The Bootman, Inc review: Parking 12

I was in downtown San Antonio. I paked in their lot and payed my money only THEY did not have any paper in the printers. When I came back they said I did not pay so I had to pay the 100 dollar fee to get my vehicle back, olny on my online account it Clrearly shows I paid 3.00 to their company. I tried to call them using the number on the ticket only to be told they can't do anything an hung up in my face. I WILL GO TO MY LOCAL NEWS STATION and I WILL FILE A COMPLAINT WITH THE BBB. Never Again...

These guys who go by "Bootman, Inc." and/or "Premier Parking Enforcement" are simply extortionists. And extortion is against the state law. On top of extortion, they ignored the Texas Occupational Code which REQUIRES them to provide you with written notification to a hearing at your local Justice of the Peace Court (another violation of the law). Take these guys to the courthouse and hit em where it hurts most, right in the their fat pocketbook.

Boot Man, Inc. was handed a Guilty as Charged verdict in a recent Harris County lawsuit.
http://www.bootandtow.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=140
I am sure more suits will follow since Bootman is clearly on the wrong side of the fence and legally vunerable.

BOOT MAN IS A SCAM!
Last Saturday around 4:30 we went into a parking lot, the attendant was at the entrance, with a pad of tickets and charged us $3.00. We told him we werent sure if we would stay at the lot because we were going to the High Museum and just needed directions, or a minute to look at the map. He said we should stay, that it was right there (pointed to the wrong direction). I even said no, that's the Aquarium, but he insisted that the museum was near it (a lie I thought was not malicious). This parking being cheap was, I thought, an oportunity to just to ask for directions at a Days Inn Hotel across the street so we paid anyway so the guy would let us park and go ask. He gave us a tiket out of the pad and told us to put it on the dashboard (I still have it). The kind hotel attendant told us our destination was several miles away (we were on Baker St. and Williams St. intersection), and that the guy had been known to scam others posing as parking lot attendant, and then they would get boted, and to go get our car out. We were back in less than 5 minutes and there was already a Boot on our car's tire and the guy had just put it in, had the key in his hand still, but would not let go if we didn't pay $75.00. We showed him the parking ticket from when we paid the $3.00 to the attendant and he said that was false and no attendants worked there, the money should have been placed inside the box. At first we thought it was just bad luck that he came the moment we left, but the more I think about this, if he had just come to check at payments, open the box see that there was no payment for our car and at that point proceeded to put the boot, it would have taken him much longer than the five minutes we were gone. He might have been already waiting for us to leave and that is why he knew exactly which car to go for so quickly. In that short time he would have been still counting the money from all the others in the box, and the box was not even opened. The parking "attendant" must work with him on this scam but at that moment he was not around, how would he know to leave the moment the other one came. By the way, the Boot Man person had a Texas license plate, his phone is just an answering service that won't tell more about the company and his address is just a mailbox inside a UPS store on Peachtree Street. I asked at that store about the company and they said the only way to contact him is to send him a letter to that postal box.

Well the boot man strikes again.. I live in San Antonio Texas. I was invited to go to a charitable event at the la Villita assembly hall Dec 6 2010. I was driving around town looking for a place to park and see a VPaz parking lot with several large $2 dollar public parking signs. I approached the attendant booth and there was no attendant and yet another giant $2 dollar parking sign. I went to the money recepticle and put in my two bucks. Three hours later I leave the event and there are about 15 cars with boots on two tires including mine.. We were all in shock... When we called the 866 number we find out that at the attendants booth off in a corner there was a very small sign that says $5 dollars after dark. The problem here is that you cant see that sign after dark. It cost us $113.13 plus the initial $2 dollars to park.. Two black thugs showed up 40 minutes after the first call in a car with florida lic. plates, a boot key in one hand and a credit card machine in another. These guys are crooks.. The police are useless in these matters because the parking lot is private property and I doubt these guys are members of the B.B.B. I will however dispute the chage with the credit card company and take these thugs to court once I figue out how to serve them. There is nothing "premiere" about (Premiere parking Enforcement)...

I parked and payed my $2 @ 12 noon at the parking lot near 628 S. St. Mary's, by 3 pm I had 2 boots on my car...The PPE Rep. Raphael Johnson had photo evidence that there was no money in the slot...I specifically remember paying because I paid in quarters, 8 quarters exactly...I guess the Texas heat evaporates coins or something. I was forced to pay $110.13 to remove the boots..needless to say I will never be parking in that lot ever again. After 3 years, Premier Parking Enforcement has garanteed that I will never give them another dime, let alone a quarter, ever again!

