Monday, May 12, 2008

Dallas-area towing service ripping people off, $43 at a time

By Avi Adelman of Barking Dogs

Updated 10:24 p.m., May 14, 2008

It is no secret that BD has zero sympathy for anyone who has the unmitigated chutzpah to park their car in a privately owned parking lot and walk off the lot to patronize another business, without any regard for the business owning the parking lot. If you don't have the sense to read the signs, you deserve what you get, and what you will pay for.

Many of these idiots actually believe it's their god-given right to park anywhere they want, justifying their logic by saying, The business is on Lower Greenville, it is what it is. These are the same people who think our residential streets belong to them, even if they live in Plano or McKinney.

Towing happens dozens of times every weekend on Lower Greenville: Bar patrons are desperate to find a free parking space, so they park on the Taco Cabana, Blockbuster, Dodie's or CVS parking lot. They just wander away, not realizing that someone is watching them leave. Five minutes later their car is gone - probably to South Dallas, in a place you don't want to visit in the daytime, let alone at 4am.

Since December 2006, more than 57,000 vehicles were towed involuntarily by dozens of private towing services from private property for illegal parking, parking after hours, repos, and similar issues. This figure does not include tows for accidents, repairs or illegal parking on City streets.

Towing charges are set by the City's Transportation Department ($95 for the tow) and the State's Department of Licensing and Regulation ($20 for the storage fee, $20 for the impoundment fee), or about $135 if you get your car back within a day.

Unless your car was towed by Lone Star Auto Services. When you paid your bill to get your car back, they tacked on a governmental entity fee of $43.65 or more on top of the approved charges. The receipt does not tell you which governmental entity is getting this money, and if you ask, they won't tell you.

Funny thing about this fee: It's illegal and it's going into Lone Star's corporate pocket.

Even funnier: The City of Dallas' Transportation Regulation department has cited Lone Star at least a dozen times in the last eight months for collecting this illegal fee. But Lone Star keeps collecting the money, ripping off people who are in no position to argue about it because the citations have not yet been heard in Municipal Court.

Don't let your sons grow up to be tow truck drivers

While most towing services have their shady side (e.g., how many tattoos you need in order to qualify as a driver), there are some things they just cannot do. For example, AJ's Towing was featured on News8 and the DMN this past Friday night for towing without any state licenses and storing several stolen cars on their property.

But Lone Star pushes the envelope when it comes to illegal actions. Lone Star's business manager, David Schweng, who was also their Lower Greenville spotter last St. Patrick's Day, contacted BD about six weeks ago (in his role as vice-president of the BelmontNA), saying he and his company president wanted to discuss over lunch how they could tow cars blocking residential driveways in the neighborhood from public streets. When BD countered they could only do this using a helicopter in order to avoid driving on city streets, he insisted they had a way to interpret the City's towing code in such a way that would allow them to do this. They wanted BD to pass the word to BelmontNA members, whom they hoped would call them for towing services.

BD contacted the City's Transportation Department and confirmed there was no way this could be legal. This is when BD starting asking Lone Star's staff some hard questions - which they refused to answer.

Repeated faxes to Lone Star's office asking for comments for this article have been ignored.

Lone Star Auto Services is not a new name on this website. For nearly two years, they were responsible for towing illegally parked cars off the Blockbuster Lower Greenville lot, usually grabbing 10 -15 cars each weekend. That came to a grinding halt last month when BD proved Lone Star never had a legal contract. The Blockbuster folks thought the property owner had made the deal, the property owner thought Whole Foods had made the deal, and the Whole Food folks thought Blockbuster made the deal. In fact, no one made a deal. Lone Star simply planted signs on the parking lot and went about their business.

BD contacted Lone Star's manager for Lower Greenville - Scott Mosser - and asked for a copy of the contract. They replied it was none of his business.

BD filed a complaint with the City's Transportation Department, who can - and did - demand a copy of the towing contract since they use the City's right of way (streets) to move cars.

This did not go over well with Lone Star, so they tried to bully a Blockbuster manager into signing a contract while the property owner's agent was sending them a letter to get off the property. They were evicted about three weeks ago and a new towing service will be on duty by next weekend (with a properly executed contract in hand).

They charged me how much???

After BD posted his story about Lone Star's Blockbuster issues, he started getting calls from former Lone Star customers, asking him questions about their unusual towing charges.

In every single instance, the complaint was the same - What's with this governmental entity fee, and what government is getting it??

This is a partial scan of an invoice provided to us by a very pissed customer. This and another invoice are posted as PDF files at this link.

BD contacted the City's Transportation Department and confirmed two things -

There is no such thing as a governmental entity fee allowed for any tow in Dallas.

The City has cited Lone Star for this illegal fee no less than 12 times since October 2007.

They were issued as at large tickets, delivered by mail to Lone Star's office. BD is not completely fluent in the process' details, but apparently when someone complains about the fee on their receipt, a ticket is issued upon verification of the illegal charges.

This means only 12 people figured out something was not kosher about the fees and went to the effort of finding who to call.

A copy of one ticket is shown below.... you can see all 12 citations by clicking this link.

To date, Lone Star and the City have not duked it out in Municipal Court (these tickets are handled the same way as parking or speeding tickets), which is not unusual for delays.

But if Lone Star loses at least two of the cases, the City can - and will - revoke Lone Star's towing permit for operating on Dallas streets.

That may not be enough to stop them. Back in June 2006, AJ's Towing was towing for months without a permit, and the City could not stop them.

Fast forward to 2008, and AJ's is still in business??

Given the City's record for not being able win cases against phony restaurants operating as bars, we have zero confidence in their ability to stop Lone Star from pocketing this money for years to come.

So how do I get my money back???

The short answer is, you probably can't.

You should file a complaint with the City's Transportation Department - contact Ruben Padilla at 214.670.3358. But have a copy of the original receipt, not a credit card statement. A few more citations added to the pile would make things really interesting.

The long answer is, can you say class action lawsuit???

Let's do the math. Since our receipts and tickets are for locations all over Dallas, let's assume Lone Star is tacking this fee to every towing invoice. That means they have collected nearly $38,000 in nearly 18 months.

Throw in some treble damages, punitive damages, vehicle damages and legal fees, and now you are talking about a half-million bucks in someone else's pockets.

If anyone wants BD's list of vehicles towed by Lone Star since December 2006, pop him an email and we will send you the database (with license plate information only). You can see a list of 362 vehicles towed from Blockbuster Lower Greenville at this page.

If you have documents about Lone Star, fax them to BD at 214-292-9761 (no cover page required) or email PDF files to news@barkingdogs.org.

Pegasus News content partner - Barking Dogs

Note: This story was originally published on May 12, but then Avi told us that the embargo had been extended so that it could air on WFAA.

See more stories in:

• Belmont Neighborhood Association
• Lower Greenville

Comments

Scott Miller Verified

"Lone Star customers"

Is that what you call them?

2 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )