From The London Times:
Outside England’s Bristol Zoo there is a parking lot for 150 cars and 8 buses.
For 25 years, its parking fees were managed by a very pleasant attendant….. He charged car owners $1.40 for parking, buses paid about $7.
One day, after 25 solid years of never missing a day of work and collecting all those fees he just didn’t show up. Managers of the zoo called the city council asking for someone to send down another parking agent to take his place.
The council did some research and replied that the parking lot was the zoo’s responsibility, not theirs.
The zoo told the council that the attendant was a city employee, not theirs.
The city council replied that this parking lot attendant had never
been on the city payroll.
After two and a half decades, this ‘parking attendant’ is undoubtedly sitting in his villa some where on the coast of Spain, Italy or France, laughing at the sucker he’d made of the system.
He apparently charged the parking fee on his own. People gladly paid the parking toll to visit the zoo.
All he had to do was show up each morning, collect the parking fees and stash them in his personal account.
For 25 years, he collected about $569 a dayl After 25 years, that amounts to a paltry 7 million dollars.
LOL! At this point, nobody even knows this shyster’s name. But he’s a genius.
And a millionaire. And nobody knows his name!
God bless you in your retirement, Sir!
Too funny!
I think he came to the USA and became a property manager for an HOA. Let me check the origin of his accent and then provide you with his name!
Ward, not only is this a great story but also a super entry to your main cause with information about your book. It is BRILLIANT marketing. You got me!! I do need to read your book and I will. I just remembered that I live in the world’s largest HOA, Highlands Ranch.
I look forward to your next LOL story about a scam.
Rhondda
I actually have a couple of stories in my book about Highlands Ranch. There are really some horrible things happening there just beyond your sight. Wake people up. Once you’re done with your book force another neighbor to read it, and another neighbor again!
Hey, I just had an idea. If my book becomes a round robin in your neighborhood, have each reader autograph it on the title page. Once you get ten clean signatures on that book, send it back to me. I will send you three free books autographed to anyone you choose, plus I’ll send you another clean autographed book right back to you for your own use, possibly to start the whole process over again. A germ of an idea like this could really take off and impact the whole nation. We have a chance of waking people up on a large scale. Let’s do it!