Just want to chime in with what happened to me… got in a t-bone accident and called CAA, then the cop told me I had to get one of the tow trucks on the scene to move the car off the road because it was blocking traffic (the car wouldn’t roll by pushing it), he said he would charge me with some charge if I didn’t. I talk to the tow truck guy and offered him $20 to just move it off the road to the parking lot half a block away until CAA showed up, he didn’t want to and said it was minimum $40 hook up fee, and if he hooked it up then it was his tow and started going off on how much it was going to cost… I looked him square in the eyes and said “dude, for fucking real, you’re going to pull this shit on me… I know we all have to make a living but I just fucking lost my car, I pay for CAA because I use it to move the car here and there while building it. So i am going to use it now. If you going to be a fucking dick about my situation and try to rape me then I’ll just go ask one of the other 5 tow trucks that showed up and maybe one of them will have some fucking sympathy”, he said “life is what it is, i’m not moving my truck for any of the other guys”, so i just responded “you’re a dick, hope your son if you have one is never in my situation and you can’t get to him on time… I’ll ask the other guys and tell them to hook the car up from the other side of the and drag the car over” i started walking away and right when I got up to one of the other tow truck drivers he ran up and tapped me on the shoulder, said he will move it for free so I wouldn’t get charged by the cop…
They are vultures but every so often you get lucky i guess
your insurance company is not responsible of paying for your towing unless you are covered. in our case, we were not covered therefore it was up to us to get our car back
before the towing company takes your car away, they SHOULD show you a rate chart for their service that they are offering you, and they should either ask you where you would like to take your car, or at least wait for you to tell them. this towing company did neither. After they hooked the car up, instead of waiting for my dad to clear things up with the police and the other driver involved in the accident, he simply left with the car. the only thing my dad had was a business card.
i KNOW that when you are involved in an accident, it is us to you to chose where you want your car to go, and who you want to tow it. in this particular case (like 240sxfan’s story) the police and towing company was very pushy about getting the car out of the street. my dad was so dazed from the crash (while dealing with the police, insurance company, and making sure our dog didnt run away) that he agreed to let this company tow his car. HOWEVER this did not in any way mean that we agreed for them to take it 17kms away to their yard. Like i said, the company took it away without even caring where we wanted to take it.
another thing that i would like to mention is that the bigger problems came up when we tried to get our car back and were unable to. federal law states that towing company are unable to keep your property (car) hostage. What should legally happen is, we go to the yard, have the right to take our car back, and if we have a disagreement in the price that he thinks we should pay him, it becomes a customer service issue. What this means is that he can then file a complaint in a court of law stating why he thinks we owe him X amount of money, and we will challenge him in court with why we think we should give him Y amount of money. based on the evidence seen in court, a decision will be made with who owes who what. AGAIN, this is all AFTER we et our car back which we have the right to.
and CANN, the story goes into a lot of detail and i have gone to division 32 in toronto and a york region police station to talk to several police officers about the matter. i am not going to post the whole story here because that would simply take too much time. I have done enough research to know that what this company (among other) is doing is a dirty, scum, money grabbing scam. If you don’t want to take my word for it, then dont click on this thread and deal with whoever you want. For everyone else who is aware of these towing vultures who make their money based on taking advantage of vulnerable situations, i hope you dont find yourself in this kind of situation.
if you really question my legitimacy, PM me your problem and i can clarify exactly why i am posting a “warning” on a public forum
I guess you were at fault during this whole experience? Because if you weren’t your insurance would cover everything, including the towtruck fee’s and the storage fee’s they charge. Since you’re at fault, you can expect to feel pretty fucked over… pay for storage fee’s and all that good stuff. If your car couldn’t even roll to the side of the road, its probably pretty fucked up and written off anyways, what do you want it back for?
I very recently had to deal with a similar situation (I wasn’t at fault though.) and the tow truck driver said I have 2 options, their lot or an auto body shop. I obviously chose to take it to an Auto body shop. If your Father has never been in this situation and didn’t play his cards right I could see how it’s stuck at the lot. Why? Because you probably don’t want to pay the fee’s. Why? They are too expensive? You probably could have asked exactly how much storage at the lot costs per day, they would have told you. You can dispute it and take it to court and everything… all tow truck companies are the same. I doubt you’ll win, and you’ll waste a lot of time trying. Furthermore you’ll probably end up paying what they want as you made a verbal contract with them to take it to the lot, if you didn’t know the price per day … hey… that’s your fault.
I understand you’re probably mad as your car is smashed, but you’re just making more effort and pissing yourself off more by thinking any other tow truck company is different. Next time, don’t be at fault, find out ALL the information about EVERYTHING… like you’re supposed to do in an accident and you’ll be aiiiiiight.
P.S. If your dog was fine, and running around because they weren’t hurt in the accident after flying into god knows what without a seat belt… while the seat belted person WAS injured… I think that’s an excuse in my opinion. (lol@ taking care of the dog running around.) Also you say “he agreed to let the company tow the car”… If he didn’t find out all the fee’s, that’s a lot like signing a contract without reading ANY of it… not very smart I would think for an adult.
I do find it hard to believe because I work in the industry and they’re a respected company. To say you had no say in where the vehicle went I can’t help but call complete bs. And expecting to get your car back before you pay for it is laughable to be honest, read on the bill somewhere it says something like rate sheet available upon request and that if you don’t pay the full invoice your vehicle will be subject to storage fees and held until paid, every tow companies bills have that and they don’t have to show you anything and all these companies have the same rates that the city sets.
If you want PM me complete details and I might be able to help you out, Izzo and I both know a few of them.
I dunno, sounds like a great story to me on your end, but a normal one when it comes to tow truck drivers… I wouldn’t call this company any stupidier then the next. Trying to weasel outta paying fee’s while your car is at their lot is kinda silly, considering that you’re getting charged per day… which means… the longer you wait on this bullshit the more you’re gonna pay anyways.
A lot of Tow Truck Companies are crooks, but there are some good honest ones ones. They will lie and charge you up the nose to make money because they dont make any money or very little when you add up the hours they spend out there. ( i personally have talked to tow truck drivers and this is the general comment) With this in mind, i have CAA. i’ve had an accident in scarborough, and had towing in Toronto a few times and they’ve come pretty quickly. its only about 100 a year, i have the Gold CAA and you have 4 calls a year, up to 200kms each call and it works in the usa as AAA. So just get that and have peace of mind. next time you’re in need of a tow truck tell em you got CAA and to leave you alone.
i’m being honest when i say that the guy left before we were able to tell him where to bring the car. all he and the police were worried about was to clear the car out of the intersection, and i also mentioned that he only left us with his business card (where the address of the shop was written on the back). to me it seems that as soon as he gave us his card and got our car hooked up, he gave himself permission to go ahead and take it to his yard. that way, by the time we realize he was gone and had time to flip his business card around to assume where he was taking it, he could easily justify taking our car by saying he THOUGHT we knew he was taking our car to his shop because his address was on the business card he gave us. and on top of that