Speaker 1: You want to be an American?
Speaker 2: Want to here, seven hundred dollars you parked illegal?
Speaker 1: You pay? And guess what just got rob.
Speaker 2: We have a parking scam going on in America right now.
Speaker 2: On that is Attorney Carry Lutz, who's investigator also wrote
Speaker 2: a book about it.
Speaker 1: Carry, how are you doing great? And appreciate you helping
Speaker 1: to get the word out on this. It is a
Speaker 1: multi billion dollar scam that they soak us for five,
Speaker 1: ten fifty dollars at a time. You don't even realize
Speaker 1: that you're being taken. Many of the signs throughout the country,
Speaker 1: signs that say scam here to pay aren't legal. They
Speaker 1: aren't legal. They can't be writing tickets based on these signs.
Speaker 1: Signs in America street signs are strictly governed by the MUTCD,
Speaker 1: the law that you have been living by your whole life.
Speaker 1: You never even heard about it. It's the manual on
Speaker 1: uniform and emphasize uniform traffic control devices. Just substitute signs
Speaker 1: for traffic control devices. A sign is a traffic control
Speaker 1: device if and only if it conforms to federal standards.
Speaker 1: Every state has adopted this law and they can't write
Speaker 1: a ticket yet. They do every single day of the week.
Speaker 1: If the sign doesn't conform, and you all know the
Speaker 1: signs you've seen that.
Speaker 2: You just assume because say they have QR codes on them. Now,
Speaker 2: so carry out illegal As far as Cincinnati goes, we
Speaker 2: know cities across the country they've they've kind of privatized
Speaker 2: parking enforcement to tech companies basically, and you mentioned the
Speaker 2: signage clear sign is lawful noticeers app based contractors, but
Speaker 2: they also harvest your data. There's the penalty systemic will
Speaker 2: confuse rather than form, So it's kind of like this
Speaker 2: constitutional grazon. Now, I will say that Cincinnati has not
Speaker 2: yet fully outsourced our parking enforcement the way places like
Speaker 2: well Chicago or Pittsburgh have. So we hit the cubs
Speaker 2: and we hit the bucks.
Speaker 1: So there you go.
Speaker 2: Is run by the Parking Division of Cincinnati. Now they
Speaker 2: push the pay by Phone app, but that's a private
Speaker 2: third party platform that's operating a bunch of cities. And
Speaker 2: they also have the Sinsey Easy Park app for ebeit payment,
Speaker 2: which I use. But drivers he are still interact with
Speaker 2: private apps to pay meters. It's not as bad as
Speaker 2: other cities, but it feels like a slippery slop like
Speaker 2: it might be heading that.
Speaker 1: Way, it's getting there. When a city adopts an app,
Speaker 1: they find that their revenues from parking, both fees and
Speaker 1: violations go up forty to one hundred and sixty percent
Speaker 1: just from the app. And one other thing about the app.
Speaker 1: You know, and I know there are millions of miners
Speaker 1: driving the nation's highways. They get their licenses, some as
Speaker 1: early as fifteen. I think in a least of fourteen
Speaker 1: and up to seventeen. You're a minor. You can't enter
Speaker 1: into contracts. That's why a bank will not loan a
Speaker 1: child money. And uh, the when you actually download the
Speaker 1: app and click I accept, you are saying I waive
Speaker 1: my right to trial by jury, I wave my right
Speaker 1: to enter into a class action. I consent to have
Speaker 1: my data shared with God knows how many different partners
Speaker 1: that these apps are. I mean, it's a question of
Speaker 1: who don't they share your data with park Mobile. You
Speaker 1: can sent to have your data stored in foreign countries.
Speaker 1: And for miners, they're getting the geolocation, the exact location
Speaker 1: of a miner when they pay for the parking. And
Speaker 1: this is is just unconscionable. It's unacceptable. They endanger miners potentially,
Speaker 1: but they shouldn't be entering into contract and many states
Speaker 1: are passing laws requiring parental consent before the miner is
Speaker 1: allowed to even utilize an app or a game on
Speaker 1: the platform. I've written takedown notices to Google App Store
Speaker 1: and Apple App Store saying this thing is rated for
Speaker 1: four years and up, which means anybody can use it,
Speaker 1: and yet you're you're allowing miners to consent to sharing data.
