Delaney Hall (2:54)

number back out in the parking lot. They did find Signs warning that unauthorized cars would be towed. One was in Cyrillic, one was covered in graffiti and and another was tucked away in a far corner of the lot. Kelly had the idea to pull up the Google Reviews for the 711 and they found dozens of people telling pretty much the same story.

Kelly Prime (3:18)

It says I was their customer for many years, gave a great business for all those years till my car was towed. Less than 6 minutes absence. If you read the other 1 star review you'll understand what's going on. The store is running a scam. We bought drinks in the store and someone called the towing. Never buy anything from this store. Call 311 and unethical car hostage and get $150 from you.

Delaney Hall (3:47)

I'm Delaney hall and this is Service request from 99% Invisible and Campside Media. We take your burning questions about infrastructure and we investigate. Kelly eventually got her car back that night and we will get into that. But the whole experience left her with a question that she could not shake or really a whole bunch of questions.

Kelly Prime (4:11)

How is it that you can just park your car, 15 minutes later it's gone. I don't know who's in charge of regulating this. I don't know who empowers these tow truck guys. Under whose authority are they working. It just feels like this black box of mystery that's affecting clearly a lot of people. If the Google reviews are to be

Delaney Hall (4:32)

believed today, the black box of mystery of towing and impoundment. Who decides when your car gets taken? Who decides where it goes and when things go wrong, which it turns out they do a lot. Why is it so hard to fix? When we started trying to find the answer to Kelly's question, I learned the term that describes this kind of practice. It's called predatory towing and it describes towers who actively hunt for cars to pick up and then demand inflated fees when owners try to get them back. Predatory towing happens everywhere, but in some places it happens a lot. Detroit, Michigan has a well documented and long running predatory towing problem. And so that makes it a good case study for us.

Tom Berry (5:22)

I mean it's a big business, it's a, it's multi million dollar business. And they make a lot of money doing this.

Delaney Hall (5:28)

Yeah.

Tom Berry (5:28)

So that's why they do it.

Delaney Hall (5:30)

This is Tom berry. He spent 35 years as a police officer in Detroit and he retired as a lieutenant about a decade ago. Since then he's worked as a fraud investigator for insurance companies. And he has seen the towing industry from basically every angle. He's been a cop who called tow trucks and he's been an investigator who's uncovered how corrupt towing companies actually operate. I'm curious, can you help us understand in an ideal world, how is towing supposed to be a public good? What kind of service do towers provide when they're working well?

Tom Berry (6:12)

Well, if it's working good, which we all like to see, you live on, you know, Elm Avenue, and you come out one day, and you can't get out of your driveway because somebody's parked there. So of course you call the police because you got to go to work, and the police call the tow truck, and the tow truck comes out and moves that car out of your way so you can go about your business. That's a good deal. Also, we have accidents. You know, once they take care of the injured, we need to remove those cars from the road. The tow companies take them to a tow yard so they can be good.

Delaney Hall (6:46)

In many cities, when there's a crash that needs to be cleared or a vehicle that's been abandoned on the street, police will call a private towing company to haul it away. That's how it works in Detroit, too. Tom says that when he was a police officer, the department gave him a list of the tow companies that he was allowed to call. These were companies that had a contract with the police to cover a certain area of the city. And most officers would go down the approved list calling companies until one was available to send a tow truck. But years later, as a lieutenant, Tom discovered that not all police officers were doing it that way.

Tom Berry (7:27)

They were using a certain tower. They weren't calling the scheduled towers, the towers on the list. They were calling their friend.

Delaney Hall (7:38)

Some cops were calling tow companies they had a relationship with. And many of those companies were inflating their fees way beyond what a typical tow would cost. Then they'd pay kickbacks to the police officers who sent the business their way.

Tom Berry (7:53)

And the corruption kind of swelled. It just keeps surmounting, and eventually, you know, it comes crashing down. That's what happened here in Detroit.

Delaney Hall (8:04)

Eventually there was a federal investigation into the corruption that Tom is talking about, and some cops went to jail. But that wasn't the end of towing problems in the city. In fact, Tom says some of the most problematic towing doesn't even involve the police. It involves situations like Kelly's, where people get towed for parking in a private lot. I'm curious if, kind of zooming out, you can walk me through how a predatory towing operation works. Like, what does a typical day look like? What are the most common schemes that you see?

