Midtown Place — Attraction in Atlanta

Money Extortion business. STAY AWAY, All shoppers! My family with a baby in our hands had to wait for 45 minutes before we could get a boot removed from our car - baby’s schedule was disrupted. The mall’s contractor (an EPS guy) just laughed to our faces when we explained we are first time visitors to Atlanta and had no idea about local parking practices - he just wanted money, and in cash.

Atlanta based company Empire Parking Service is illegally booting vehicles in Atlanta according to Georgia Law Code OCGA 44-1-13. This is the Code Section that allows the towing of trespassing vehicles on private property. What it DOES NOT do is allow the booting or immobilization of vehicles on private property in the State of Georgia. In other words, it is illegal to boot cars in Georgia on private property. [Found out this after the fact!]

As the First time visitors of the state Georgia and Atlanta, we visited The WholeFoods store located at the Midtown Place property for the first time. Also, while the car remained parked there, we crossed the street to pick up baby items in another store. In Normal cities you don’t expect a trick at the Shopping Mall parking and don’t need to read fine prints at the parking signs there when you simply go shopping.

Enters Midtown Place business with their Deceptive Business Practices! APPARENTLY this property is practicing MONEY EXTORTION business by having a Rule that you Can’t Leave the property without your car, else you pay the fine. EPS is the company they hired to exercise this rule.

When we came back after shopping for 1h we had our car Booted. We had no choice but to pay this business $75 (Yes, $75!) to get our car released. Explanations that we are the patrons of the WholeFoods store didn’t help, the guy just wanted our money. Calling 911, asking Customer Relations at the WholeFoods did not help - they don’t have influence here.

STAY AWAY from this unfriendly place that is robbing first time visitors by having ILLEGAL...

YES! This is a scam. PLEASE READ!

We are from California and are visiting Atlanta. We went to Whole Foods tonight and shopped. Spent quite a bit in groceries. In the meantime, my wife and son went across the street to the mall to buy clothes. When I got to my car, I found that, my car and 7 others had been booted by this rude lady that could not care less about any arguments.

Her arguments, which I am sure she repeats daily, is that there are 156 signs posted that tell you that if you leave your car behind in the lot, even for a second, you will be booted. However, the signs can not be read from the car as they are too small.

In California, if that is the rule, the parking requires that you retrieve a ticket when you drive in and it is validated if you made a purchase at any of the stores. You are then notified not to leave the car in the parking lot.

In this case, they are trying to catch you and their argument is that they have many signs. Just by reading all these comments you can tell this is a scam that is getting them high profits and they will not stop unless people stop patronizing the stores.

I, for one, will no longer spend any money at any of the store in that mall and I plan to notify every one of the stores that this is the case.

I have spent hundreds of dollars at Home Depot and Whole Foods. I...

As many other reviews have said, you will get booted, especially if you have a non-Georgia state tag. There are two different types of signs: those that are on the first two rows closest to the mall across the street, and some signs on the lights around the parking lot which are high up and a very small font.

We went for Salata for lunch since it’s almost perfecting in between the hotel and the aquarium. When we left Salata, a worker was booting the car next to us, and based on the placement of another boot, our car was next. As we got in the car, the worker muttered that we should have gotten one because they knew we went across the street. You know, as we left a building in the center and had leftover boxes of salad from the salad place. As we left the parking lot, we saw at least five other boots besides the one next to us, and they were all out of state.

It seems the general consensus is that the ticket is $75, and that it may take some time to get the boot removed. If your hotel is close enough, I would definitely suggest walking. And then that way you can check out that mall across the street - it looked really cool! Maybe next time I’ll park in their parking garage and then just walk to...