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There's a phrase that raises the neck hairs of every car owner: "Your car has been towed." The result is never good. Always a mad scramble to find where the car is impounded. Always an expensive taxi fare or long bus ride to the pound. And always, always, a huge fee to reclaim your wheels from the towing company.
Now the Sun-Times has found a new reason to fear towing: Exorbitant city fees in conjunction with rotten towing companies are resulting in car owners losing their cars outright. With no legal recourse.
Probably the most shocking story so far is the missionary who came back from overseas, found her car towed, and couldn't pay the $1,000 in fines. So the city sold her car to a dealer for $125. Now she owes the fine, over $12,000 in car loans, and has no car.
The Sun-Times is billing this as a scandal on the scale of last winter's Hired Truck Scandal, but everyone (including S-T's Mark Brown) always knew there was something bad going on with city towing, right?
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I think the biggest story here is that the city sold the car for only $125. I don't think anyone expects the city to keep cars indefinitely, but they should be getting a reasonable price for them - and $125 on a car with a $12,000 loan on it is not even close to reasonable.
At the very least, if they got decent prices on them they could pay off the fines owed them, probably saving the city tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.
now we know why those ads for the city auto auction are so shitty looking. i want a fair auto at my price, OK?
It is crap like this (among other things) that has made me give up on the thought of owning a car and living in this town, it just isn't worth it.
I can't believe it, my co-worker just bought a car for $37024. Isn't that crazy!
I can't believe it, my co-worker just bought a car for $37024. Isn't that crazy!
I can't believe it, my co-worker just bought a car for $37024. Isn't that crazy!
I can't believe it, my co-worker just bought a car for $37024. Isn't that crazy!