Sounds like you want to avoid Tea Thyme and Lavender in Portland, Oregon. Author Mary Robinette Kowal just had her car towed from their parking lot and was charged $252. Even though she has a receipt showing that she shopped there less than an hour before her car was towed, the business refuses to refund her money and has been unacceptably rude in dealing with her. Perhaps they should consider changing their name to Tea Thyme and Larceny.
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In my experience, this sort of thing tends to go on until the towers tow the wrong car. California passed some very strong regulations on towing companies—after a state legislator’s car got towed.
Shame on YOU for not even turning the coin. I was present DURING the conversation and Claire was anything BUT rude. They are a small business NOT a chain store and work very hard w/their customer relationships. Claire was beyond nice to someone “laughing at her” during a rush of business. She was asked twice to call later or let “Claire” call her when not busy. Harassment?
Hi Sherre. I’m taking Mary’s word for what happened with the phone call. I know her and I have no reason to doubt her here. But even if it were the case that Claire was “beyond nice” and Mary was laughing maniacally for some strange reason, the real issue here is towing the car. Towing a car from a parking spot marked “Customers Only” when the owner of that car bought something in the store less than an hour before is clearly wrong. Tea Thyme and Lavender should apologize to Mary and refund her money, and if they’re going to be towing people’s vehicles after a relatively short amount of time has passed then their signs should say so in no uncertain terms.
I was wondering if you realize that the towing company is a totally separate entity than the tea parlor? They are contracted to keep private lots empty after hours (in this case 45mn after closing with everybody gone). The tea parlor does not get a dime of the towing fees and has absolutely no influence on the towing company policies or financial decisions.
Hi Claire. I think it’s unreasonable to tow every vehicle in the parking lot shortly after closing, and Mary had no way of knowing this would happen, and she has every reason to be upset. I don’t understand why you won’t acknowledge that or express any sympathy for her. If there’s honestly nothing you can do to change the behavior of the towing company, the least you could do is post a sign saying “All vehicles will be towed immediately at 6:45.”
I have expressed sympathy for Mary, I talked to her twice on the day following that unfortunate incident. I even called the towing company on her behalf. It is on the 3rd call on that day that I got threatened into refunding a fee I did not receive while trying to tend to a line of patient customers. Why are you so unwilling to see the other side of the story? I have absolutely no animosity against anyone, I am just trying to run a tiny business on a tiny budget in a difficult economy. If a car is parked in a reserved lot how is anybody supposed to know if the owner was an earlier customer of the shop? What is so sad is that if Mary had just warned me I would have made sure with the towing company that her car was permitted in our lot. I believe too many mean things have been written too fast under emotion that should have not, don’t you think larceny goes a little too far?
You still haven’t addressed the point, which I’ve made twice now, as to why your signs don’t warn customers that their cars will be towed so soon after closing. If you have no way of knowing whether or not a car belongs to someone who just shopped in your store, wouldn’t it be best to err on the side of caution and not tow it? Mary is a writer, and $252 could easily represent weeks or months of labor on short fiction. Anyway, Mary is the wronged party here, not me, and you should really be working this out with her. If she’s satisfied that she’s been dealt with fairly, I’ll amend this post.
If you want my advice, this is what you should say: “I understand that Mary is upset. I would be too if this had happened to me. $252 is a lot of money, and having your car towed is a real headache. It’s ridiculous to tow people’s cars so soon after closing, but that’s the policy, and I don’t have any say over that. I realize though that the signs should do a better job of warning people, and I’ll make sure that in the future they do. I’d like to apologize to Mary that she had such a bad experience shopping at my store, and I’ll be covering the cost of her ticket. Customer service is very important to us, and I want to make sure that every legitimate complaint is dealt with to everyone’s satisfaction.”
I have to agree with you, this is between her and Mary. I would understand if you were posting on a personal experience, but you are only going off of secondhand information. Which from the various post and reviews I have found are questionable. Obviously you are not a reliable source about the tea shop so why are you posting anything to begin with? Also just to clarify, there were signs posted, at least when I was there.
Hi Kashen. Yes, there are signs, but the signs say “Customers Only.” Mary bought something in the store shortly before her car was towed, and is upset because she *was* a customer and her car was towed anyway. Claire has responded that all cars, even those belonging to customers, are towed shortly after closing, and I’m saying that if that’s the policy then there should be signs warning customers of that, which there currently aren’t.
I’ve now seen various messages to Mary from both the towing company and the tea shop, and all of them acknowledge that her report of what happened to her is factually correct.
I posted about this because Mary is a friend of mine and she was treated badly, and I thought that other people should be warned about it.