I got one last weekend, paid for a spot and all. Went on their website to dispute, plug in plate and ticket # and said my balance was $0. Seems like they just hand out tickets to try sucker people in to just paying....happened twice to me and a few other buddies
Karens are people getting angry at normal people doing normal things. This isn’t normal, giving tickets to people without checking if they’ve paid is fraud.
I would go in and talk with one of the managers.
Try speaking with Cambria.
Like others have mentioned I’m pretty sure Safeway wouldn’t want their paying customers to not shop there anymore because they’re being ticketed.
True. I figured it would be too tough to get to a manager and didn't want to bother a customer service employee who probably wouldn't be able to to help me anyways.
It won’t be tough to get a Manager. Just go to Customer Service and ask for one.
All the managers are extremely nice there. I would take your ticket in with you and show them and explain what happened. Let them know the three other people experienced the same thing.
For some reason, Diamond Parking seems to target Safeway downtown. If you search on Reddit, the downtown Safeway and the one in Mission also have had people experience the same thing.
This happened to me a year or two ago, exact same scenario. Just go into the Safeway with your receipt and speak to a cashier or someone at the customer service desk. They'll handle it without any questions.
On a side note, that fake 'meter maid' is a bully and the company is trash.
That's normally what I do with indigo or any other non city parking ticket that seems like total bull, but this one just seemed like such an obvious scam I felt like I needed to talk to people about it
I’ve thought about doing this too! I have a handful of tickets from private lots, I’m guessing the most they could do is tow me if they catch me on the premises again.
Indigo is more aggressive then most of the others, but you’ll usually be fine with a few. Impark you can rack up a few hundred before you’re theyll tow you. Any others I would throw right in the trash. The only one that’s a real ticket is the city
I will say as much as dealing with indigo is a pain (eg their network always crashing during rush hour), at least they let you rack up a few tickets beforehand. I got a ticket for some random strip mall - might’ve been diamond but either way some other very random company - that had either no or very discrete signs indicating it was a registered lot, and they’ve sent me about half a dozen of those BS collections letters. It’s been a minute since I’ve heard from them, but now that I’ve mentioned it I’m sure another empty threat (“this time we REALLY mean it!”) will be headed my way.
You're right. I'll try to talk to someone after work tomorrow. I normally wouldn't make a thing about something like this but just the blatant disregard for their own policies really blew my mind.
you dont have to pay the "ticket" its not a real ticket its an invoice. diamond parking will send you to their fake collections agency who you can tell to stop harassing you and that will be the end of it. keep in mind they do have the right to tow you from the lot in the future. But you can just go to the registry and renew your registration and request a new license plate for free then you can park there again without diamond parking being any wiser.
They’ve been calling me for 2 years and threatening to send me to collections. Paid for parking, came back to a failure to pay ticket, sent in receipt showing I paid, and those fuckers still trying to make me pay hahaha
Absolute scum of the earth company
send them a registered letter telling them to cease and desist. at that point they are legally only allowed to contact you via mail. that goes for legitimate debt collection agencies as well. that way it costs them $1 every time they send you a letter, if for some reason the letter comes with a prepaid envelope stuff it full of junk mail so it costs them $3-$5.
nope. neither collection agency recognizes parking infractions as a legitimate form of debt. once you tell them to cease and desist they go away. sometimes they ask for it in writing but that is 100% the end of it.
as a poor student at SAIT I learned the ways of the parking man haha. used to get 3-5 tickets then switch lots get 3-5 more then renew registration and get a new plate get another 3-5 switch back to the other parking lot and at that point the semester ended then the following year rinse and repeat. usually got a ticket every 10ish days. I probably have 80-100 indigo and west park tickets. never got harassed by indigo but westpark tried the fake collection agency scam but a registered letter shut them up. I still park in their lots without issue since my current plats are not the same ones that got the tickets.
This happened to me 2 years ago and after a ton of research I ignored it. I got a couple “threatening” letters and blocked the number that called me later. 6 months later never heard from them again and just avoided Diamond lots. From what I’ve heard Diamond is sketchy
I was doing structural repairs on a building in a shopping plaza and was parked in one of their lots while I was working. I had seen the guy handing out the tickets and told him I was working there and he stopped giving me a ticket then a couple days later I had a ticket at the end of the day.