I also got booted and had to pay 113.00 how to get the money reimbursed from this scam..HELP...

There is a $1 lot located at 1805 Congress Road, Houston, Texas that is rather far from where I need to go, but the cost outweighs the inconvenience of a walk. It is managed by Premier Parking Enforcement.

Today, I paid the $1 like I always do with the pay meter and left the ticket on my dashboard. However, I guess I forgot to read the fine print because I thought my all day pass which it says on the parking ticket literally meant all day. I had a doctors appointment to go to so I left, came back, and re-parked the vehicle, completely unaware that even though I had paid to park all day (or at least until 5 p.m.) I could not leave the lot and come back. First, the parking ticket should not say "ALL DAY" on it, if it is, in fact, not all day. It should state DIRECTLY on the ticket that it is a ONE-TIME pass. I consider that deceptive. Second, the boot fee was $100 for a $1 lot and not only did they make me pay an 8.25% sales tax on the boot fee but also I had to pay the original ridiculous $1 that I would have paid had I known for a grand total of $109.25.

That aside, I informed the parking lot attendant that I am an intern and cannot afford to pay him that amount because I am working for free but if he took all of my contact information and issued me a citation or a ticket or at least gave me 24 hours I could try and contact someone who could help me pay the fine. I informed him that I do not have family here in Houston and that there is not anyone who could come down to the lot to let me out. He told me that he would not remove the boot until I had paid the full amount and was perfectly content to let both myself and my car sit there in the parking lot alone for the night. This is unacceptable. I am a female, in a parking lot close to the highway and near the criminal court complex in downtown Houston in an area that is known as dangerous and has even earned the monicker "rape lot." Thank goodness it is summer and it gets darker later and I have an extremely nice co-worker who is also a fellow intern that was willing to make sure I was safe and was not left alone in that lot. Also, my temporary living situation is all the way in Tomball which is at least 45 minutes away on a good day. I told him that I couldn't stay here by myself at night and that I would have to get someone to remove the boot, which admittedly, I said because I was angry. He then told me that they could take me to jail if I removed the boot without his permission. A PRIVATE company cannot take you to a CRIMINAL jail and there is a finite amount of vehicle violations that are even eligible for jail time in any form when the city or state itself issues the citation. He also told me that they record the parking lot all day which also is another lie. Even the CITY by which this company is supposedly licensed through a partnership gives you a certain amount of days to pay a citation, especially one as large as $100.

Since they were not going to give me time to get the money to them myself, I contacted my stepfather (who lives 4 hours away) who offered to pay the fee for me over the phone so that neither myself nor my vehicle would be stuck in a rape lot in downtown Houston. After all that, the attendant then told me that they aren't allowed to accept payment over the phone and that he would have to call his company to see if they would authorize it because if they said no then I would basically be stranded there, once again, by myself in a rape lot. He received "authorization" and took my stepfather's payment over the phone finally.

I was so angry about the way I was treated and the dangerousness of the situation that I looked up Premier Parking Enforcement online and tried to call their Houston office to issue a formal complaint with the company. The Houston office number gave me an internet noise so it is obviously not a working number even though it is listed on the ticket. So I called the direct line that was listed on the website, which is a 404 Atlanta area code. I then asked to speak to someone at the Houston office, that I tried to call them, and that all I got was an internet tone. The man wouldn't give me a phone number and said he would help me. I then told him about my situation and that I had already paid once in the $1 lot and that his employee told me they could take me to jail if I got someone other than the company to remove the boot. He then cut me off, said I was "fabricating" because "they do not have a dollar lot" and that since I was "fabricating" he could not help me anymore. I can show you the lot, I have parked there everyday for about a month and the only reason I do so is because it costs one dollar. I even have the address of the lot. I said sir, I have the ticket in front of me with your 1-800 number on it and are you not the very same company on the website and he said that since i'm "fabricating" he can't do anything for me and then proceeded to hang up on me. There is no other working number for this company.