Speaker 1: It's illegal, out and out. I've also sent complaints to
Speaker 1: the FTC, the Florida Attorney General, the Texas Attorney General,
Speaker 1: a number of others, the SEC because they're issuing bonds
Speaker 1: backed by parking revenues that are illegally illegal revenue streams.
Speaker 2: So when you said the signs themselves are are legal,
Speaker 2: like the QR code on the signs? First of all,
Speaker 2: are those ones that are on public streets. What about
Speaker 2: parking lots or city owned parking lots and you mentioned
Speaker 2: they can't write a citation for that.
Speaker 1: Why isn't okay? So when you have a city owned
Speaker 1: lot or a private parking facility, different rules apply. But
Speaker 1: even the city owned lot really needs to comply to
Speaker 1: some extent with the federal guidelines, but on street parking
Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about here. But if a parking
Speaker 1: lot connects to a street and part of it is
Speaker 1: a private road, effectively, then the standards apply. The point
Speaker 1: is they should be using those standards for any government
Speaker 1: owned parking facilities anywhere. I mean, for instance, the sign
Speaker 1: is supposed to be seven feet high. I wish I
Speaker 1: had a dollar for every sign that was six and
Speaker 1: a half or five feet high. It's supposed to face
Speaker 1: oncoming traffic. How many signs have you seen that are
Speaker 1: mounted parallel to the street. Unacceptable because the whole point
Speaker 1: of it is uniformity, so that if you're in Alaska
Speaker 1: or you're in Key West, you can get on the highway,
Speaker 1: you can see a sign. You don't have to think
Speaker 1: about it, you know exactly what it means. Also to
Speaker 1: stop somebody from say Portlandia or Seattle, they decide that
Speaker 1: they don't like the system and they want stop signs
Speaker 1: to be green and instead of red, and they want
Speaker 1: people to stop on green lights and go on red lights.
Speaker 2: Does that technical evy to gate the law? The enforcement law?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, because if the sign's defective, that is your due process,
Speaker 1: your notice of the law. You can't be expected to
Speaker 1: know a law if you haven't gotten notice to obey
Speaker 1: a law. And so in anything that comes from that,
Speaker 1: if the sign is illegal, got the tickets, they're llegal,
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: Cincinnati uses we have the Cincinnati Easy Park app. But
Speaker 2: also there's pay by Phone, which is a third party
Speaker 2: app and it's in well over a thousand cities. Well,
Speaker 2: who owns the data collected when a Cincinnati driver or
Speaker 2: a suburban driver, out of time driver goes in parks
Speaker 2: in Cincinnati use that app?
Speaker 1: What can I do with it? That's a great question. Now,
Speaker 1: really effectively, this is a big tech solution for a
Speaker 1: simple problem. So pretty much the app owns the data.
Speaker 1: This city might be able to obtain the data or
Speaker 1: certain portions of it, but the app owns the data.
Speaker 1: They own your data. And look in the we remember Obamacare.
Speaker 1: They said, if you don't get health insurance, then we're
Speaker 1: going to find you. And the Supreme Court said that's okay,
Speaker 1: because you do have a choice. But for instance, in
Speaker 1: the Town upon Beach, the President's home away from DC,
Speaker 1: the winter White House in that town, they have done
Speaker 1: away with all other forms of payment. So in other words,
Speaker 1: if you want to park in Palm Beach, you have
Speaker 1: to use the app, and that therefore they're forcing you
Speaker 1: into a private contract. And that's what all of them
Speaker 1: are doing. They all want you to use the app
Speaker 1: because they don't want to collect meters, they don't want
Speaker 1: pay stations. They want you to use the app, and
Speaker 1: they force you into a private contract. That's called coerced
Speaker 1: contracting compulsory contracting. And then it's with a third party,
Speaker 1: so you have to pay to pay to park because
Speaker 1: they charge you a convenience fee. I don't know who
Speaker 1: it's convenient for, whether it's for them or for you.
Speaker 1: But look, it's all on live site parkscam dot com.
Speaker 1: The book is there, and I think you know, it's
Speaker 1: been allowed to fester for too long. Originally, parking meters
Speaker 1: served a valid purpose, and that was they didn't want
Speaker 1: people parking in front of merchants all day long.