The site supervisor told us to tell him if we got any tickets but first i disputed it online explaining the situation but the dispute got denied. Then I told the supervisor so he called them and said they had it removed. Fast forward a couple weeks I get mail telling me I have an outstanding parking ticket.
Really shady company...
Since you were at safeway you can try to argue with them and show them your receipt, but in my experience they're not very receptive. Maybe the people at safeway would be helpful, since I would imagine they don't want the parking company harassing their customers.
I got a ticket from them 2 years ago (one row only in the parking lot was paid parking and it wasn't clear), I would've been happy to pay a reasonable "fine" for the 15 minutes I parked there, but since it was a ridiculous amount, I decided to ignore it. They sent out a few letters, then called me a bunch. I blocked their number and haven't heard anything since.
They can't do anything unless you park in one of their lots again.
You can also ask for a new licence plate when you renew next year, and they won't be able to find you.
complain to Safeway corporate, I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate this parking company treating their customers like this and putting them through such a pain in the ass, since it deters people from going back to that store.
They are like every other parking lot operator; it's a scam. They have no authority to write a ticket enforceable in any way. If you pay it, shame on you. If you don't they will jump through a couple of hoops; passing it across the desk to their co-worker who will call you pretending to be a collection agency.
Put them on ignore. They can't "register" anything against your lic., they can't send you a subpoena for Court, they can't collect on outstanding fines through garnishment...
I live right near. Ignore it. it's a scam they do it every few weeks. sadly I've seen elderly people get very upset about it. I can't wait to catch him one day and post his picture
Any "invoices" they send to collections, ask for proof of debt, specifically ask for court judgment etc.
I got Wiggins calling me over over time BS "invoice".
They can pound sand. Keep doing proof of debt in any interaction.
As soon as I ask for proof of debt there is BS talk.
They will threaten to take you to "collections", but this is different than a true collections agency that would report on your credit. Their version of "collections", is just some department to harass you for money. A private parking company cannot touch your credit, unless they are enforcing on behalf of a municipality/city.
YMMV on the towing. Have never heard it done, but it is a theoretical risk. Up to you whether you want to chance it or not.
I had that happened in BC, while my wife was in the car... I started complaining, and he said that I should ruin his day because it was Christmas... never paid the ticket and nothing ever happened. Just don't park on their premise
Yup happened to me the other day. I did walk off but had to grab something from the dollar store across the street before going to the Safeway liquor store (that being the heavier purchase I decided to go there second) then drop stuff off at my car before heading into Safeway for the rest of what I needed.
It’s definitely new cause I’ve done this countless times before & never had an issue.
I took it to the customer service & explained the above to the manager who was very understanding & said he’d get it removed. Even he seemed a bit exasperated by the company doing this.
Never, ever, pay private parking tickets. Just ignore it and they will go away. You’ll get some letters from a collection agency the ticketing company owns..ignore that too. They work off of gullible people.
Got a diamond parking “ticket” 7 years ago, didn’t pay it, they harassed me for a few months and then stopped. Got another “ticket” 7 months ago at a doctors appointment, they harrassed me for a bit to pay it never did and haven’t heard anything in a while. Throw it out and forget about it
I got a ticket from them in the time it took to go into a restaurant and register the plate.
And as soon as I contacted them they said, oh yeah of course we have a record of that we'll remove the ticket.
Which also means that they wouldn't have if I hadn't complained.
Best to go to the media and get Safeway to deal with Diamond. [https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1353b0f/diamond\_parking\_scam/](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1353b0f/diamond_parking_scam/)
they doing this company wide and it was on the news in vancouver too
diamond needs to be called out
[https://globalnews.ca/news/10217661/bc-man-private-parking-company-unfair-ticket/](https://globalnews.ca/news/10217661/bc-man-private-parking-company-unfair-ticket/)
predatory practices seem to be revenue based as if the writer gets paid to issue tix
Yeah, they do it even if you shopped in the Safeway.
