Towing Company Continues To Stand By Its Misplaced Lawsuit Against Angry Customer, Despite Losing Half Its Business
from the time-to-cut-bait-and-apologize dept
Back in April, we wrote about a towing company that got so upset about a Facebook page that it decided to sue the page's creator for libel. As pointed out at the time, this only served to draw more attention to the claims made by the Facebook page -- claiming that the towing company often towed legitimately parked cars. In fact, the controversy has brought out many more people who claim they had legitimately parked cars towed. An anonymous reader let us know that the Detroit Free Press has checked in on the towing company again, and it's now lost half of its accounts due to this controversy. You might think, at this point, the company would wise up, admit that it was wrong, apologize to the guy it sued, and try to focus on building its reputation back up. But... no luck. The company sticks by its stance. The owner's lawyer blames the lost business on the "hostility" the situation caused. Um. Or, perhaps it was towing legitimately parked cars, and then suing someone who complained about it. That might have something to do with the lost business too. Oh, and it's probably worth mentioning that the company, T&J Towing, has an F-rating at the local Better Business Bureau, due to 20 complaints in the last three years... of which it responded to only three. Maybe, rather than suing critics, T&J should learn to respond to them.And, of course, it appears the situation is getting even worse for the company. Because of all this attention, many others have been stepping up to complain about their own experiences with T&J, leading the lawyer representing the guy T&J sued to look about filing a class action lawsuit against the company. It seems like the company would have been better off apologizing and giving the original guy back his money. Or not towing his car in the first place.
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Filed Under: customer service, defamation, streisand effect, towing
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Hindsight is always 20/20.
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Er, why do you have to think that? It isn't as if towing companies haven't done this sort of thing before. Musician Steve Goodman made a bulk of his reputation helping to get Chicago towing laws changed and companies slapped around by writing his song, "The Pirates of Lincoln Park"....
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Bonus points if you will finally agree Windows 7 is actually DOS on Maximum Maytag Mode.
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I remember when there was a towing outfit that would grab cars around the Sunday flea market without the city ticketing any of the cars. This ended after they were all arrested for car theft.
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In fact, the entire Crown Prosecutor's Office will not have any sense in the matter either. Instead, they see your contention as potentially infringing on their future funding. They will fight you tooth and nail, even after the Justice of the Peace has informed them in open court that it was ill advised.
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Well most of these clampers are working in a dubious legal area but law enforcement generally don't take very positive attitude to the motorist's complaint.
However in a few places a different attitude has been taken by authorities. In Scotland a judge simply decided that private wheel clamping was extortion and so it is not legal there.
In Birmingham the local trading standards have been taking up the fight - and recently scored a notable victory - look at this story!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/birmingham/10165899.stm
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Re: towing company
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Re: civil matter and illegal towing
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Except when you are blind to the lessons of the past, as the owners of T&J apparently are.
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Re: the owners of T&J apparently are blind
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Re: Re: the owners of T&J apparently are blind
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But if your the victim, maybe you'll try to transfer blame to the third party through the court of public opinion.
In that case, it sucks that they didn't work with a BBB moderator, huh?
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I can only presume they dropped T&J because they knew their renter was parked there legally
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Since we're dabbling in the world of magical ifs to change the nature of the discussions, I think the towing company was using unicorns and leprechauns to abscond with the vehicles. Wouldn't then T&J be in the right? So everyone else shut-up--because you don't know, man, you don't know.
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And if newspapers don't give us the full story then who will?
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Forums, bloggers, independent/citizen journalists, sites like this...the list goes on and on.
Really, seriously now, you should get a clue about how the modern world works, especially since you are on the internet. This isnt 1935 anymore you know, people have VAST methods of communicating information quickly and accurately. There is no longer a reliance on a single point of newsgathering anymore. Time to get with it or get lost.
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To get a "F" ranking takes a lot of work, or negligence rather... Like seriously negligent work. The BBB will send you at minimum 3 letters for each issue, and you actually have to ignore them. So they probably missed 20 or more letters to "earn" that "F" Ranking.
But if your the victim, maybe you'll try to transfer blame to the third party through the court of public opinion.
