City brings slander lawsuit against ParkMobile

Editor’s Note: This story was reported and written before Tropical Storm Helene. Xpress has routinely checked the court case online, and no additional progress has been made on the case since the storm. The City of Asheville is not ticketing for parking in city-owned garages through Jan. 2, 2025, but is monitoring on-street parking meters as of Dec. 2. Private lots have resumed normal operations.

One Sunday afternoon in April 2022, Rick Henry was just back in town for the summer and wanted to take a walk downtown. Initially, he was happy to find a parking spot for a reasonable price in a lot on Banks Avenue.

But when he returned from his walk, his car was gone. It had been towed by Auto Safe Towing, even though he says he had paid for his spot via the ParkMobile parking app. To retrieve his car from Auto Safe’s lot on North Louisiana Avenue in West Asheville, Henry had to fork over $250 in cash and deal with what he said was a very rude representative of Auto Safe.

“I was so angry. I’ve never been that angry,” Henry told Xpress recently, more than two years after the incident. “This is why I don’t believe people should be allowed to carry firearms. Because if I had one with me that day …” he trailed off. “That was the worst experience I’ve ever had,” he added.

Henry’s experience on Banks Avenue isn’t uncommon, according to multiple accounts detailed in a lawsuit filed May 3 by the City of Asheville against ParkMobile, the parking management company that handles payments for lot owners but not enforcement.

Auto Safe representatives say they work for property owners, not car owners, and insist that before any car is towed, the truck driver takes “multiple steps to verify if the parking space has been paid for, then only tows when the verification continually shows nonpayment,” according to an unsigned statement to Xpress from the towing company.

While Auto Safe receives mostly one-star reviews on Yelp and earned a D-plus grade with the Better Business Bureau because of complaints, the city’s lawsuit is focused on ParkMobile for spreading misinformation.

According to the city, ParkMobile has been erroneously referring people who call to complain about getting towed or ticketed to the City of Asheville’s Parking Services Division. That, according to the lawsuit, forces staff to spend time informing often angry people that the city has nothing to do with those lots, payment or enforcement.

“ParkMobile knows that it is spreading misinformation. ParkMobile knows that it is in the wrong. And ParkMobile has had every opportunity to stop. Yet ParkMobile refuses,” the lawsuit says.

ParkMobile does not manage any lots owned by the city. The city uses a different company, Passport Parking, to manage parking payments, and city employees police the lots and streetside spaces, issuing tickets as necessary. ParkMobile does, however, manage more than 50 privately owned lots in the central business district, according to its website, more than any other company.

When reached for comment, ParkMobile spokesperson Haley Haas provided a written statement.

“While we cannot comment on pending litigation, we are dedicated to continuously improving our services and working to provide a positive experience to drivers in the area,” she wrote.

City spokesperson Kim Miller confirmed that “the city intends to continue prosecuting this case until the issue is fully resolved.”

“ParkMobile may be continuing because it has decided that unfairly and falsely diverting its parking issues to the city is the best way to get ahead in business. Whatever the reason, the city now asks this court to help put a stop to these falsehoods and help the city recover from ParkMobile’s deception, restore its reputation and focus more on legitimate transportation and parking matters,” the lawsuit says.

“The problem is that, on information and belief, ParkMobile has been consistently and knowingly misrepresenting what parking facilities the city owns or operates,” it adds.

Parking nightmare

There is no shortage of horror stories about parking woes, many of which were directed to the city in 2023, as outlined in the lawsuit, which is being heard by Superior Court Judge Alan Thornburg. ParkMobile filed a motion to dismiss the case, and Thornburg set a Sept. 18 deadline to receive updated briefs from both parties at a hearing Sept. 16. (Court proceedings were paused after Tropical Storm Helene and no additional hearings have been set in this case as of Nov. 26.)

Barrett Peitz allegedly paid for far too many hours of parking at a lot on Broadway, which the city does not own, but when he reached out to ParkMobile for a refund, he was incorrectly told that because he paid through the kiosk, not the app, he should take his request to the city, according to the lawsuit.

Croom Beatty allegedly had his car towed from a lot on Banks Avenue after incorrectly entering his license plate number into the app. When he was explaining this to the tow truck driver who was towing his car, the driver allegedly “cursed at him, treated him poorly and insisted that he pay $250 in cash to get his car back,” according to the lawsuit.

Beatty said ParkMobile told him to take his complaint to the city as the owner and operator of the lot, which is not true.

“As a result of ParkMobile’s misinformation, Beatty, like Rick Henry, had gained a false, misleading and reputationally damaging impression of the way that the city operates its parking facilities,” the lawsuit states.

