STARBUCKS parking scam supplements business Atlanta, Georgia

He is some sort of troll that consistently responds to every report here and ALWAYS sides with big business.  You did nothing wrong, shopping center parking is for the whole shopping center.  That is just too bad if one store has the parking in front of their store empty and customers from other stores park in front of the business.  The tenants in a shopping center rent the building, not the lot.  Parking may be enforced for shopping center customers as a whole, not individual businesses.  The whole idea of a shopping center is so a customer may park in one spot and patronize several businesses without moving their vehicle. 

That is why landlords often forbid tenants of strip malls from banning customers from bringing in packages from other stores, or trying to stake out a claim to certain parking spots.  You were ripped off.  Want to get back at them?  Assemble a large crowd of people, have them all drive themselves and park their cars in front of the store.  Let them fill the lot up.  Then each of you go in, order tap waters or the cheapest things you can and lounge around filling up the dining room for an hour or so.  Buy nothing else.  Go at the busiest times of the day, repeat several times a week.  That will show that scam artist!

I agree that this was a dumb fine if the time span and situation was as described. I just see inconsistencies.

They booted your car in 5 minutes while you were getting a sandwich? So, that means they have boots sitting behind the register? No, they have to call a company, who get dispatched out to boot vehicles. That typically takes well over 5 minutes. I temped for one. Unless they were next door or something.

Also, the rebuttal has inconsistencies. So, it was the landlord's idea to put up "Starbuck parking only" signs and convince Starbuck management to boot vehicles / fine for leaving premises?

As far as my knowledge, owners of commercial properties don't hold training classes for the management that are leasing their space and train the employees of that leased space to monitor parking. That rebuttal makes sense only if the landlord is also the franchisee of that Starbucks.

Don't get me wrong, I would be pretty upset that this happened to me. It sounds to me like it is pretty futile of them if this is their policy, because my mental image is that your car is now booted in front of their store until the fine gets paid. This defeats the purpose of protecting parking space, as they now have to wait until money exchanges hands and the boot people come by to remove the boot until they get their parking space back.

Received a call from Starbucks District Mgr. He said he was not aware this was happening and that those are the actions of the landlord. He says he will speak with landlord this week. He says he doesnt know name of landlord, but will call me back with that info later in week. will update

You are no better than those "vultures" who park in handicapped parking to just "run" into the store, go to the Red Box DVD returns, etc etc

YOU parked in a space for Starbucks and guess what? You got what you deserved by running another errand - If you "friend" needed a sandwich so bad then that friend should have gotten their own food and you should have been in the location stated on the signs

   Whoever was responsible for teaching you reading comprehension ripped you off.

    If you think parking in a "Starbucks only" spot and then going directly to another establishment is OK, you've got bigger problems.

    The reason this "vulture" was there is because that particular Starbucks is having problems with people taking up their parking spots while doing business elsewhere.   That's why they put up the signs, but obviously those were not good enough for folks like you, so they were forced to go the "vulture" route.

It just amazes me why people put themselves into these situations in the first place. Then when "caught" want to blame everyone else and think that they should be the exception.

There are signs in large lettering sayng parking for Starbucks only,

- Okay and what part of the sign with "large letters" gave you an indication that it was okay to go to another store to buy a sandwich.

Friend asked me to get him sandwich from place next door. We go & are there 5 min. We go outside & before I go into Starbucks...I paid attention to part saying For Starbucks customers so I wasnt worried because thats why I was there

- So again you "paid attention" to the part that said "For Starbucks Customers" and are wondering why they booted your car when you went to the Sandwich shop before you went to Starbucks.  Oh and I am sure they never had someone go to the sandwich shop and when booted say..Oh no I was going to go to Starbucks "after".

Perhaps Starbucks was tired of people parking there taking up spaces for their real customers.  As long as the towing company followed the law they were within their rights to do that.  So your only recourse would be to investigate that and see if they were allowed to boot it in that situation.