How I Pimped Impark With Simple Social Engineering.

Written By : H1D30U5
November 18 2004

First off, I'd like to say thanks to the helpful operator with whom I dealt
with today, she was not only helpful, but was quite understanding also,
and that's a virtue that many in her profession unfortunately have not acquired

Ya ever go downtown and have to park in that madness? Yeah, I know you do.
You go and get suckered for 5 bux a day to park under that big "P"

You'll notice that 90% or more of Edmonton's parking is controlled by a company
called IMPARK.  Now, while being a near monopoly, there are other options...
For example Expert Parking, or some of those 8 storey monstrosities.

But, Wouldn't it be nice to get a break from the parking monster?
Like for instance, when your parking ticket expires at 12:00 and you've
arrived back at your car at 12:06 and found a ticket on the dash?
(I swear, the bastards must stand there and wait for your ticket to expire...)

Today, I arrived at work, opened my change compartment, and to my dismay, found
only $2...That's good for an hour's parking in the lot that I park in...
As the other lot is a full block and a half away, and me being a lazy bastard,
I had an idea that I wished to test.  So I paid for my parking, and it clearly
stated on my ticket that it expired at 7:02AM...that's not going to get me far
but since I was outta cash, and 2 minutes late for work, I said fuck it.

9 hours later...

I arrived back at my car, gingerly pulled the ticket out from under my
windshield, screamed NOOOOOO, and then hopped into my car to examine this
most foreign object.  I looked at the ticket, and saw the time I was ticketed,
A control number, a lot number and some garbage stating "Receipt expired 7:02AM
Test receipt 1111111"
And a 35 dollar price tag, if paid within the first week, but since I don't
have a credit card with which to pay online, it'll be 65 bux by the time my
letter arrives at their head office in Vancouver...

I saw the phone number on the back that you can call if you have a dispute...
And trust me, at 5 bux a day, I had a dispute alright.
I called the number and decided to turn on the SE skills to see what I could
pull off.

10 minutes later, the operator picks up, and I said "hello, how are you"
she quickly replied "fine thanks, what is the nature of your call?"
"Yeah...I bought an all day pass today, and I still got a ticket, is there some
thing we can do about that?"

She quickly replied "Mmmmkay, I'm going to need some information from you..."

And she asked me for the ticket's lot number, the time it was issued, the
control number etc. which I gladly gave to her, and she then asked

"You said you had a pass? mmmkay, what time did you purchase the pass?"
"This morning." I replied, and then she asked me for the purchase time that
was printed on my pass...
*here's the good part*
I looked over at the car next to me, saw that he had a valid all-day pass
for this lot, and replied "5:55AM"
"Mmmmkay, I'm gonna need the parking pass' control number"
"020638" I promptly replied, she then said "mmmkay, I'll just run this through
the computer...Oh, I'm terribly sorry, I'll give you a cancellation number
right away. She then blurted out a 6 digit number to which I paid absolutely
no attention.  "Yeah, that happens more often than you'd believe" she told me.

So I said no problem, then began asking her questions, and I gleaned this info.

In the Edmonton office, there are 8 operators at a time, they work 4 hour
shifts, receive no benefits, and Gary the boss is an asshole.

So I figured if there's 8 operators, you could theoretically do this 8 times
a day...that's a lotta free parking.

There we go, a sploit that anyone can relate to, and perform without much
trouble at all.  You saw it first on Nettwerked.net