They call them “Straw bandits.” They cost the city a fortune – read all about it here
These are people who take those straws you use to stir your coffee at McDonalds and break them off in parking meter slots. Then when you put in your coin, it gets held up in the chute. They come back and using tweezers, collect the money.
Sound like a lot of work for a Quarter. Not in Canada. The Canucks have one dollar (loonie) and two dollar (toonie) coins and they are used in parking meters. A thief that is aggressive make quite a haul. The other problem, and the biggest one for cities, is that the meters are now broken and have to be returned to the meter shop for repair. The bill for repair alone in Vancouver is over 50K a year.
I was shown a scam in LA where thieves will “help” a person and put the money in the meter for them. What they do, however, is insert a long wire in the meter and are able to “fake” the meter into thinking a coin has been deposited. They then keep the money. The parker thinks the money has been placed in the meter.
Folks who promote credit card meters say these and other meter maintenance problems go away when you install their gear.
Vancouver put in “pay by cell” to combat these thieves and are considering pay by credit card for the same reasons.
JVH
