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More Reasons Car Towing Sucks

By vouchey in News on Nov 11, 2004 3:26PM

G.E.M. Towing was fired Monday - Sun-Times 11-11-04There'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?