In that case, it sucks that they didn't work it out with a BBB moderator, huh?
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But here's the important part about the BBB--all the company has to do is respond to the complaints to satisfy the BBB. The only way you get an F is if you utterly ignore all those letters coming in, and any business that can't even slap together a form letter or a quick phone call to an angry person who got towed... well, they deserve whatever happens to them.
Anyway, just because there may be *some* people who were parked illegally and deserved their towing doesn't mean that ALL of those towed were parked illegally.
There are so many stories (from actual towing employees, no less) about less-than-ethical ways to turn a legally parked car into an illegally parked car. Obviously not all of those stories are true, but it's enough reasonable doubt to lead me to believe that there's plenty of reason for this company to deserve their current misfortune.
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Don't be naive-- I believe they moved in next door to you and are your best friend.
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http://forums.nicoclub.com/now-with-conclusion-audi-owner-gets-booted-and-is-sticking-it-to- them-t346387.html
And yes, these kinds of places are complete nazi's about it. I had a MOTEL boot my car once because THEY didnt give me whatever parking pass I needed when I came in at 2:30AM. This was a MOTEL 6 near downtown Charlotte, and I have never used the chain again. They were going to tow the car and charge me over $250 to get it back, when I had a valid room paid for. They point to a SMALL sign that is around the corner away from the main desk, high up on the wall away from any other signage and claim "you should have known." Screw this company and all towing companies that engage in this immoral and reprehensible behavior.
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I lost a day of vacation standing in a progression of long slow lines full of other angry tourists with similar situations, just to pay it (would have lost two more days to fight it), and never returned to DC again.
For a few dollars in bogus fines, they lost a whole lot of business.
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http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?t=2732344
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T&JTowing just gets better but not for them...
Students say T&J Towing is breaking the law and ripping them off. Now, the company's former employees are coming forward and saying, yes, the company is.
http://www.wwmt.com/articles/employees-1372565--.html
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Years back I worked for a towing companies that did private property as well as accidents. Not a single one of them had a good BBB rating because even if I hooked a car that didn't have a handicap tag in a handicap space people would complain to the BBB. And then some asshole who thinks it's alright to park in a handicap space, fire zone, or other obviously marked non-parking space for just a few minutes files yet another complaint after the first one gets a response. Eventually the companies stop bothering to respond because it doesn't change anything. So the F rating from the BBB likely applies to any towing company that handles private properties. Since towing companies that handle private properties, accidents and repos don't generally require any sort of customer satisfaction on the part of the towee the cost associated with responding to the BBB with the volume of complaints they frequently don't bother.
Here in Texas there are very specific laws concerning towing from private property and while there are operators who hook cars outside of those laws they are stopped pretty quickly because the fines are steep enough that it doesn't make any business sense and the driver doing it will get fired on top of being responsible for the fines.
Also a property owner can sign a tow slip for a legally parked vehicle (fire zones and handicap are the only illegal as far as the law is concerned parking areas) and it's a legal tow whether the owner of the vehicle likes it or not. Once a vehicle is on private property the owner of the property has control of whether or not the vehicle stays. At that point all the towing company can do is tell the owner of the car to speak with the property owner which also leads to them being hated. If it comes down to the police requesting a tow outside of an accident then it's their responsibility once their name and badge number is on the tow slip. The point is that the towing company may have no idea about any shady practices the property owners engage in and be operating completely legally. At least here in Texas it's in their best interest to do so.
People hate wrecker drivers and tow companies and this company isn't helping the situation. If they acted legally and continue to do so then a lawsuit isn't the way to handle these complaints. It would be easy to require their drivers to take pictures of the illegally parked vehicle (I was required to do so) and simply post them in response to these complaints. If they are just doing their job, which they claim, then these complaints could easily be shown to be sour grapes after someone got caught parking illegally. The way they are handling this makes very little sense and makes me, a former wrecker driver, think they might have something to hide.
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Riiiight. 20 complaints in 3 years is a "huge" volume... Did you read the post at all?
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Yes, yes you are. So your comment had nothing to do with the case and you are freely admitting it. And it's not nitpicking when a good third of your defensive rambling was about BBB. Which, as we established, has nothing to do with this particular case. May be you should talk about the towing equipment as well, we are talking about the industry after all, right?
