I would imagine that given the profits involved, there must be situations where towing companies kick back a share of the money to the property owner in exchange for their company getting the call.
Here in FL the process is similar. At the condo I run (mostly ran now) I had to first contract with a tow company, then get a city permit to install their warning signs at each entrance. But once the signs are in place if we want somebody towed, we just call and the car disappears. After that it’s not our problem.
For sure if we tow somebody who belongs here that leads to angry owners / residents. So we’re fairly circumspect about enforcement of towing and more aggressive about enforcement of displaying the required parking stickers and guest passes.
Unauthorized parking / trespassing is the bane of every property owner / manager near a public tourist attraction.
Down the road from where I work there is a property that was a gas station/mini-mart that closed down. While the property sat unused, people informally began using it as a park-n-ride location.
Two brothers purchased the property and the first thing they did was to “erect” a full sheet of plywood that they painted (by shaky hand) a NO TESSPASSING (sic) sign that said violators would be towed and a phone number for the impound lot.
They towed a dozen or so cars before word got around. The fee was outrageous, but you paid or they kept your car with fees added daily.
I met one of the brothers and we were talking. I asked about the tow thing and he bragged that they got 50% of the collected fees.
I don’t know of any formal appeal procedure - but I will say I spent about six years working in fast-food restaurants with parking lots that towed non-customers and I see lots of complaints about towing in a Facebook neighborhood group and only once did I even hear of someone being towed who wasn’t illegally parked. It was an employee and the restaurant owner had the towing company bring the car back. Usually the complaints involve people who admittedly parked illegally. One I saw just the other day in the Facebook group involved someone who was complaining that she parked in the McDonald’s parking lot, left her car to go to another nearby business and in the 90 seconds she claimed she was gone, the tow driver had filled out the form authorizing the tow, gone into the McDonald’s and got the manager to sign it and hooked up her car. First of all, I don’t believe that all of that happened in 90 seconds, and secondly even if she did intend to go to McDonald’s after shopping in other store, she wasn’t patronizing McDonald’s until she actually went into the McDonald’s.
Typically, the cars got towed from the restaurants I worked at in two ways- either someone saw you park and leave the parking lot without entering the restaurant or the tow driver came into the restaurant and called out a list of license plates of cars that had been parked for more than a certain amount of time. The complaints were invariably from people who parked in our lot while going somewhere else ( such as the hospital next to one restaurant) and if they did have a receipt, it was from an hour or two before or after the car was towed. Meaning they either ate at the restaurant and then went to the other place or they bought something after their car was towed to get a receipt thinking there were no records of the time the car was towed.
The appeal procedure is with the property owner, because they’re the ones who called the tow. I suppose if you can’t resolve the issue informally, you could take them to small claims court.
Yeah. Once the tow company has your car they’re within their legal rights to demand payment for services and storage. The car owner is stuck.
The car owner’s recourse is to complain to the property owner hoping to persuade them to fully/partially pay the tab to recover the car, or to sue them for the same.
In my fairly friendly scenario we have gone in halfway for some people legitimately on our grounds who failed to display the right passes who we then towed. But only rarely. And for somebody with no business on our lot? Ha ha; it is to laugh. Next time they’ll pay the $2 to park across the street in the City lot.
And no, we don’t get a cut of the tow fees.
This was booting, not towing.
Anyway, I distinctly remember, some years back, that in the parking lot of some fast food place on Queens Boulevard, tow operators were booting (not towing) cars, claiming that they’d overstayed the parking time limit, which (a) was ridiculously low and (b) according to the customers, not happening anyway, and then demanding payment to remove the boot.
Clearly the owners of the place were getting a piece of the action, otherwise, why would they tolerate it?
Anyway, maybe later I’ll search for a cite. This was years ago. It might have been mentioned in the Daily News. Wouldn’t have been in the New York Times. I knew about it because I grew up around there, and knew (and still know) plenty of people in the neighborhood.
I can’t imagine there’s that many towing companies with their own wikipedia article.
OK, maybe I’m misunderstanding something - what exactly do you mean by
Then the operator would demand money on the spot to remove the boot.
Of course you have to pay them before they remove the boot. How else would that work? They boot you and remove the boot based on your promise to pay them later?
