[WWTD] Car towing situation - What would TW do?

R

Razer

Contributor
Veteran X
Well, here's the situation:

Two friends and I went out to a bar in New Haven, Connecticut. We first tried the bar parking lot, but it was full, so we went into the parking lot of a bank direcly adjacent to the bar. There was the standard sign in the bank about bank customers only being allowed to park and yadda yadda yadda. I saw other cars in the bank lot (at 11:30PM at night, well outside of banking hours) so I thought that it was one of those unenforced rules.

Well, after being in the bar for about an hour, I decide that I want another beer and that I'm light on cash. I leave the bar and walk to the ATM in front of the bank next to the bar that I parked in front of to take out $20. As I walk back to the bar, I happen to look back into the parking lot behind the bar. I see a tow-truck with a car raised up behind it; I see the space that my car WAS parked in completely empty. I run behind the bank, only to find my car hoisted by the tow truck, about to be towed to god knows where.

I tell the tow truck driver to let my car down. He says "Your car is being towed." I ask him if there's anything I can do, because it's almost 12:00AM and I don;t want to deal with the hassle of getting my car out of an impound lot. He says "Give me $50." I ask him how much it will be to get it out of the impound lot, and he says "$75." Of course, I run to the ATM and get him the cash to save my car.

After I give him the cash, I ask him if the cash goes to his company or his pocket. Of course, he says "It goes in my pocket." I move my car to a side street out of the banks parking lot, and as I walk back to the bank, I see another car being towed.

So what would Tribalwar do? Part of me feels like I should have opened the door on his tow truck, pulled his scrawny ass out, beat him to a pulp, and took my car back. Another part of me feels that since my car was being towed anyway, I got off lucky only paying $50. Did this redneck fucker have a legal right to take my car? Is there anything I could have done to get out of my situation without spending as much time, money or effort?

Cliffs:
-Went to a bar
-Parked in a bank parking lot nxt to bar at 11PM
-Car got towed near 12AM
-Paid tow truck driver $50 to not have my car towed
-Want to know if I could have escaped the situation more easily or cheaply
 
Sounds like you got off ok. The bank has a right to have cars towed off of their lot. The scrawny guy was probably carrying a weapon of some sort so that could have turned ugly.
 
welcome to the college town i live in. that happens ALL the time even in like apartment complexes and such, blowz, so I always am very careful about where i can park without getting towed.
 
I am surprised he let it down at all, he didn't have to. And $75 is the impound fee, it's probably another $50/day, so $125 if you get it back the next day, $225 if this was a Friday night.

You got a decent deal.
 
I towed for westshore motors in Milford for 4 years, i covered the New Haven are as well. The code with us TT driver was that anything after 11PM was fair pocket money to us. Normaly a jump start from a company would cost you $50....But if i happen to be around and you catch me i would charge ya $25. it was a way we made the easy $$$ on the side. Dont ever call a garage late nite cause the service will be high. thats why i always gave my cell# to the peeps so that next time they need help they can just get me direct and i would give them the service for half off.

On top of that $50 buck, you got off easy. Hook up alone is $65 and then $4.50 a mile depending on how far his garage is. so you made out.
 
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Automatic Jack said:
I am surprised he let it down at all, he didn't have to. And $75 is the impound fee, it's probably another $50/day, so $125 if you get it back the next day, $225 if this was a Friday night.

You got a decent deal.
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Your about right with that pricing AJ.
 
Razer said:
So what would Tribalwar do? Part of me feels like I should have opened the door on his tow truck, pulled his scrawny ass out, beat him to a pulp, and took my car back. Another part of me feels that since my car was being towed anyway, I got off lucky only paying $50. Did this redneck fucker have a legal right to take my car? Is there anything I could have done to get out of my situation without spending as much time, money or effort?
Click to expand...

The bank has every right to take your car. You should not have parked there, there was even a sign. You took your chances and only lost $50. You got really lucky.
 
Yeah, I live in CT and I know of New Haven. Enough to know that tow truck driver had a better chance of carrying a weapon than not carrying one. That area is the one area in CT besides Hartford that has more crime. The tow guys probably know people part there regularly and knowing the law just go in there to earn some extra money. Because they know they are technically in the right because the bank has signs up against parking, and they know the bar is popular enough that a lot of people will park there when the bar's lot is full.

I was down there a few years ago in the neighboring town of Bridgeport, went to a strip club with a friend and we stopped into a 24 hour diner at the end of the fight. The bill was scarcely $10, something around $8.50 so I pay with a $20 bill and the guy gives me change for $10. I tell him he gave me the wrong change and he still owed me $10 and he says he wasn't mistaken (in broken English) and starts to get mad. After a couple of exchanges he's not budging and I notice he's got his hand under the counter. At this rate I think, "Fuck it." and leave. He was probably fingering a weapon or something under the counter and I figured $10 was not enough to try potentially risking my life over.
 
granny said:
The company the bank hired to tow your car has every right to take your car. You should not have parked there, there was even a sign. You took your chances and only lost $50. You got really lucky.
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fixed, but essentially agreed
 
Yup it's a private tow company. He's hired to tow from that lot randomly. He probably gets a piece of the impound fee for every car he brings in. You'll often find towing "stalkers". I say you got off easy. The guy was probably just asking for what he'd get if he took the car to the impound. He really did you a favor.
 
i'm fairly certain the law in Maryland is if you catch them, they have to let you get the car back free of charge. the law may have changed though, so don't quote me.

towing cars after 11pm is fucked up...towing company just doing it to make some easy money....since really, who cares if people park in the lot at night.
 
You might take into account that the the bank did not in fact have anything to do with this. If people park there a lot as bar patrons the tow guys would come out themselves. Bank wouldn't give a fuck who parks in their lot when the bank is closed. Most likely the two guys come out there of their own intention and start towing people. If the owner returns during the tow process, the tow-guy can extort some free money out of them. They know they'll pay it because it costs less overall than to have it in the impound lot. And since no one officially called the tow guys out there there isn't any evidence of being called so the tow guy puts that extortion money right into his pocket and no one's the wiser. And if he does tow the car he'll get paid some other way.
 
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