Monday, October 20, 2008

Ripped Off in Parking Lot in Downtown Atlanta


Last week I had the daunting task of facing off with the Fulton County Tax Commissioner regarding my office property taxes. Actually, after 6 months of back and forth negotiations, I think my mission was accomplished. I parked in a lot down the street. I returned to the car and took out the money to pay for parking and the parking ticket.....the kind you have to slide into a machine to lift the gate for exit. A man approached my car and told me the fee was $10. I told him that it should be $8 as I handed him the $10 bill and the ticket. He said he was going to get the change. Meanwhile, he really hightails it across the street and disappears. As I handed him the ticket and I saw that my ticket was white and the other tickets that the guy held in his hand were yellow, I knew I was ripped off! Because I couldnt open the gate without the ticket, I couldn't leave and chase him. Other cars backed up behind me to exit but where unable to do so because I couldn't open the gate. I had to pay a $12 lost ticket fee to get out. So my misadventure in the lot, just a block from the Fulton County courthouse, cost me $22, I was so pissed off.... mostly at myself for being sucked into this scam! I speculate that the scam artist was a drunk bum doing this all over downtown Atlanta. He was kind of scrawny and I think that I could have taken him out!!


Morale of the story: Be aware of who you hand your parking ticket to when you leave a parking lot in downtown Atlanta. I wish I would have had the piece of mind to take a picture of the guy so I could share his face with everyone on the internet with a warning: WANTED IN DOWNTOWN ATLANTA: PARKING LOT BANDIT!!

3 comments:

inexactscience said...

downtown/midtown definitely has vagrant issues. It's actually worse than anything i've ever seen in NY. And at some point the city of Atlanta is going to have to get serious about cleaning that shit up.

Anonymous said...

I cant believe u actually paid the guy. Parking attendants never come 2 u. U drive 2 them as u enter/leave.

Atlanta Cougar said...

Lilkunta-I was not thinking and basically, I was a real dummy in this situation. I will take part of the responsibility for what happened.