One of society's greatest thieves struck again in bulk. Towing companies have been in the news over the past year after the public meltdown of ESPN personality Britt McHenry.
In April, a local Washington DC suburb towing company, Advanced Towing, released footage of the ESPN personality shouting at and insulting an Advanced Towing employee. The video, as often happens in the 21st Century, spread like wildfire. McHenry was suspended for a week from the sports giant, but her tirade brought up a seldom discussed issue: the ethical behavior of towing companies.
Recently, California has been a mess: months and months of drought, freak storms that cancel baseball games for the first time in decades, and giant wildfires.
And some towing companies are taking full advantage of the opportunity.
Wildfires near San Bernardino caused dozens of drivers to abandon their vehicles to rush to safety. In the ensuing fires, at least twenty cars were destroyed, and another ten were damaged.
Some of those who's vehicles were affected took to social media to voice their displeasure of certain towing companies.
According to the San Bernardino County Sun, Michelle Sepulveda wrote on her Facebook page saying:
They are charging $220 an hour to all those people that abandoned their cars at ... Cajon Pass yesterday... The family my brother saved yesterday is having to pay well over $2,600 to get her car out and every hour she waits, the more it goes up.”
California State Police announced that they investigated the claims, and had resolved the issue at hand.
Even with the claims resolved, towing companies still have an uphill battle to change their public image. Multiple towing company owners in the San Bernardino area released statements amid the backlash.
The manager of Gonzales Tow, Richard Monroy, released a statement:
“Our company does not operate on people’s hopelessness, and any illegal activity or overcharging... We understand the public’s concerns and decided we will not be a tow company who will profit from the obvious situation.”
Another tow company owner said that her company worked for free because it was the "right thing to do."
AZX Auto Transport owner Gloria Chairez said, "I couldn’t believe the tow companies were literally clawing and fighting for those vehicles, adding up the dollars as each one they obtained.”
H/T Reddit and San Bernardino County Sun