One night we needed to take a cab and found that several cabs from the Royal cab company went by. When the drivers were stopped (by way of signing/waving) three of them in a row said that their meters were broken, and that it would be $30 to get us to where we were going. (in this case, an impound lot)
We took an Ambassador company cab and it was $12.
Lesson: when a cab driver tells you that his meter is broken, don't take the cab. It is a scam, they try to charge people more so that they'll get more out of a short trip.
That same night we parked in a private parking spot. It was a small lot, with one meter and a small empty booth, in which we tried several times to put money in. There was nowhere else to park in the area, so we parked there and put a note in the window saying the machine/meter thing does not work. The time on this meter was also wrong: it was 9:00 pm when we got there and the meter said 11:00 pm. There were a bunch of cars parked, with thick layers of snow on their windows, so we parked and left. When we came back, the car had been towed and over the phone we were told that the meter definitely worked. There was nobody in the small booth there at all. The other cars did not have small parking slips/tickets in the windows. There were 13 of them, and only one had a parking slip and that was dated wrong.
When we arrived at the impound lot, we were told the fine. (we're going to small claims court for this) We met other people which were in our same situation, but had parked in a completely different area, and said the same: meter didn't work, car got towed.
This is no coincidence and yes, it is a scam. Be careful with your cars!