Speaker 2: They went to squat and there basically get treated like
Speaker 2: a parking lot because they want to They want to
Speaker 2: turn traffic over so people can't spend money. Start sure,
Speaker 2: and it's now it's turned to well, I think I
Speaker 2: think Chicago is a great example they've knew this for
Speaker 2: a long long time, and that's considered by many people
Speaker 2: the disaster. But uh, that is like how it gets
Speaker 2: sold to councils. And you know, we're always looking for money,
Speaker 2: right the city of Cincinnati, we need money. We sold
Speaker 2: our railroad so we could fix the roads here that
Speaker 2: have been ill repaired for twenty plus years. This feels
Speaker 2: like something they go, wow, okay, well can we make
Speaker 2: some money off this thing? Much money, much like Ohio
Speaker 2: did before they passed long these law which which outlawed
Speaker 2: these speed cameras, and so you know, you'd go through
Speaker 2: a Yeah, you get this ticket in the mail. I
Speaker 2: didn't even know alw was driving the car, and you know,
Speaker 2: we're paying these exorbitant fees and you couldn't fight it
Speaker 2: because there's some odd of state po box and that
Speaker 2: got struck down in Ohio smartly enough. This sounds like
Speaker 2: it's like the next incarnation of that.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping it will be. I've sued the six municipalities.
Speaker 1: I sued three parking apps in the US District Court
Speaker 1: in South Florida, and they're going to have to account
Speaker 1: for it. I've also put in some complaints to the
Speaker 1: Florida Department of Transportation, they've been very upset about street
Speaker 1: art that it's not a traffic control device, it's illegal,
Speaker 1: and it's issued an opinion said all illegal traffic control
Speaker 1: devices need to be immediately removed because they're a danger
Speaker 1: to the road. And yet these parking signs are abundant
Speaker 1: and the towns the cities view them as free money.
Speaker 1: But in the end they really injure merchants. Downtowns were
Speaker 1: ruined by parking, and that's why people started going to malls.
Speaker 1: And the more they this is just an extra active system.
Speaker 1: They provide you no value, all right, no value whatsoever
Speaker 1: for parking. It's we own the curves, right, the public
Speaker 1: owns the streets, so they're charging you. You know, I
Speaker 1: get the fact you need turnover. You don't want somebody
Speaker 1: hogging all the all the retail, right, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And private parking that's a private matter between you and
Speaker 1: the owner of the garage. But when they use an app,
Speaker 1: and you can't even park in the facility unless you
Speaker 1: use the app, all right, so you have a choice,
Speaker 1: so I won't park there. But for children getting their
Speaker 1: data shared, and basically the app is a data harvesting tool.
Speaker 1: Would you believe that the app actually creates or has
Speaker 1: the ability to create a behavioral profile of the user.
Speaker 1: They know when you go to work, they know whenever
Speaker 1: you park, and then that picks up patterns and then
Speaker 1: they market to you these app companies. I get monthly
Speaker 1: emails from park Mobile saying join the private park Mobile
Speaker 1: Club and you two can you know? It does the
Speaker 1: thing that every app should do, which is, if you're
Speaker 1: running late, you should have the ability to automatically extend time. Well,
Speaker 1: their private club app does that, and they don't charge
Speaker 1: convenience fees, but they're regular app that the general public
Speaker 1: downloads doesn't automatically spend time. So if they could do
Speaker 1: it for the people paying, why can't they do it
Speaker 1: for the people who are who are just there casually.
Speaker 2: Carry lots at parkscam dot com and not bad yet.
Speaker 2: Here in Cincinnati, we're talking about the pay by phone app.
Speaker 2: Since the easy park is meter payment here in the
Speaker 2: city has that and everything's enforced by the Parking Division BUD.
Speaker 2: The pay by phone is being used in some lots
Speaker 2: in other areas, and it's kind of like Mission Creep,
Speaker 2: and the idea here is you're forced to enter a
Speaker 2: third party contract outside the scope of Cincinnati, much like
Speaker 2: we did with speed cameras, where even if you follow
Speaker 2: the signs and think you parked legally, you can still
Speaker 2: get a ticket. How does that actually happen though it
Speaker 2: sign says I can park here at park, I pay,
Speaker 2: and I still get a ticket. What's going on?
