I appreciate more than I can say that Juliet Mason didn't just jump to the conclusion - like our men folks in Blue did - that this was a "homeless man" behind her ripoff. I get more than a little tired of the jump to conclusions by police because it isn't fair to any of us that they can scapegoat and "solve" cases simply by blaming the homeless community.
Btw, when I first moved to Nashville, I was riding my motorcycle downtown during a special event and I parked near the walking bridge. As we put away our helmets, a man approached me, well dressed like other parking lot attendants in the area who were hawking private lots for outrageous fees, and began hovering nearby while he told me what a great spot I'd gotten. He then said "that'll be ten dollars" with a big smile on his face and I looked at him and because I knew the place I'd parked was free, asked him, "how can you charge money for parking on state property?" He just laughed, waved me off and walked away. Woman Says She Was Scammed While Parking Downtown
Police Are Trying To Catch A Phony Parking Attendant
POSTED: 5:55 pm CST February 20, 2010
UPDATED: 6:06 pm CST February 20, 2010
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Parking anywhere in downtown Nashville is challenging enough, but now we've learned there's someone trying to scam you out of your money.
Late last month, Juliet Mason was going to a concert at the Schermerhorn. She was approached by what she thought was a parking attendant. Mason said, “He had a tag on and everything and he asked us, well he actually ushered us into the spot.”
Mason then paid the attendant $10 and parked in the lot at the corner of Fourth and Demonbreun Streets. She was inside the concert hall for only 45 minutes she said.
“When we came back out and was getting ready to leave, we saw no car,” she said.
Mason filed a police report and that's when she found out this had happened before.
She said police told her, “This was supposedly a homeless person scamming people at these parking lots.”
It's a private lot, clearly marked with signs, but police told her someone is posing as a parking attendant and taking people's money $10 at a time.
Mason wrote a letter to her Councilman, Michael Craddock.
Craddock said, “It appears that some unscrupulous person is charging people to park in this lot and they don't have the authority to do that.”
Craddock feels something should be done.
“I don't know what the answer is, maybe the city council needs to pass an ordinance where you have to identify yourself or wear certain apparel if you work in one of these lots,” he said.
For Mason, part of the scam was that this particular person she encountered did have what appeared to be identification as a parking attendant.
“He had a hangtag that made him look official,” she said.
She now feels this could be something larger than the suspected homeless man posing as a parking attendant.
“It looks like a set up to tow you, that's what it looks like,” she said.
Channel 4 spoke with the owners of the lot. Greg Culpepper at Music City Coin said he is aware of the problem. Culpepper and another owner spent Saturday getting ready to install security cameras in front of their building in hopes of helping police find who's scamming people for parking.
