[daveoc64]

How would you know that they are who they claim to be?

There is an urban legend in my city that a person claiming to be a parking attendant worked outside the zoo for 20 years, pretending to work for either the local government or the zoo, collecting parking fees from visitors.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fake-parking-attendant/

This is, of course, false - but there is no practical way for regular people to verify that people in a public place are who they claim to be.

[1659447091]

Similarly, I was with a friend who parked at the far end of a parking lot that had a McDonalds at the other end. When we came back there was a car boot on the car, I wanted to speak with a general manager to confirm they were "Enforcing the parking lot of McD's customers only", they said we could talk with the shift manager (who they may or may not be working with separately). My friend just wanted his car and paid them without checking anything with a credit card - on their phone+square device (or whatever that portable cc reader is). It was sketchy and I hadn't seen them there before. I am not even sure that is legal tbh, but didn't have time to work through it with him/them.

[lesuorac]

Generally, booting & towing is _not legal_ unless you have a significant amount of signage.

This is also why you'll see a lot of towing information signs [1]. (Booting [2] [3]).

[1]: (pg2) https://icc.illinois.gov/api/web-management/documents/downlo...

[2]: https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/opinions/pdfs/03-1204.pdf

[3]: https://www.miamidade.gov/global/license.page?Mduid_license=...