Speaker 1: Well, you think the sign says that, and a lot
Speaker 1: of tickets are actually thrown out when people take the time,
Speaker 1: when you take the time to actually challenge them and
Speaker 1: the parking enforcement officer what we used to affectionately called
Speaker 1: meter maids. They don't know the law generally any better
Speaker 1: than you do. All they do is scan your plate.
Speaker 1: The thing says violation, create ticket, and that's what they do.
Speaker 1: It's more and more an automated process. They even have
Speaker 1: cameras that clock you when you come in and then
Speaker 1: when you leave, and if you stay two minutes over
Speaker 1: you get a violation. So all of it is just
Speaker 1: it's just gotten to the point where it's just totally extracted.
Speaker 1: It just provides no value and it needs to stop.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that there's like a constancial gray zone that
Speaker 2: no regular or wants to claim jurisdiction at the federal
Speaker 2: state are here in sincinnat the local level. So how
Speaker 2: does that? What's the gray zone? And who should be
Speaker 2: mine in the store? Why aren't they?
Speaker 1: Well, it's every So the NUTCD that's the Bible of
Speaker 1: the road. It's twelve hundred thick pages of every sign,
Speaker 1: speed limits, of traffic lights, you name it, markings on curbs,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And in it every state has had to
Speaker 1: adopt it. They passed laws generally, and so basically in Florida,
Speaker 1: the Florida Department of Exportation is responsible to see that
Speaker 1: this thing is carried out and they have the ability
Speaker 1: as well as the Feds, to say, you're not complying
Speaker 1: with the manual, you're losing highway funds. And that's what
Speaker 1: Florida is doing with the street art, getting the cities
Speaker 1: to remove the street art, saying this is a traffic
Speaker 1: control device and it doesn't comply and you're losing your money.
Speaker 1: And it's millions of dollars a city like Fort Lauderdale.
Speaker 1: So every every state has the ability to actually implement
Speaker 1: this and force these cities to comply with the law.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they're making money off it. That's the whole driver,
Speaker 2: this thing which asks the begs the question. More and
Speaker 2: more cities each day must be privatizing the parking apps
Speaker 2: and things like that because they're making money.
Speaker 1: Right. Oh, of course, there is an area in a
Speaker 1: city here called Riviera Beach, Singer Island, very plush, and
Speaker 1: they implemented a parking system in a lot that forever
Speaker 1: had been free, and the prices are outrageous. This is
Speaker 1: what started me off on the whole thing. And they
Speaker 1: figured they could bring in a couple million dollars a year. Well,
Speaker 1: except they privatized the entire system where city employees don't
Speaker 1: even write the tickets. It's the private employees write the
Speaker 1: ticket and they and then the judge, jury and executioner.
Speaker 1: They actually they actually there's an ammunication portal and you
Speaker 1: basically if you want to challenge the ticket, you go
Speaker 1: to this site and then you have to struggle to
Speaker 1: find the link that says challenge this ticket, and then
Speaker 1: they decide whether or not you have a valid plane,
Speaker 1: and then they want to charge you for an arbitrator
Speaker 1: if you don't agree with their decision.
Speaker 2: But it sounds like it sounds almost exactly like the
Speaker 2: speed camera thing.
Speaker 1: We had here.
Speaker 2: It's a profit center. It's not about public right away
Speaker 2: and enforcement. He's carry Lutz for more on this. It's
Speaker 2: parkscam dot com, America's great parking scam, parkscam dot com,
Speaker 2: carry lots. Thanks for the time, appreciate it anytime.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the interesting part. But again, you know, Cincinnat, we're
Speaker 2: not yet fully outsourcing this. We do have the since
Speaker 2: the easy park app, which I think as far as
Speaker 2: I can tell someone about the city, but they do
Speaker 2: push the pay by phone app, which is a private,
Speaker 2: third party platform like Carry's talking about here. So it's
Speaker 2: a mission creep for Warners Forum especially. I mean, you're
Speaker 2: going to a Reds game in Pittsburgh or Chicago or
Speaker 2: other cities, they have this there, so just FYI. Scott's
Speaker 2: Loan Show seven hundred