That led the city to reach out to ParkMobile directly via a letter on Jan. 23, 2023, asking it to “stop spreading falsehoods.”

David Hoyt, who was ParkMobile’s managing director for North America and CEO of Parkmobile USA at the time, said he’d “get this problem corrected internally and with the private operator,” in an email to the city on Jan. 23.

But according to the lawsuit, that did not happen. Six months after Hoyt’s response, Maria Shwabland mistakenly paid for parking for a spot on a city street downtown using the ParkMobile app, which is not associated with street spots. ParkMobile told her to contact the city with her issue, even though she was seeking a refund from a payment she made through the app.

Another two months later, Jonathan Biskner was towed from a Banks Avenue lot because ParkMobile had used incorrect license plate information for his vehicle. Once again, a customer service representative at the company referred Biskner to the city to deal with his problem, the lawsuit alleges.

These types of misplaced complaints continued, according to the lawsuit.

“After the city sent its demand letter … ParkMobile appears to have continued to falsely tell numerous other third parties that the city owns or operates certain private parking facilities that the city does not own or operate, that people with parking issues at these facilities should contact the city and/or that the city has some affiliation with ParkMobile,” it says.

Hoyt has since left the company after a restructuring, Michael Tadych, an attorney representing ParkMobile, told the court at the Sept. 16 hearing.

Parking snipers

Going back to Henry’s ordeal, it started because he had recently changed his personalized plates from the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation to Friends of the Smokies and neglected to update the tag in the ParkMobile app.

Both his old and new license plates say “Ricksy,” but the suffix switched from “BM” to “SM.” What would have clearly registered as a simple and honest mistake did not matter to the tow truck driver that day, Henry says.

“I feel like it’s stealing. I feel like they stole my car and held it ransom,” he says. “They’re taking advantage of people.”

Haas says ParkMobile shares parking information with providers in real time, and once payment is placed or a car is left, enforcement is out of its hands.

“It’s important to note, ParkMobile is not responsible for ticketing, towing or enforcement of any vehicles. We do not manage or own parking lots, garages or parking spaces. As the digital parking payment provider, we work closely with cities/municipalities and parking operators to provide a reliable and efficient digital parking payment option,” she writes.

“Once a customer completes a transaction on our app, the parking session information is available for the parking operators in real time. ParkMobile does not determine how these locations are enforced.”

Auto Safe maintains in a written statement that it provides a necessary service for property owners that have no other recourse to protecting their private-property rights.

“Nonconsensual or trespass towing is a difficult decision for a property owner; all would prefer for vehicle owners to do the right thing. For the vehicle owner, it is an inconvenient and costly experience. While property owners are relieved of the unwanted vehicle, it is a thankless task dealing with disgruntled and angry vehicle owners. Yet, it is the only process to protect private-property rights regarding unwanted vehicles,” the statement says.

“Auto Safe Towing complies with each individual property owner’s rules. Some property owners prefer to call in to have vehicles removed from their property. Other property owners prefer to have us patrol their parking lot. The chosen method is solely the decision of the property owner for whom we work.”

The property owner of the lots on Banks Avenue  — listed as R&M Future Holding LLC and Run Riot Ventures, LLC — have chosen the latter option, having Auto Safe patrol.

DJ Kilby, who was a bartender and brewer at Catawba Brewing Co. on Banks Avenue, said he’s heard hundreds of complaints about quick tows by Auto Safe Towing from those lots.

“Every day someone has an issue,” he says. “We tell everyone: ‘Do not park in that lot unless you have paid immediately,’” he says.

When the Auto Safe Towing truck shows up — it often posts up at the end of the block, facing lots across Banks Avenue from Catawba — the bar staff warns patrons to check their payment status, just in case.

“The tow truck guys are ruthless. They wait for people to make a mistake and then pounce,” Kilby adds.

To Henry, the city should go beyond the suit with ParkMobile and ban Auto Safe Towing from doing business downtown. He took Auto Safe to court after his ordeal but lost because of the discrepancy in the license plate he entered.

Still, he says the way he was treated reflects poorly on the city and might convince a resident or tourist not to come back downtown.

“People will leave and say, ‘I had this really disgusting thing happen to me in the City of Asheville,’” he argues. “It’s just not right. It’s not kind. It’s not what decent people do,” he adds.

He tells everyone he knows not to park in lots operated by Auto Safe. The tow company’s number is marked on signs in any lot the company is in charge of towing from.

“If [the phone number] ends in 1131, run,” Henry says.