My girlfriend met me at my apartment on Sat. Evening (3/3) so we could ride together in my car to a co-worker's wedding reception. She parked her car in a spot in front of my building in haste and (unknowingly on her part) her left side wheels overlapped the line about 6-8 inches into the striped section separating the parking spot from no-parking section. We sped off to the festivities playing catchup because I worked that day and we were running late.
When we returned, her car was gone! Thinking the car had been stolen, we contacting Orlando Police who advised us to contact Priority One Towing because it had been towed. Not understanding why, we were told that the reason was that we were illegally parked per Orlando, FL law. What! Heck, even if you cross the line in a public parking lot, you will at least get a warning sticker. At no time was I as a registered tenant, advised in my lease (or otherwise), of this penalty for violation that I/or a guest's vehicle would be subject to towing on a first time infraction. When we went to pick up her car I had to pay a $100.00 towing fee to get the car back!!! I was told by "Rick" that the complex employs them to "enforce" their parking rules. He further stated that they (Bellagio/McKinley?) get nothing out of the fee charged. (Are you kidding me?) My question would be what is the incentive motivation behind this towing hustle? C'mon I'm sure there haven't been that big of a volume with a rash of complaints about unavailable spaces due to those awful double parkers to warrant having a tow truck posse scour the grounds for to "enforce" the law!
When I spoke to property manager "Will" about the issue, he said he would have to look into it and when he got the photo back from the towing company he replied he was sorry because I was in violation and he could not refund my money or he would have to do it for the other people whose cars were told that night (which I found out number around 17-20 cars!) At minimum $100.00 a pop (that's if you pick up your car within 24 hrs... If not then it's an additional $30.00 per day!) that's a pretty good night's haul. And for them to say that Bellagio/McKinley gets nothing out of the deal... That's hard to believe. If that's the case, then I'm in the wrong business and need to get myself a tow truck and start earning some REAL money.
I actually had the opportunity to meet one of the scam victims (Gary B.) from seeing the back of his vehicle on one of the photos and I happened to pull in the complex behind him and flagged him down on a hunch. He said he raised hell in the office and they had to call the cops for him to leave. He said they eventually gave him the amount off his rent. Is that all I have to do? As much as I'd rather not, I'm going to try to do this business-like and speak with someone at McKinley Properties and see how they play their hand in "justifying" this bullsh*t!
Stay tuned...
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