The ImPark Parking Scam – Check Those Receipts!
Maybe it’s because I just moved back to Vancouver and am a bit naive about how some of these big parking corporations handle their business, but ImPark is an very dishonest company as far as how they list their parking rates. It’s deceiving and meant to get you busted for a parking ticket.
READ YOUR TICKETS CAREFULLY!!
I parked at 1400 W.10th and Granville, to have an early dinner at Joey’s restaurant on broadway. I park in this lot regularly because it’s easy to get a spot and at $6 for 2 hours the parking is relatively cheap. The evening rate after 6pm is only $6 for all night parking too.
I pulled in around 5:45pm, and paid for my parking. I figured I would get 2 hours of parking for my $6, since I had parked there before 6pm. Turns out, this is not the case. If you park there ANY time before 6pm, you will only be able to park until 6pm for $6! So if I were to pull up at 5:59pm, and pay for parking, my $6 would get me exactly 1 minute of parking. Now, if I had looked at my receipt, I would have realized that my ticket only covered me until 6pm, but I was more concerned with reading the sign.
When I got the parking ticket I was perplexed, and so I called ImPark over the phone. The wait time was not too ridiculous, only about 13 minutes to get an operator. Her name was Janelle(sp?). She had that typical attitude that all operators that deal with disputes have. They are sarcastic, and talk down to you because they have to in order to stay alive in that type of work. Does that make it right? Maybe, maybe not. All I know is I paid $6 to park in a lot IN GOOD FAITH, expecting to get 2 hours of parking, but I did not. I got 15 minutes instead.
Janelle went on to tell me that this is typical of all parking lots and if you push the time button again, you can get extended time into the after-hours parking. So I would have had to pay $12 to say past 6pm! Maybe I should have just sat in the car and waited til 6pm came.
She alternated between being pleasant and talking down to me like I was an idiot and that I should not be calling, however she did reduce my ticket down to $10, which means I paid $16 to park there. She said that a lot manager was the one that decided how the rates were charged in any particular lot. Impark doesn’t give a lot of ways to complain aside from phoning. They don’t really have a compaint line or anything for this sort of thing, but what will my call do? Nothing. They need to make money, even if it means deceiving people to make that few hundred extra every week per lot. I’m sure ImPark makes hundreds of thousands a year through this deceitful method of charging parking.
Janelle was okay, but definately jaded from dealing with assholes all day would likely didn’t even pay for parking and wanted to dispute. Anyway, I tried to be pleasant, she was not. Complaining to ImPark would be pointless, as I’m sure their system was designed this way to make them more money. The most I can do is hope that more people vandalize ImPark’s stuff and the parking manager loses his job in this economic recession. But even that would mean that parking prices would go up.
All in all, $10 taugh me a valuable lesson today. ImPark really are assholes, and don’t trust a word they say. Also, never park in ImPark again if you can help it. I’m sure they lost more than $10 business from me. Screw ’em.
fuck all parking corporations, eg. robbins parking in nanaimo and victoria.
I just went to one of their sites. The meter to get a ticket was broken for the person ahead of me and the person behind me. Being I had to be on scedult I gave up after wasting 10 minutes on it, got a ticket.
I did report it to them. Pretty expensive parking.
I wonder if this is their new scam? Going to not use Impark in the future. Scammers. If this comes on my credit card, I will sue them in small claims court.
I also will not park at an impark lot unless I have to now.
So much for law in this Country, Impark continues to Fraudulently operate in Ontario. We paid $5 for 1/2 hour of parking in their lot on Church St., the other while visiting St. Micheal’s hospital. We returned to our car at 3:45 to find a ticket that was written up at 3:58. Funny how the ticket was written 13 minutes before the actual time. Also, we then noticed that the $5 only got us 22 minutes not the posted 30 minutes on the side by the machine.
This is the second and last time this has happened to me, where the ticket writer adds 10 full minutes to his machine and I have caught them.
If this happens to you be sure to contact Rob Ford’s office with scans of your ticket and the receipt, they jumped all over this for me and I had no less than 6 people contact me from Impark within 5 minutes of each other. Still waiting to find out if the ticket is cancelled, although I will never park in their lots again.
Always park in the Green P parking lots in Toronto, the Red P is Impark the fraudulent company.
Good to know what’s happened. Impark has never been so bold with me over here, but sorry to hear that they are nothing but fraudsters in Ontario. Boycott Impark and spread the word… then landlords will no longer use Impark.
So… you failed to properly follow the instructions listed on the meter while parking at a parking lot which you recognize has 2 separate rates for before and after 6 pm, you were given an answer as to WHY Impark wasn’t responsible for how much you’re charged or for you failing to read the meter instructions and they still reduced your ticket to $10 and you’re complaining? You’re lucky they did anything for you. And you want a ‘complaint’ line? They apparently already have a ticket disputes line that you called to complain to… and they helped you and came to a reasonable resolution. Were they supposed to spend money on a dedicated phone line where customers call strictly to complain and accomplish nothing? What would that achieve? That’s what blogs are for. They are for telling people to suck my dick because its so small my girlfriend won’t do it.
No, I followed the instructions properly dipshit. Their instructions were not clear you fucking dumbass. No wonder you’re puzzled, you’re a fucking idiot. That’s probably why your dumbass can only afford to live in New West.
Lets all stick together these companies need to get the message that they can’t rip people off and get away!!! I will not park anywhere where I see their logo, I refuse to park at those lots as I have found out that they don’t deserve my money……
I parked at 4:50pm at IM park on Friday the 24th of August – in downtown Toronto – pressed the “maximum time” button and was charged $9.34 – machine said to a time of 06:00 – which to me means 6:00am. The 6:00pm to 6:00am parking fee was 7:00 – so an extra $2.34 did not seem unrealisitic for that time of day. I came back at 10:35 and found a ticket for $69.75 on my car.
What a bunch of freakin crooks these nutcases are!! They will never ever get my business again. I don’t have time to read the whole pricing essay they post at the machine when there are 4 people standing in line behind me.
These criminals have to be stopped. That charge is outrageous and cannot be tolerated and the CITY needs to do something about it and post a warning. Maybe we should all post signs at IM Parks indicting that the parking fee is (69.75 + 9.34) = $79.00 for 5 hours. How many people will park there at that rate? Please everybody – send mass emails to all of your friends and email contacts about this rip off company – bury them!!
Total rip off. Unfortunately, while there are landowners that need parking areas managed for them, IMPARK will continue to flourish. We would need to push landowners to use companies like EasyPark and Diamond Parking instead, which I have found are MUCH more honest.
Anyone out there who has received an Impark parking ticket in BC the last 5 years (but before the summer of 2013) for being a bit late, and then paid the ticket? If so I would be interested in chatting with you for some research. Also, please advise how we’d connect – I am not familiar with how to do so on these sites.