Well, right, of course. The problem with the operation I was talking about was that it was a scam. The tow operator was just booting cars and demanding a cash payment to remove the boot. Some poor woman with a couple of little kids would come out of McDonald’s and find a boot on her car, with the tow truck right there, and some asshole demanding whatever cash she had on her (or sending her to an ATM) to unlock the boot.
If the city boots a car, there’s a phone number to call. You can pay with a credit card, and they’ll give you a code. The city boots have a numeric keypad, you key in the code, the boot unlocks, and you’re good to go.
Also, I remember from years (decades) ago, if you went down to the Parking Violations Bureau (don’t know what it’s called these days), you could usually negotiate something.
Whereas these guys on Queens Boulevard were just robbing people, that’s all.
Yeah, that’s exactly the kind of thing I was posting about.
True in most jurisdictions. Just last night I was looking at past GTOger videos and saw this gem where the guy called the tow company posted on the signs, then walked from the back to the front of the building and was banging on the door, claiming he didn’t know who to call while still on his cell phone to the tow company.
They had to call a cop to get rid of him.
Some people try–with great vigor.
I question this. Let’s say I own a towing company. I decide I’m not making enough money. So I tell my drivers to go out and pick ten cars at random and tow them into my impound lot. And I inform the owners that they have to pay my towing and impound fee before they get their car back.
I’m pretty sure I am not longer running a towing company and have become a car thief.
I feel (and correct me if I’m wrong) that a towing company can only demand payment for services and storage when they tow away a car that was parked illegally. And that means that the owner must have some means to challenge the claim of illegality.
It wouldn’t necessarily be the towing company that acted illegally.
Let’s say I work at a local business and I’m an asshole. Some guy I know shows up at my business. While he’s there as a customer, I decide to pull a “prank”. I call the towing company and report that there’s a non-customer parking in our plot. But it’s actually the guy’s car.
But the towing company has a contract with the business to tow non-customers and they can see from caller ID that I’m calling from the business. They may even recognize my voice from previous calls. So they show up and tow away the guy’s car.
But the guy was not parking illegally. Are people saying he has no choice and has to pay the towing charge anyway?
About 2 years ago we had to have a car towed at work; some guy came to a function at the hotel and, when he was leaving, drove his car up onto the rocks and kept going and got stuck. He called an uber then AAA and told security we could handle it and left.
AAA refused to handle it because the owner was not there, so I got stuck hunting for a tow truck company that was 24 hours and willing to come to the hotel. I found one that, once I explained everything, was more than happy to tow.
He showed up, I signed papers saying I, as the manager on duty [I’m not but we don’t have one at night] okayed this and my security guard showed him where it was and filmed the car (A brand new Mercedes) being towed off the rocks. It took 15 minutes and then it took off, car in tow.
We had the car owner’s phone number and kept calling him. His reaction was pretty much “not my problem”.
For those wondering why we bothered to tow it - part of it was sticking out into a blind corner that gets heavily used by employees and some guests.
The guy - I am told - came in the next day claiming we’d stolen his car - we called him to tell him where it had been towed to - and destroyed the undercarriage. The actual manager was liike, you ran away, not our problem, goodbye.
That seems to be small claims court - I’ve seen plenty of cases regarding towing on those TV shows that draw participants from real small claims cases. But of course that means paying the fees and suing afterward.
If you call the police because you were towed although you were legally parked on private property , they aren’t going to get involved on the spot unless the towing company didn’t follow some rule. For example, the law regarding towing vehicles in NYC has rules that prevent any random towing company from going into a private parking lot and towing vehicles. There has to be a contract with the owner of the property, there have to be signs with information about the towing company ( name address, phone, hours for redemption) , the owner of the property or an authorized agent must authorize each individual car to be towed in writing, and the towing company must notify the precinct with jurisdiction over the property within 30 minutes of arrival at the storage facility of the location the car was towed from and the time, where the car will be stored , that the tow was pursuant to a contract with the owner and the name of the person who authorized the tow (usually the owner or manager of the business the lot belongs to ). If the tow violated one of those rules, the police might get involved on the spot.