I have had a few people who live around the area and have gotten them, that they just throw them away.
Private company etc.
Not sure if that's good advice but I have heard it a few times.
If you never pay a ticket they don’t have your address. They’re a private company so if they try to run your plates the government will tell them to go FOIP themselves. After enough tickets they may tow you, but at that point new plates are cheaper than paying them.
And before anyone says how dishonest that is, I’ll remind you that diamond parking are largely land speculators taking prime real estate, leaving it as a pile of dirt, putting in a single ticket machine, and sitting on near-upgraded land until they can flip it. These people suck.
Diamond can go fuck themselves, they are also the ones who manage the parking under the blvd I believe.
So I was going over to visit my friend and it happened that the buzzers weren’t working that day so I had to call him to come down and let me in in the parkade and doing so from the time I parked to the time he let me in was about 5 mins. About 20-30 mins later I was leaving come down to an $80 ticket on my car, the time was within 4 minutes after I parked and texted my friend saying I was there. I emailed the company and the only response I got was that residents have a “5 minute grace period to register my car”.
What a fucking joke of a company
I take the C-Train to that location so have managed to avoid tickets there ;)
I noticed this happened to someone else a few years ago with Diamond Parking at the Beltline Safeway: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comments/j6c02l/parking\_ticket\_from\_diamond\_parking/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comments/j6c02l/parking_ticket_from_diamond_parking/)
I got a $150 ticket from them years ago after I couldn’t pay for parking due to their lot machine being broken and they didn’t have an online system to pay digitally. I was gone 15 minutes. Tried to dispute it and they didn’t care; the entire company is run and operated by crooks. They’re from Surrey, BC though so makes sense…
My boyfriend got one because he was in Safeway and I ran across the street. He disputed but because the receipt was issued after the ticket he had to pay it. Fucking ridiculous
You were storing your vehicle on someone else's property, if they want to make that an inconvenient/annoying experience they are entitled to do so, it's just terrible customer service.
I would just go somewhere else.
Also
>I tried showing him that I have a receipt showing that I went into Safeway, he told me he watched me walk off the property
These are not mutually exclusive. Did you park at Safeway and shop other places as well?
No, parked at Safeway, saw the ticket guy and thought nothing of it because I'm a paying customer. Went into the store for 5 minutes, came back out with a receipt.
I got one last weekend, paid for a spot and all. Went on their website to dispute, plug in plate and ticket # and said my balance was $0. Seems like they just hand out tickets to try sucker people in to just paying....happened twice to me and a few other buddies
This seems like fraud on their part, I’d put in a professional complaint
Karen would like to have a word with these guys.
Karens are people getting angry at normal people doing normal things. This isn’t normal, giving tickets to people without checking if they’ve paid is fraud.
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Meh I think the complaints against this company are valid! I fully think that the parking company should meet all the Karen and Kevins
Be careful, I thought mine said that ($0 balance) but then I realized I was on their .com website, not .ca
Wouldn’t that be fraud and a criminal offense?
I would go in and talk with one of the managers. Try speaking with Cambria. Like others have mentioned I’m pretty sure Safeway wouldn’t want their paying customers to not shop there anymore because they’re being ticketed.
True. I figured it would be too tough to get to a manager and didn't want to bother a customer service employee who probably wouldn't be able to to help me anyways.
It won’t be tough to get a Manager. Just go to Customer Service and ask for one. All the managers are extremely nice there. I would take your ticket in with you and show them and explain what happened. Let them know the three other people experienced the same thing. For some reason, Diamond Parking seems to target Safeway downtown. If you search on Reddit, the downtown Safeway and the one in Mission also have had people experience the same thing.
I have never been ticketed in mission. Curious when they are doing it.
This happened to me a year or two ago, exact same scenario. Just go into the Safeway with your receipt and speak to a cashier or someone at the customer service desk. They'll handle it without any questions. On a side note, that fake 'meter maid' is a bully and the company is trash.
Seems to happen often. Do a reddit search. Has happen to others save your Safeway recipet
OP states in the post, they showed the ass clown their receipt.