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Does your mommy know that you are using computer past your game time? You didn't provide much support for being a "grown up" yourself, let alone having an intelligent discussion.
All that Mr. Romeo does is provide a point of view of a towing company with all the bias that it includes. And when called out on a large chunk of statement not corresponding to the situation, all he could do is claim that it's just general rambling that has nothing to do with topic at hand. Thanks, we figured that out on our own. Just focus on the parts that make sense in the context (company's behavior, should've taken pictures, etc.) and stop defending irrelevant word piles.
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NOW WITH CONCLUSION... Audi owner gets booted, and is sticking it to them...
The conclusion is on page 4 of the forum postings.
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Re: NOW WITH CONCLUSION... Audi owner gets booted, and is sticking it to them...
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There's often only one way to get satisfaction with these things.
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Tony Soprano needs to settle this matter right away.
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towing the line
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A picture is worth a thousand complaints.
Hook, line, sinker.
Done.
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Re: A picture is worth a thousand complaints.
In several of the apartments in Kalamazoo that students live in the parking passes hang from the mirror... meaning that they don't even need to fully open and unlock the door to knock the pass onto the floor of the car and tow it.
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legaly parked?, not likely
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Re: legaly parked?, not likely
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Re: Re: legaly parked?, not likely
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Re: legaly parked?, not likely
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T&J rarely ever argues that they were parked in illegal spaces like handicapped.. but that there was no permit displayed or that visitor parking was no longer and they had yet to remove the sign.
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A Local Perspective
The third time T&J towed my vehicle i was at a local apartment complex legally parked in one of a half dozen visitor parking spots, I went down paid my $118, found my car with a broken window and a missing cd player. they also stole/switched my battery again. I figured the window was revenge for causing trouble last time so i didnt ask for a receipt.
I want to stress my T&J experience is not atypical, several friends have similar stories, including physical confrontations with employees, Sometimes the driver will be accompanied by a non uniformed person, whose sole purpose it seems is to intimidate people. They will try to physically prevent persons from entering a vehicle that is about to be towed.
There is an observable Streisand effect happening in kzoo. College students are getting into screaming matches with drivers. People are stealing or defacing T and J signs on various lots across town, including the hilarious check us out on facebook graffiti sticker. T and J will go out of business in kalamazoo.
I just wanted to point out that this company is hated due a long history of poor customer service and illegal behavior. The Police have refused to do anything about T and J, so the community it self is doing something. Saturday night i witnessed T and J towing a car. There was at least 10 people videotaping the process.
A class action lawsuit against T&J could have thousands of legitimate claims. Their only building is a corrugated steel shack. I am guessing they have little no paper work or assets. They should hope the IRS doesn't get involved as they are almost certainly guilty of tax evasion
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Re: A Local Perspective
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Are on the street without the owners permission. People notice that there
car or truck is missing to find out wittnesses
in the neighborhood state that the company
solid gold is taking them away.
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Please remove............
******Post*********
Anonymous Coward, Sep 16th, 2010 @ 5:18pm
On July 21, 2010 my car engine did not start. I then called the A-Z Global Towing to tow my car for repair. On that Friday, the owner Robert Curry A.K.A Aziz telephoned me to explain the car's "situation". Mr. Curry stated, " the car's starter sparked a fire under the hood and burned the engine." He then said my only option was to "get rid" of the car, however, in order to do that I had to sign over the title to him. Disappointed by the current news, I reluctantly followed the suggestion. On September 2, 2010, I saw my car driving on the same street as I. Shocked by my findings, I called Aziz at the following telephone numbers; (248)688-5854, (313) 425-7177, (313) 425-6162, (248) 990-6911 and received no answer. As of today, I have not been able to contact the owner of this towing company to resolve this matter.
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Re: Please remove............
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Towing Lawsuit
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Towing of Vehicles and Legally Parked
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Difficult to find reliable towing Companies
Finding an accessible and reliable towing company is not an easy task to do, especially when you are entirely stuck in an entrapping situation. Every one of us must have experienced one of these dilemmas and would have made it even worse by calling an unreliable towing company.
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