The local laws regarding towing from private property or a blocked driveway specify that if anyone ( including the owner or manager of the lot) causes the vehicle to be towed in violation of the law, they are liable to the vehicle owner for any amount paid to retrieve the vehicle. ( The part about parking lots says there shall be no charge to the vehicle owner, but clearly contemplates that someone might pay to get their vehicle back without waiting to convince someone that the vehicle shouldn’t have been towed.)
Well, there’s always the possibility that you pay the towing charge because you caused it. Or maybe you call and the towing company eats the charge to retain the contract. But if the towing company followed all the rules in your jurisdiction, they aren’t going to give the guy back his car just because he said he was in the store. Of course, he can probably sue you or the store for the costs if he is somehow able to prove he was legally parked. But the police aren’t going to make that decision at the towing company’s storage facility if they followed the rules.
I was describing how things work when everyone except the parking trespasser is behaving in accordance with the law.
Once a tow company or tow driver decides to go rogue, they’re committing a crime. As you say. At which point it becomes a matter for the police, courts, etc. And as we all know, the police in many jurisdictions are real bad at dealing with scammy commercial crime; somehow they’ve often got better things to do. Which may well leave the parker / victim in the lurch.
There are as many ways for this to unfold as there are scammy tow outfits, scammy parking lot owners, and overwhelmed, lazy, or corrupt police forces. I can’t offer any useful speculation on that.
One of our cars was towed that was displaying a letter in the window from the landlord saying not to tow it, instead of the parking placard. We’ been given the letter because the office was out of the placards. The tow guys saw that we did not have a placard, and didn’t bother to look at the letter.
We had to pay to get the car back, because the office was closed, and we needed the car, but we took the receipt and the letter to the office the next day. It took a while, and the peons in the office on-site calling the main office downtown, and such, but we got told to deduct the tow fee from next month’s rent, and turn in the receipt with the rent check.
We made them give us a letter saying that this was authorized. They did.
So it all worked out, but we were still kinda pissed. They printed something for us that looked like a hang tag, on cardstock, and cut it out; it said “Temporary permit for [car’s plate number] at [name of complex].” The office manager signed it, and wrote her phone extension on it under “for questions, call:” They also took a description of our car, and the VIN, and promised to call the tow company, and tell them not to tow that car again.
I came home very late one night after Shabbes dinner at friends’ to find a strange car in the middle of my driveway. (Several years before the towing from the apartment incident.) There was nowhere I could park without blocking it in. No one was in the car.
I had no idea what was happening, and as far as I knew, someone could be in the house.
I called 911. I explained that I did not have a life-or-death emergency, but I was afraid to enter my home because of this strange car, etc., etc.
Policeman got there pretty quick. He asked if there were keys in the strange car. I said I had not looked, because it wasn’t my car. He said if it had been left on my property, I was within my rights to move it, but at any rate, it was fine to call him in to check it out. He opened the door, and the keys were in the ignition. He moved it, and told me to park in front of it. Then we went into the house, him first, with his gun unholstered.
He knocked first, and then yelled that the police were entering-- I think it was show for my benefit. He checked all the rooms while I counted the cats and dogs. They were all fine. The cop asked if I noticed anything missing. I checked my coin collection, and the target-shooting pistol I had in a locked box, which were the only things besides electronics and appliances worth stealing, at least that anyone would spot. I had some rare books, but no one had gone through my 5,000 books on the chance that I had a 1st edition PG Wodehouse-- and then reshelved everything.
I asked the cop about getting the car towed, but he said he had an idea where he could find the owner. He did, at a small block of rental places down the street. It was a one-story place, and a weird place for rentals. We lived next to a goat farm. Anyway, I guess he told the owner “You’re trespassing. Move it, or lose it.” He escorted the driver back in short order, and the car was gone. My car didn’t get keyed, or anything. I pushed a chair under both doorknobs to exterior doors, and made sure all the windows were locked and bolted.
You never know.
But nothing ever came of it.
He can take the towing company to court - but that might be awhile before he sees his car. Some have a policy of selling off/junking/crushing cars not claimed without a certain time period, which can further complicate things.
You’re likely better off paying the towing fee (because at least then you’ll have your car back) and trying to recoup it later through the courts.