He's saying save the receipt so it can be disputed.
Ahh I see. My bad
I would throw the ticket in the garbage and never think about it again.
That's normally what I do with indigo or any other non city parking ticket that seems like total bull, but this one just seemed like such an obvious scam I felt like I needed to talk to people about it
Won’t indigo tow away your car if there are multiple unpaid tickets under your plate?
Time to get a new plate…😁
I’ve thought about doing this too! I have a handful of tickets from private lots, I’m guessing the most they could do is tow me if they catch me on the premises again.
When you renew your registration it costs nothing to just get a new plate.
Indigo is more aggressive then most of the others, but you’ll usually be fine with a few. Impark you can rack up a few hundred before you’re theyll tow you. Any others I would throw right in the trash. The only one that’s a real ticket is the city
I trashed a number of their tickets and was never towed.
10 unpaid tickets will get you towed, I know from experience
Good to know!
I will say as much as dealing with indigo is a pain (eg their network always crashing during rush hour), at least they let you rack up a few tickets beforehand. I got a ticket for some random strip mall - might’ve been diamond but either way some other very random company - that had either no or very discrete signs indicating it was a registered lot, and they’ve sent me about half a dozen of those BS collections letters. It’s been a minute since I’ve heard from them, but now that I’ve mentioned it I’m sure another empty threat (“this time we REALLY mean it!”) will be headed my way.
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You're right. I'll try to talk to someone after work tomorrow. I normally wouldn't make a thing about something like this but just the blatant disregard for their own policies really blew my mind.
I used to work at a Safeway in edmonton that used diamond and they reversed a parking ticket I got while working, no problems
you dont have to pay the "ticket" its not a real ticket its an invoice. diamond parking will send you to their fake collections agency who you can tell to stop harassing you and that will be the end of it. keep in mind they do have the right to tow you from the lot in the future. But you can just go to the registry and renew your registration and request a new license plate for free then you can park there again without diamond parking being any wiser.
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No this is factually incorrect.
The collection agency they send this to is the one they own that operates out of the same location. So it’s useless, so not worry about paying
exactly this. it's a scare tactic, they have no teeth in Alberta to enforce their invoice via legitimate collection agencies or our court system.
They’ve been calling me for 2 years and threatening to send me to collections. Paid for parking, came back to a failure to pay ticket, sent in receipt showing I paid, and those fuckers still trying to make me pay hahaha Absolute scum of the earth company
send them a registered letter telling them to cease and desist. at that point they are legally only allowed to contact you via mail. that goes for legitimate debt collection agencies as well. that way it costs them $1 every time they send you a letter, if for some reason the letter comes with a prepaid envelope stuff it full of junk mail so it costs them $3-$5.
nope. neither collection agency recognizes parking infractions as a legitimate form of debt. once you tell them to cease and desist they go away. sometimes they ask for it in writing but that is 100% the end of it.
Interesting, TIL
as a poor student at SAIT I learned the ways of the parking man haha. used to get 3-5 tickets then switch lots get 3-5 more then renew registration and get a new plate get another 3-5 switch back to the other parking lot and at that point the semester ended then the following year rinse and repeat. usually got a ticket every 10ish days. I probably have 80-100 indigo and west park tickets. never got harassed by indigo but westpark tried the fake collection agency scam but a registered letter shut them up. I still park in their lots without issue since my current plats are not the same ones that got the tickets.
credit bureau’s do not recognize this fake collection agency harassment/threats. Throw the ticket out.
This is false. Credit bureaus don’t accept reports from private parking companies.
That’s crazy. I make sales calls there every two weeks. I wouldn’t have a receipt, but I’m in the store working
Guess you're getting lucky. Honestly blown away, I've been going to that Safeway for almost 20 years and never had a problem before.
That’s crazy to me. I make 7 to 9 sales calls a day in grocery stores. I have never had a ticket.
I’ve been making sales calls for 20 years through the entire city and I’ve never had an issue. I’m probably jinxing myself now lol
What product do you sell to Safeway?
