The internet is all abuzz about ESPN barbie doll Britt McHenry nastily mocking an apparently overweight parking lot attendant, making fun of her weight, teeth, and lack of education.
http://nypost.com/2015/04/16/espn-re...-in-ugly-rant/
On the surface, it seems like an entitled C-list celebrity acting as if she's better than a common working person.
However, it came out that this dispute involved McHenry's car being towed from the lot. There are no details about the reason her car was towed, but this actually makes me believe that perhaps the nastiness was justified.
There is a little-known scam involving parking lots and towing companies.
The scam goes like this:
- Shady towing company identifies parking lots in locations where parking is often at a premium, and people sometimes park there for a brief period of time in order to visit neighboring businesses
- Shady towing company offers parking lot a piece of the proceeds from towed cars if they allow them to "patrol" the lot
- Shady towing company hides a tow truck on premises and "lies in wait", viewing the lot and waiting for the moment someone parks their car and walks off property
- Shady towing company rushes to tow the car, and gets it on the truck and off the lot in less than 5 minutes
- Shady towing company charges hundreds of dollars to driver to get their car back, often raising the price even further on nights and weekends
Unfortunately, this is completely legal. Many such scams exist in Las Vegas, and completely violate the spirit of the law authorizing such tows. In fact, many times these towing companies are hiding out after hours, when all of the businesses associated with the parking lot are closed (and therefore they can't claim that they need the parking for customers).
I have a feeling that McHenry was probably a victim of one of these scams, given how angry she was, along with her threats to sue.
It is also possible that she just parked illegally there and was towed, and then felt entitled to get her car back for free.
But if she really stepped off property for 5 minutes and found one of these shadeball towing companies had taken her car, I can understand why she went off on anyone she could find who was associated with the situation.
I was a victim of this in 2000 in Las Vegas, and was one of the very few to ever get my money back, because I challenged them to prove that I had stepped off property, and they could not. They tried every lie and trick in the book to "prove" they had the goods on me, including lying about having me on video. Even after ultimately backing down (only after I pressured the parking lot owner), they repeatedly lied about sending me a check, but I finally showed up at their office and hassled them until they gave me the promised check that had always been "in the mail" for months. Everyone who worked at the depressing North Las Vegas office looked as if they had a criminal background. Most of the victims (in line to pay to get their car back) appeared to be fairly poor, and the $300 or so that they had to cough up looked like it would really affect them. I felt bad for these people being victims of these shady assholes. One girl was telling her mom that her car actually broke down in the lot, and when she went across the street to make a pay phone call about it, the company towed her. The Las Vegas police told me that they had countless complaints about this towing company, but there was nothing they could do.
Many towing companies also have really shady deals with apartment complexes, towing cars for "violations" such as simply having their license plate tags expired by 1 month, even if the car in the spot is registered to the tenant and registered with the apartment complex office. Usually the manager of the complex gets kickbacks for this. I think this was happening at the last complex I lived in Las Vegas, and one of my friends there fell victim to it.