Parking "Towing" Services

Much has happened since my last post in regards to parking services.

On 9/11 I met with student legal services just to affirm my case, and lay the groundwork incase something went wrong in my attempt to get my money back. I was told that I had a real good case, but good cases still get rejected by parking services. I was given one piece of advice though which was to try to get in contact with the Resident Director of the building that I was parked near to find out anything about signs posted.

Later that day I called the RD of Gorman and he said that there were signs posted on the entry door to his building, but he knew nothing of signs posted by the lot itself. So I would have had to slow down and look for a 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper on a dorm before I drove another 200 feet to park my car. No way I would have seen that sign.

My meeting with Parking Services was on 9/15. I spoke to who I think was Pat Katie, the appeals officer. I had turned in my paperwork a week previous to our meeting and this seemed to be the first time she set eyes on it. She seemed a little sympathetic but I was not sure. Our meeting was brief as she said she needed to do some research (call officer that ordered tow, etc) before making a decision. She promised me that by the end of the week should would call me and let me know what she decided.

Tuesday, no call. Wednesday, nothing. Thursday no call. Friday afternoon still nothing. Finally I decided to go down to the office myself Friday at about 4pm (30 mins before they close) and see what was going on myself. Just as I expected the person who promised to give me a call had left for the day several hours before. The good news is however that the paperwork was there, and finished. The decision was made THURSDAY so she had plenty of time to call me before she left on Friday. Lie #1 for that day.

MY APPEAL WAS GRANTED! Yay. Good news. Now since Sue at the Parking "Greeter" desk had told me when I dropped off my appeal form that I could get my refund right then and there on my credit card I pulled out my card and gave it to her. She told me that she could not give me a refund on a credit card this time and said that she never said that last time. To make things worse she said that I would have to wait 3-5 weeks for a check to be mailed to me!!! I then went into a play-by-play account of when she said it the last time and she admitted that she lied to me. Lie #2.

So at this point they admitted that they should not have towed me on Sept first, but refused to give me any money until October 23rd, almost two months later!! Now this is ending up costing me even more money as interest is accruing on my credit card.

I asked to speak to her supervisor, the director of parking services and of course he had left for the day as well. Instead some other woman came over to me and said that they were not allowed to process credit card refunds. Blah blah. She did say (promise #3 now) that on Monday (9/22) she would expedite the refund so that the check would be cut as soon as possible. She said this would take two weeks, so I have now been promised that on October 6th I can pick up my check from their office. I highly doubt that this is going to happen, but we shall see.

Here is a picture of my appeal form.

Long Day

Ok well today wasn't really long per say but quite a bit happened today.

First let’s get to the unimportant issue.

Am I the only one who thinks that Fuel and Staind's new songs are the exact same song with different lyrics and maybe a little variation? It sounds to me like they both worked together on the song and decided to make their own versions of it separately. While they don't match up exactly like other songs (i.e. Default's wasting my time & Billy Gilman's One Voice) they are pretty damn close. The melody is only slightly different and both follow the same format (A-B-A-B-C-B-..). Fuel just adds a little more improv into the song. Anyway I like both songs but still.. They are the same. I challenge anyone to put them both on at the same time and tell me they are different.

Any comments?

Ok, now onto the big event for the day. Ok, so I was finished with my classes and the computer science “First Friday Meeting” had just gotten over and I was on my way to my car. All week I had this sneaking suspicion that I would be in for bad news and my fears were confirmed at this time. We drove right by where my car was parked Sunday night after I finished moving all my things into my dorm room and my car was no where to be found. Thinking we were all blind we took another sweep and sure enough, no car.

I was legally parked in a lot I had a sticker for so there should have been no reason why my car would be towed, but since I had heard so many horror stories about parking services at UMass I figured they must have towed the car. My first instinct was to immediately call them, but I just got their voice mail so a trip to the parking trailer was an order.

The person there looked up my license plate # on the computer and found no match so she said that they did not tow it, and that it might have been stolen but to call Amherst Towing to check. A quick call to Amherst Towing confirmed that indeed UMass had towed my car. They however said it was the police that ordered the tow.

The next step was to call the campus police. After a few minute chat with officer Kellog (I think that was what his name was) I was informed that most likely the car was towed because it was in a zone that you could not park in during move in. He said that there were signs posted everywhere, meters tied off, and housing informed everyone that you could not park there. I saw no signs when I parked there so if there were any they were clearly not visible. It was not at a meter, so ignore that. And no one EVER told me I could not park there. To top it all I parked the car there about 1am that night and it was towed at 1:35am according to the ticket. Lot 49 is free-for-all during nights so I was legally parked there anyway regardless of the sticker that was showing prominently from the window where it was supposed to be shown.

After getting off the phone with the police I stopped at the parking desk once more and again they were clueless but assured me that they would get the ticket soon (the car was towed almost a week ago and they didn’t have the record still??) and that I was to appeal whatever charges I got with them on Monday, but I would have to pay them for now. They said that the lot restrictions were not set up by them but the police so they had nothing to do with the towing…

Whatever, I needed to get to the 2600 meeting so I just left at this point and headed to Amherst Towing, about an 8 min drive away to retrieve my car. Sure enough the car was there, but the people there were very rude. Before leaving they raped my credit card of $175!!!! $90 for the tow + 5 days of storage. Bastards.

So yeah, that was the big event for my day. The rest of the day went well. The 2600 meeting was better then many and everyone had a great time making me forget about my car problem until I got back home.

Monday after classes I will be paying parking services a visit for sure and I *BETTER* get my money refunded. I’m pissed.

Summery: I was parked in the lot for which I had a permit, parked in a legal parking spot, it was in the middle of the night (when no permit was required), there was no easy to see sign saying no parking (i.e. parking in front of parking spot), or any reason to think that the spot would not be legal (it was not in front of a building) yet I got toed. AARGH!

Sorry for the long post. It’s 4:11am and I just needed to get that out. Also this is my first post in over a month so I felt the need to talk. =] I promise to post more often.

If you are interested here are the images (digi cam pics) of the ticket I got and the recept from amherst towing.