Parking Enforcement Systems

My boyfriend and I were visiting Birmingham from out of town and went to South Side to have lunch before checking into our hotel. We found a lot that charged $ 5 a day behind Jim and Nick’s BBQ and decided to park there. I was a little wary about it because there was not a person collecting money or monitoring the lot, but we were hungry so we placed $ 5 in the spot where we parked and walked to a nearby restaurant. 45 minutes after parking, we came back to get our car and it was gone along with all of our bags. We assumed it had been stolen at first, but after calling 4 different numbers seen on signs or left on recordings, a woman told us that our car had been towed 10 minutes after parking because we had not paid. We asked if there were any cameras where we could verify that we had in fact paid and we were told no. We were also told that the tow truck driver makes a video before collecting the money but we were never shown this video. The woman drove to the lot and opened the lock box and our money was in the slot exactly where we had left it 45 minutes before. At this point the tow truck driver began to scream at the woman over the phone that we were lying and that he would not give us back our car unless we paid the $ 165 fee. We realized that this company did not properly monitor the lot or lock box and that it was our word against theirs. They had taken our car with all of our belongings and were essentially holding it hostage– so we reluctantly paid. We will be disputing the charges with the bank as we paid the money as required to park and our car was towed.