Predators attack for personal gain. Parking on an Eastside street I naively thought that a city sanctioned tow company would never attack for personal gain. I now feel differently.
Here’s a taste. I park a car a block from my house late one night. The next day it is gone. I report it as stolen to LAPD and wait. Three week later I get a call to call the towing company–the car has been found. Total to recover just under $900. As the clerk is doing paper work I discover that the car was found the same day it went missing on the same block where it was parked. Strange? When I ask why it toke three weeks to notify me if the car was found the same day, the clerk stares back in silence. Still strange? To make this even stranger I had locked the steering wheel with a Club, which was still attached at the pick-up yard. Strange, strange, strange? No, I think scam!
I feel violated by my city, my family attacked–emotionally raped in a way. Power makes people do deranged things. I wonder if anyone else has had similar experiences with Viertel Towing?
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submitted by M. Saldivar Galindo
Okay… That’s just one side of the story. What did the sign say on the street to get you towed? BTW, they use tow dollies to take a car when the steering wheel is locked or the handbrake is on.
that’s very messed up. You should definitely fight the charge! There’s no way that they should be able to charge you for holding your car for three weeks. That definitely sounds like a scam to me.
When my car was stolen, I had to go to the tow yard to ID my car. They treated me like it was my fault that it was stolen!!! Three weeks to notify you, that’s not right. These folks feel empowered for some reason.
Power does what it wants. Sorry this happened to you. It just gets worse if you get mad…it’s almost as if they’re baiting you into getting mad so they can take it to the next step. They’re antagonizing us so that we’ll react so that they can then arrest us. But it’s nothing new. It’s just expanding to government departments where it never really existed before. Private contractors control everything. I was driving home once and a fork lift just zipped around the corner and almost hit me, and the goon operator was cussing at me and threatening me. They didn’t put up any signs or anything. I called the city, and she directed me to the private company they contracted out to. She wouldn’t even take my complaint. Yeh, sure…I’m going to call the company. It’s like calling Halliburton to complain about Dick Cheney. We’re fucked.
Yes, Viertels is the SUCK. I hate everything about them. You can try complaining to the city at opgla.com and the Better Business Bureau. My car got towed recently by ATS Northeast towing and they were so nice I gave them a good review on Yelp for it.
i definitely would fight it, i mean its a matter of principle.
Have proof to support your claim (paperwork,police report,pictures of sign posted,etc)
I would not rest until i was satisfied.
Be clear and direct and tell them what happen and what you want them to do now to make it right.
If not tell them you will go to ABC 7 or even better NBC 4 and Ana Garcia or Joel Grover.
These tow truck fuckers do go trolling for cars, hey it happened in Bell,CA.
I have a family acquaintance that works for a major tow company and i asked him directly and he did not deny or confirm but he just 🙂 smiled- that told me everything.
Fat drunk bastards!
Hey they push you…you push back
Dont be a victim…be a survivor
Im glad i dont drive anymore….i mean what are they gonna do tow my METRO bus? 🙂
Please fight it. Don’t let these people get away with this theft.
Some “no parking tow” signs went up in my street. I thought they would be fixing something, but nothing has been fixed.
What is this bullshit?
I can’t beleive everyone except for Sanchopancho quickly jumped to Salvador’s defense when he obviously hasn’t given us all the facts.
How about this scenario. He was drunk, it was late, he parked the car in the first spot he found, not realizing it was a red zone, perhaps a bus zone like in the picture, the next morning the car is ticketed then towed, he wakes up late and notices the car is gone, reports it missing, then doesn’t bother to call the police station regularly to check on the cars status, prefering to wait for the unionized and well pensioned police department to call him when they feel like it, three weeks later he is called and picks it up also being surprised that the Club is still attached and that there are fees associated with tow yards. I think the tow company was just doing their job.
Well that’s another way to see it. Please give us details.
Here is some advice if someones car is stolen.
1. Report it stolen to the police immediately and pick up a copy of the report.
2. Call them everyday to check on the status.
3. Pick it up immediately from the tow yard to avoid the increasing storage fees.
4. If it was stolen, parked and ticketed on another street, then towed, you can send a copy of the police report and a letter, to avoid paying the parking ticket
I do fault the police department for not having better integration with the parking enforcement division, and I don’t see why they can’t afford to mail the reports, or notify you as soon as they can.
My car disappeared from in front of my house a couple years back. It was my bad: I parked it out there with no plates on street sweeping day. I figured it was towed so I called the LAPD. They said they hadn’t towed it, and so I reported it stolen.
(What they didn’t tell me is that there is some completely different city department that tows cars away on street sweeping day, and that I was magically supposed to know that I had to check that agency, too.)
A full week later I get a notice in the mail that my car had been towed by LA City for being parked illegally (without plates). I pay the fee. So I called the LAPD to report that it wasn’t stolen after all. They wouldn’t let me report my car not stolen over the phone, so I had to go the station which took hours. And I got it all sorted out, or so I thought.
Months later I was pulled over for speeding. They came at me all agro with the “get out of the car” nonsense, cause according to their computer, I was driving a stolen car. Eventually we got it all sorted out again, and they were cool about it. But, FML.