A Person’s Tale Of Malicious Compliance And Saving $625 On Parking Due To Admin's Negligent Attitude To Work

When you really think about it, parking is nothing but a huge pain where the sun don’t shine.

Humor me for a second: as soon as someone becomes a proud car owner, they suddenly have to worry about where they leave their car when they’re not using it. And you can’t leave it just anywhere—it has to be a particular spot that allows for cars to be there. And guess what?! Not all spaces are free to use. And those that are free are more often than not taken. It doesn’t help that some people can’t park to save their life. See? Nothing but trouble.

And it doesn’t end there as we have stories like this surfacing online, showing just how problematic parking can be. But hey, there is a silver lining. If you can find a loophole of sorts, that is.

More Info: Reddit

Reddit user u/roodeeMental recently went to r/MaliciousCompliance to share how a parking ticket led them to saving tons of money. The story goes that OP was in isolation for 2 weeks due to Covid, which meant they weren’t really going to their car or using it. It was also very cold outside and the parking permit sticker fell off and was out of sight. One wild parking administration officer later, OP got a fine that ended up being nearly £200, or almost US$240, after a stubborn back-and-forth.

The parking admin explained that while everything was in order with the payment, the car had to have the permit sticker visible for the officer to see. They didn’t see it, so they issued a ticket. And it was at this point that OP realized they didn’t check the database. Only the permit. This immediately prompted OP to call and cancel their parking subscription—which was £25 or almost US$30. And then they hung up and continued parking there.

21 months have passed by since then. Not a single payment has been made for the parking space. Not a single fine has been received for parking violation either. As long as the sticker is there—albeit faded beyond belief—it’s all good. This meant that in those 21 months, OP has saved £525, or around US$625, for parking. All because they maliciously complied with how things work there.

Bored Panda got in touch with u/roodeeMental to learn more about the parking situation in their area. Bored that day, OP figured they’d share their “minor accomplishment” only to be surprised with nearly 12,500 upvotes (98% positive) in a bit over a day.

“If I knew about how their system works, I could’ve started [maliciously complying] on my second month,” elaborated OP. “In my account, I could’ve kept my parking charge lower. But honestly, I like to be non-exploitative. However, these guys really pushed my buttons”

Well, they pushed enough buttons for the malicious compliance to last 21 months, with next month being the last, thus ending the nearly 2-year streak of not giving a damn about motor vehicle placement charges. “I move out in a month, I’m glad it’s gone unrecognized this whole time. If I was to renew the permit, I could do so for a month at a cost of breaking my streak, however it doesn’t seem to matter how faded it gets.”

We also asked OP for their thoughts on how this situation even developed in the first place—is it really the case that nobody knows about the exploit, or is it as simple as just nobody giving a foop?

“I think it's more of a case that the effort and time put into checking a proper system would cost more time, effort, and money than to not use a database system. Much like how banks nowadays don’t check signatures,” elaborated OP.

“I also think that the letting agency and parking agency work together affording different payments for different conditions, i.e. no real fixed price, just a permit you agreed to pay for. Other people here will definitely know before I leave, I’ll be leaving a sign in the hallway notice board for other car users (I didn’t want to let the secret out before I left in case they did cotton on).”

“The only thing I’ll add is that there’s an active battle almost from those who have land of any sort to exploit those who don’t. This sort of greed needs to be better regulated.”

You can check out the post in its entirety here, so be sure to give your upvote to OP for a maliciously compliant job well done. And while you’re at it, give us an upvote and share your experiences with parking bullpies in the comment section below!