Katrina Bedsole and her partner went out to eat in downtown Birmingham earlier this week, paid for 10 hours of parking, and got towed anyway, an hour after leaving her car in the lot.

Employees of Parking Enforcement Systems, a company frequently accused of “predatory” towing, told her they wouldn’t help so she should call the police.

So, after she paid PES $160 to get her car back, Bedsole took PES’s advice. She went to the Birmingham Police. They told her they couldn’t help – it was a civil matter, she said.

Bedsole said the events that unfolded this week left her shaken.

“I feel powerless,” she said. “They [PES] basically stole my car just because they have a tow truck. They feel like they can just go around towing everybody and make them pay. It’s so illegal, in every way possible. And I just don’t see how the city of Birmingham is allowing this to happen.”