The Perfect Retirement Plan?

[Beyond]

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.....
The fees for cars ($1.40), for buses (about $7).

Then, one day, after 25 solid years of never missing a day of work, he just didn't
show up; so the zoo management called the city council and asked it to send them
another parking agent. The council did some research and replied that the parking
lot was the zoo's own responsibility. The zoo advised the council that the attendant was a city employee.
The city council responded that the lot attendant had never been on the city payroll.

Meanwhile, sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain, or France, or Italy,
is a man who'd apparently had a ticket booth installed completely on his own and then
had simply begun to show up every day, commencing to collect and keep the parking fees,
estimated at about $560 per day -- for 25 years. Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just
over $7 million dollars ...... and no one even knows his name.

[Chris Peterson]

...Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just
over $7 million dollars ...... and no one even knows his name.

An amusing story, but sadly, not true. Just another urban legend kept alive by the Internet.

[Beyond]

Yeah, it seemed more amusing when i posted it. Now i don't know why i bothered. Oh well.

[neufer]

Udvar-Hazy parking attendant gets 40 months in $1.4 million theft scheme
Friday, Jul. 19, 2013 by Crystal Owens

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center made its first media appearance in the 2009
film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The SR-71 that is on display was used
as Jetfire, a Decepticon who switches sides to become an Autobot, in the film.

<<The last of three Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center parking attendants convicted of stealing $1.4 million in visitor-parking fees was sentenced today to more than three years in prison.

Abeselom Hailemariam, 33, of Alexandria, was sentenced to 40 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay approximately $1.4 million in restitution for his role in a conspiracy to steal the same amount in visitor-parking fees from the Smithsonian Institution museum in Chantilly. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III handed down the sentence. Hailemariam pleaded guilty on April 19 to conspiracy to commit theft of public money. He's the third person to be sentenced for participating in the scheme. Meseret Terefe, 37, of Silver Spring, Md. and Freweyni Mebrahtu, 46, of Sterling, have been sentenced to 20 months and 27 months in prison, respectively, for their roles in the thefts.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office from March 2009 to August 2012, Hailemariam was a full-time location manager for Parking Management Inc. (“PMI”), a D.C. based firm which held a contract with the Smithsonian to manage its 2,000-vehicle parking lot. During that time, Hailemariam participated in a scheme to steal parking revenues and began sharing in the stolen money taken by the PMI booth attendants. Under Hailemariam’s approval, the booth attendants withheld parking ticket stubs from customers and unplugged electronic vehicle counters in the entrance booths, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Hailemariam created and submitted false operations reports to PMI, which were provided to the Smithsonian. The other booth attendants paid Hailemariam a share of the stolen money at the end of the day by bundling unreported cash with their shift summary reports. Hailemariam also gave instructions to conspiring booth attendants to stop stealing at certain times when he believed the risk of getting caught was too high. Based on the $15 entrance fee, it's estimated that Hailemariam helped to steal from at least 92,213 museum visitors.>>

[Beyond]

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.....
The fees for cars ($1.40), for buses (about $7).

Then, one day, after 25 solid years of never missing a day of work, he just didn't
show up; so the zoo management called the city council and asked it to send them
another parking agent. The council did some research and replied that the parking
lot was the zoo's own responsibility. The zoo advised the council that the attendant was a city employee.
The city council responded that the lot attendant had never been on the city payroll.

Meanwhile, sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain, or France, or Italy,
is a man who'd apparently had a ticket booth installed completely on his own and then
had simply begun to show up every day, commencing to collect and keep the parking fees,
estimated at about $560 per day -- for 25 years. Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just
over $7 million dollars ...... and no one even knows his name.

Turns out this whole story was just an April Pfuel's fool's joke that a Bristol paper ran a couple of years ago.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/humor/ ... endant.htm