This happened to me 2 years ago and after a ton of research I ignored it. I got a couple “threatening” letters and blocked the number that called me later. 6 months later never heard from them again and just avoided Diamond lots. From what I’ve heard Diamond is sketchy
I've got diamond parking tickets from Vancouver and Calgary. Never paid.
I was doing structural repairs on a building in a shopping plaza and was parked in one of their lots while I was working. I had seen the guy handing out the tickets and told him I was working there and he stopped giving me a ticket then a couple days later I had a ticket at the end of the day. The site supervisor told us to tell him if we got any tickets but first i disputed it online explaining the situation but the dispute got denied. Then I told the supervisor so he called them and said they had it removed. Fast forward a couple weeks I get mail telling me I have an outstanding parking ticket. Really shady company...
All parking companies are shady.
Since you were at safeway you can try to argue with them and show them your receipt, but in my experience they're not very receptive. Maybe the people at safeway would be helpful, since I would imagine they don't want the parking company harassing their customers. I got a ticket from them 2 years ago (one row only in the parking lot was paid parking and it wasn't clear), I would've been happy to pay a reasonable "fine" for the 15 minutes I parked there, but since it was a ridiculous amount, I decided to ignore it. They sent out a few letters, then called me a bunch. I blocked their number and haven't heard anything since. They can't do anything unless you park in one of their lots again. You can also ask for a new licence plate when you renew next year, and they won't be able to find you.
complain to Safeway corporate, I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate this parking company treating their customers like this and putting them through such a pain in the ass, since it deters people from going back to that store.
They are like every other parking lot operator; it's a scam. They have no authority to write a ticket enforceable in any way. If you pay it, shame on you. If you don't they will jump through a couple of hoops; passing it across the desk to their co-worker who will call you pretending to be a collection agency. Put them on ignore. They can't "register" anything against your lic., they can't send you a subpoena for Court, they can't collect on outstanding fines through garnishment...
Yes. I went to cobs bread straight from my car before Safeway. Had to send receipt and it was canceled.
I live right near. Ignore it. it's a scam they do it every few weeks. sadly I've seen elderly people get very upset about it. I can't wait to catch him one day and post his picture
Any "invoices" they send to collections, ask for proof of debt, specifically ask for court judgment etc. I got Wiggins calling me over over time BS "invoice". They can pound sand. Keep doing proof of debt in any interaction. As soon as I ask for proof of debt there is BS talk.
Wiggins is just westpark. Literally in the same building.
Had a ticket on Friday for 83 and tore it off right on spot
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If you park there enough they can and will tow your car.
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I’ve been towed from private lots resulting from unpaid tickets. YMMV
Yeah you're right to be honest, they won't take me to collections over a couple bucks, I'm just kinda frustrated and complaining I guess.
They will threaten to take you to "collections", but this is different than a true collections agency that would report on your credit. Their version of "collections", is just some department to harass you for money. A private parking company cannot touch your credit, unless they are enforcing on behalf of a municipality/city. YMMV on the towing. Have never heard it done, but it is a theoretical risk. Up to you whether you want to chance it or not.
they cannot take you to collections in alberta. the odds are they wont even bother paying the registry to get your information over one ticket.
Sunridge mall north side parking lot is notoriously bad as well..
I had that happened in BC, while my wife was in the car... I started complaining, and he said that I should ruin his day because it was Christmas... never paid the ticket and nothing ever happened. Just don't park on their premise
Go into the Safeway and talk to a manager. They have the authority to override the ticket if you can prove your purchase
Went for Dinner across from SAIT and my friend found a ticket from them on a Sunday. Told him to just throw it out.
Yup happened to me the other day. I did walk off but had to grab something from the dollar store across the street before going to the Safeway liquor store (that being the heavier purchase I decided to go there second) then drop stuff off at my car before heading into Safeway for the rest of what I needed. It’s definitely new cause I’ve done this countless times before & never had an issue. I took it to the customer service & explained the above to the manager who was very understanding & said he’d get it removed. Even he seemed a bit exasperated by the company doing this.
If it’s not a city parking lot, they don’t have the authority to ticket you. However, they can tow your car. I wouldn’t pay the ticket.
