:04PM
(#37193766)
What if you just send the police after them if they tow your car?
I remember when I moved to DC many years ago we drove to an art exhibit (in an empty building way away from the metro). There was a guy walking up and down the road saying "$5 to park!" I paid him and in the elevator an older woman smugly told me "It's free to park here!" I told her "I know, I'm paying for him to not break MY window." The look on her face....
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by sixstringtheory on Saturday August 19, 2023 @05:18PM
(#37193315)
> This is one of those things that tech really didn't "fix"
It solved a very real problem of surveillance/advertising and skimming a little cream off the top in the process
One would think this would happen pretty often, but at least my cursory search didn't turn up many specific examples of it happening in the US. I wonder why that is?
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by throwawaysleep on Saturday August 19, 2023 @06:07PM
(#37193793)
A lot more work when there are an abundance of gullible people via email.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by toomuchtodo on Saturday August 19, 2023 @05:16PM
(#37193297)
Seems like a good avenue for parking protests. All you need is a small buzz for people to never trust the app-based systems.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by ocdtrekkie on Saturday August 19, 2023 @05:13PM
(#37193259)
This is a well-known problem at more than just parking lots. Any proprietor using QR codes in their place of business should generally be policing the property for rogue stickers. Obviously, quality of the business matters here a lot for that.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by ivan_gammel on Saturday August 19, 2023 @05:36PM
(#37193490)
Fix: “using QR codes” is unnecessary. Just every business with public access to the property. Customers of a business not using QR codes are vulnerable to the same scam.
I paid this booth last night, wasn't even sure if they were legit
What it's ripe for is for someone to put up a box that accepts cash and credit cards then works as a proxy to one of the other services.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by idle_zealot on Saturday August 19, 2023 @06:10PM
(#37193825)
Of course! The solution to this state of affairs is to add yet another middleman.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by supertrope on Sunday August 20, 2023 @02:03AM
(#37196571)
Parking provided by TicketMaster.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by supertrope on Sunday August 20, 2023 @02:02AM
(#37196565)
Nothing. But you the customer are burdened with this fraud risk so the business does not care since it’s not their problem.
Re:Hahaha We Live in Hell
by entropy273 on Sunday August 20, 2023 @04:30PM
(#37202670)
I was a mobile developer on a parking app, and this is a serious issue. Our solution was to add a button in the app to verify if a QR code is valid, but I was always bothered by how tucked away the actual button was.
This is one of those things that tech really didn't "fix" and now I have to select from one of 20 apps instead of just paying with cash or even a credit card.