I have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, with ABC13 and with the parking management authority for Houston. It is completely unsafe to allow a young girl to be immobilized in a parking lot on the outskirts of the court complex in downtown Houston at night even in the summer. If anything, there should be a time limit on the immobilization (for example, they cannot hold you past 10 p.m. or until it is dark) and if they are going to boot your car and immobilize it then the attendant should be required to stay with the person until that person has figured out a way to pay the exorbitant amount so that no one is left alone there at night. Finally, it should be unacceptable to require that someone come up with $100 in 20 minutes. If they would like to charge such a large fee, then they need to come up with an acceptable citation format that allows the person's information to be kept on file so they can pursue whatever legal action need be if the citation is not paid in full by a certain date.

Let me lastly say, that those lots are called "rape lots" for a reason and a private company should not be allowed to risk an individual's safety, or in extreme cases, his or her life for $110. Thank goodness that this was not the case this time, but next time, the person may not be as fortunate.

I know this is an old thread, but I'll go ahead and post a comment since it still indexes so high in a Google search.

First off, Melba, I'm very sorry for the unpleasant experience when visiting our city. You indicate that you are unsure of what you did wrong, but it's likely that you did nothing wrong. You were the victim. These are predators who exploit the insecurities (natural insecurities for most) of those visiting an unfamiliar city.

Second, after reading through the complaints on various boards, I'd like to point out a couple of things...

These folks are remarkably good at the services they provide to their customers. Their customers, of course, are the parking lot owners, not individual motorists. One of these services is to provide a measure of separation between these lots and their unethical behavior. That is, they draw all of the fire and allow the lots to have it both ways. The parking lots can keep their names along with whatever trust they have earned with those names among locals over the decades. But they can also enter the lucrative world of predators while pretending to be unaware of the history of those they have hired. Don't fall for it, though. Everyone in the parking business knows who these people are and what they do for a living. If you are a victim, remember that someone at the lot made a choice to hire these people. Going forward, I suggest that all focus (individual complaints, media attention, and legal action) be directed to the lots themselves. This will greatly diminish the value of Premier Parking Enforcement / Boot Man.

The Premier Parking company has an sign on their parking lot, which next to the University of Houston-Downtown, it reads "Parking For Students" this parking lot however is not actually "for students" its for the paying public. This ambiguous sign has caused many students, whom posses student parking permits, to believe this is apart of campus parking, which leads them to having to pay to get boots removed off their vehicles. I learned this the hard way and I have seen many other booted students and it is perfectly legal for them to do so. This is the only "parking for students" sign on a pay lot in the city. The purpose of this sign is to lure students with parking passes to park here because they know what will happen, but they say the sign is to let students know that they can park on the lot. Now how does that sound? It goes to show you that immoral business practices are rewarded.

I, too, received a fine from Boot Man, Inc. /Premier Parking Management at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center in Dallas. Nowhere on the parking lot sign, the parking ticket, or anywhere for that matter, does it state that a fine would be accessed for leaving the car over the eight hour limit. The ticket simply says that $15 is for the 8 hour time limit. The wording is deliberately vague so people will park in the lot.
Is the Dallas Convention Center and ACE Parking receiving a kick-back or a rebate from the money Premier Parking Enforcement collects from the parking lot customers?

Charging A Fee for staying over the allotted time is a reasonable expectation. Charging $113.25 for going over the allotted time by 1 minute, 5 minutes, whatever, is simply extortion. I have additional pictures they just wouldn't load. Let me know if you have questions.

Also, the back of the ticket says that individuals can state their case before the Justice of the Peace however, that will cost a $42 filling fee. The ticket was $100. What about the $13.25? Dallas taxes are 8.5% not 13.2%. Not sure how they calculated the additional $13.25.

I parked in a lot numbered 315 in Decatur Ga and went into a restaurant in the parking lot to the right. I was gone for no more than 5-7 minutes. Upon return, i have a boot. The employee from Bootman was rude and nasty. I asked why was my truck booted, he kept saying you left the lot and went into an shop that parking is not authorized. The sign that has 315 on it is located to the right of the lot, the establishment we went in was to the right of the lot as well. Literally not even a foot from the sign, we were told in a rude and nasty tone that we could only park there to go to the places to the left? Really? The signs aren't clear they say, 15 minute retail parking. So how in the world are you to know that only business's to the left not right are allowed to have customers park there. The bootman gut kept getting smart and making smart comments. This is unacceptable and not warranted. If you had to boot me fine I don't agree with it but by no means at all do I have to be disrespected. This company should train their employees to practice better customer service skills.