Apr 05 2008
Asheville May Crack Down on “Predatory” Towing
ASHEVILLE – Kimberly Kubicke paid $150 for a cup of coffee.At least that’s how it felt when the 31-year-old nanny from Montford came out of a downtown coffee house and found her car gone one day in March.“It was 6:30 at night, and the only space that hadn’t been taken was one right in front of the recycling dumpster,” she said. “It was dark and rainy, so I didn’t notice there was a very faded ‘x’ in the spot.”
Her misadventure didn’t end there. After realizing her car had been towed, she got a ride out to the tow company. There she learned they wouldn’t take her credit card. She got cash and paid the $125 tow fee and $25 storage fee — half her week’s pay.
This reminds me of something that happened to me about 10 years ago. I was a manager at a grocery store in a small shopping plaza. Our space was leased from the owners of the plaza and the property manager had contracted a towing company to remove cars out of the lot that didn’t belong there after hours. We already had past incidents of this towing company towing away employees’ cars in the middle of the night when they would be working special overnight shifts. They would have all of their cars parked right up in front of the building with the store lights on and people visibly working inside and the towing company would still tow them even though they knew who they belonged to. They were instructed to remove any cars in the lot between 1am and 6:00am since nobody was generally there between those hours.
One morning I was scheduled to open the store, which we always arrived at 6:00 to get some work done before the store opened to the public at 8:00. I arrived about 15 minutes earlier than normal, at 5:45, just 15 minutes and those bastards took my car. I was furious. I had one of my employees drive me down to the towing company and I had it out big time with that fat piece of lard behind the desk. They pulled the same garbage with me that the company in the above article pulled with Kubicke. They wouldn’t accept a credit card and I had to go hunt down an ATM to get some money out. I got back to the store and then called and chewed out the property manager as well. My company reimbursed me for the money and said they would look into the matter with the property owners to keep it from happening in the future and as long as I was at that location I never heard of any further issues.
These towing companies know full well what they are doing. They don’t exercise common sense and as I was having it out on the phone with the property manager of my old employer he basically admitted that he knew that they knew they were taking employees’ cars. These placed do it on purpose to line their pockets.