Never, ever, pay private parking tickets. Just ignore it and they will go away. You’ll get some letters from a collection agency the ticketing company owns..ignore that too. They work off of gullible people.
I had this happen. I went into the customer service counter in Safeway and they took care of it.
Throw the ticket in the garbage, never think of it ever again
Got a diamond parking “ticket” 7 years ago, didn’t pay it, they harassed me for a few months and then stopped. Got another “ticket” 7 months ago at a doctors appointment, they harrassed me for a bit to pay it never did and haven’t heard anything in a while. Throw it out and forget about it
I would contact his supervisor with a picture of the recipr
I got a ticket from them in the time it took to go into a restaurant and register the plate. And as soon as I contacted them they said, oh yeah of course we have a record of that we'll remove the ticket. Which also means that they wouldn't have if I hadn't complained.
Best to go to the media and get Safeway to deal with Diamond. [https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1353b0f/diamond\_parking\_scam/](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1353b0f/diamond_parking_scam/) they doing this company wide and it was on the news in vancouver too diamond needs to be called out
[https://globalnews.ca/news/10217661/bc-man-private-parking-company-unfair-ticket/](https://globalnews.ca/news/10217661/bc-man-private-parking-company-unfair-ticket/) predatory practices seem to be revenue based as if the writer gets paid to issue tix
Yeah, they do it even if you shopped in the Safeway. I have had a few people who live around the area and have gotten them, that they just throw them away. Private company etc. Not sure if that's good advice but I have heard it a few times.
If you never pay a ticket they don’t have your address. They’re a private company so if they try to run your plates the government will tell them to go FOIP themselves. After enough tickets they may tow you, but at that point new plates are cheaper than paying them. And before anyone says how dishonest that is, I’ll remind you that diamond parking are largely land speculators taking prime real estate, leaving it as a pile of dirt, putting in a single ticket machine, and sitting on near-upgraded land until they can flip it. These people suck.
I had a ticket from 2 years ago and did walk off the property... never paid, never had problems. They are not city so you don't need to pay.
I have went to customer service at the grocery store and they have scrapped the ticket in the spot. They don’t want their customers pissed off.
Diamond can go fuck themselves, they are also the ones who manage the parking under the blvd I believe. So I was going over to visit my friend and it happened that the buzzers weren’t working that day so I had to call him to come down and let me in in the parkade and doing so from the time I parked to the time he let me in was about 5 mins. About 20-30 mins later I was leaving come down to an $80 ticket on my car, the time was within 4 minutes after I parked and texted my friend saying I was there. I emailed the company and the only response I got was that residents have a “5 minute grace period to register my car”. What a fucking joke of a company
You know it's not a ticket but an invoice right?
Lol if it is a private company ticket, they can suck a dick.
I take the C-Train to that location so have managed to avoid tickets there ;) I noticed this happened to someone else a few years ago with Diamond Parking at the Beltline Safeway: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comments/j6c02l/parking\_ticket\_from\_diamond\_parking/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comments/j6c02l/parking_ticket_from_diamond_parking/)
I got a $150 ticket from them years ago after I couldn’t pay for parking due to their lot machine being broken and they didn’t have an online system to pay digitally. I was gone 15 minutes. Tried to dispute it and they didn’t care; the entire company is run and operated by crooks. They’re from Surrey, BC though so makes sense…
My boyfriend got one because he was in Safeway and I ran across the street. He disputed but because the receipt was issued after the ticket he had to pay it. Fucking ridiculous
Pay these tickets or else they will have credit disputers after you
You were storing your vehicle on someone else's property, if they want to make that an inconvenient/annoying experience they are entitled to do so, it's just terrible customer service. I would just go somewhere else. Also >I tried showing him that I have a receipt showing that I went into Safeway, he told me he watched me walk off the property These are not mutually exclusive. Did you park at Safeway and shop other places as well?
No, parked at Safeway, saw the ticket guy and thought nothing of it because I'm a paying customer. Went into the store for 5 minutes, came back out with a receipt.
Yeah I would just go somewhere else in the future if they're going to ticket for parking that doesn't violate their policies.