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Between how much it costs—ranging anywhere from one dollar to $11 per hour—and how difficult it is to even find a spot, parking in Vancouver is a struggle. 

When it comes to private parking lots, people are at risk of being wrongfully issued parking tickets by companies like EasyPark, Impark, and Diamond Parking. These companies have also made the process for paying and disputing tickets extremely convoluted.

A waste of time

People on Reddit are sharing their experiences with private parking in Vancouver.

One user received a ticket from Impark at the St. Paul’s Hospital parkade during the period of time that they had paid for. They disputed it and the ticket was cancelled a few days later.

“It sucks to go through hoops for a mistake they made,” they write, “and no apology from their end for wasting our time.”

Paul Doroshenko, a Vancouver criminal lawyer from Acumen Law Corporation, has noticed that private parking companies have made it “more difficult to pay for tickets and impossible to contest them.”

He continues: “It’s not a fair business practice to not provide people with a real opportunity to dispute their tickets.”

Another Redditor paid at an EasyPark kiosk, but was still ticketed 15 minutes later. They successfully disputed their ticket because it was found that EasyPark’s patroller entered the license plate information incorrectly.

Ravinder Bains, Director of Client Services at EasyPark, says that the reason behind ticketing errors can vary, from delays due to internet connectivity, to drivers incorrectly entering their license plate information, or “instances where our patrollers incorrectly put information resulting in wrongful ticketing.”

Impark and Diamond Parking did not respond to interview requests.

Private parking tickets have no legal basis

There is no legal mechanism in place that requires you to pay private parking tickets, says Doroshenko. However, these companies have two strategies to help force payments.

If you park in one of their lots and they find that you have outstanding tickets, they might tow you. They might also sell your parking ticket(s) to collections agencies who will harass you into making a payment.

Another Reddit user received three to five calls a week from Impark’s collections agency. This process kept going on for four months until they lied and said they were recording the conversation because the police had advised them that they needed evidence of harassment. The calls stopped after that.

Private parking companies “really strong-arm people,” says Dorshenko. “They’re entitled to run their business. But to me, it’s just bad business practice.”

Still, according to Doroshenko, this issue does not come without a solution.

“It has always struck me that the provincial government could very easily fix this,” he says, “by requiring these companies to submit to the Civil Resolution Tribunal.”

The Civil Rights Tribunal is an online tribunal that helps solve small-claims disputes of up to $5,000 in a timely and cost-effective manner.

In this scenario, Doroshenko suggests that the province put a cap on how much these companies can charge in their claims, ideally to a maximum of just a few times more than the parking rate. 

Between wrongful ticketing, intentionally making it difficult to pay and dispute tickets, and being a part of a cycle of harassment, private parking companies in Vancouver are taking locals for a bit of a ride. And not the joy kind.