Tom Berry (8:46)

Well, I Think that most towers are basically honest. First, I want to give them a little accolade. But so what happens? Like your. Your friend there at the 7:11. So it's illegal to park in private property and go to the doctor's office, let's say, or go, you know, go do your shopping. So if you own a business in your city, you know, you know, McDonald's or Burger King or whatever, and you have private citizens that aren't patronizing your business, tying up your lot, and they keep coming in there, and your customer, you're losing customers because your lot's full of people going to shop at Macy's. Then you're mad. So you, the business owner, can contact Joe's towing and say, hey, I got a red Chevy out in my lot. Can you come and get it? It's been here for a half hour.

Delaney Hall (9:38)

This practice makes sense. A business needs to keep its lot clear for actual customers. And that's what happened to Kelly. She parked at a 7 11, walked to a neighboring restaurant, and then came back to find her car gone. She technically broke the rules, and the tow company had the right to take her car. But there are sketchier tactics that some towers use to maximize the number of cars they can grab. For instance, spotters.

Tom Berry (10:07)

Spotters are paid citizens that live in that area. I approach them and say, hey, I'm the owner of Joe's towing, and I know that your apartment overlooks the burger king lot over here. So we. We meet, say, okay, here's what I want you to do. I want you to watch this lot, and if you see somebody go into that lot and not use the business, you call me. And so I'll be right there. And if I get the tow job, you get 50 or 100 bucks. So tow truck makes cash, people make 50 bucks. No taxes. Everybody's happy. Except the person that parked there.

Delaney Hall (10:46)

Except the person who parked there. So this is interesting. Some tow companies, they basically recruit a neighborhood network of eyes on the ground, of spies.

Tom Berry (10:57)

That's a good way to put it. A neighborhood network. Excellent.

Delaney Hall (11:01)

People who are just keeping an eye on these various parking lots, and when they see someone park there and not use the business, they just give the tow truck driver a call and they get a kickback.

Tom Berry (11:10)

Exactly.

Delaney Hall (11:12)

In some cities, it's illegal for tow companies to use spotters, but not in New York city or in Detroit. One tow company there became so notorious for using spotters, they felt the need to put out this little explainer video on their Facebook page.

Shane Nation (11:27)

A lot of people think a spotter's illegal, but it's not. There's nothing illegal about it. They're just maintaining parking spaces for the property owner.

Delaney Hall (11:38)

After the break, we'll talk with a driver who used to work for that Notorious Detroit Tow Co. As a small business owner. Sometimes it feels like no matter how much planning you do, there's always surprises like an urgent, expensive repair. But here's a surprise you will like with Progressive. Small business owners save 13% on their

Tom Berry (12:03)

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Delaney Hall (12:05)

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Shane Nation (13:25)

My name is Shane Nation. I'm in Detroit, Michigan and I currently tow and I've been in the industry for about five years.

Delaney Hall (13:36)

When I spoke with Shane, he was in his tow truck between calls on his lunch break. As far as I can tell, there aren't a lot of tow truck drivers who are willing to talk with a journalist about the realities of the job, but Shane is one of them. He started in the industry when he was just 16 years old.

Shane Nation (13:54)

Once I started like working in the industry, it's, it's like a bug. It's, it's very hard to, to go do something where you're, you're not as free like go sit in an office or inside all day long and it honestly it's not boring. There's people that have been towing for 25 years and they'll tell you that they learn new stuff every day because it's just genuinely that type of job.

Delaney Hall (14:17)

So for people who are not familiar with towing, what is a typical day like in the life of a tow truck driver?

Shane Nation (14:24)

You normally sit in the truck, you play on your phone, do whatever to, like, let time pass, and then you just wait for police calls to come in. Those could look like impounds, like somebody got arrested. And we would tow their car to impound lot. It could look like a car crash, and we have to be out there cleaning the scene on the highway or something. And it could be as simple as your, you know, your mom broke down and she just needs a tow to the mechanic shop and to get her car fixed.

Delaney Hall (14:51)

Have you towed your mom?

Shane Nation (14:52)

Yeah, not my mother. Luckily, she buys newer vehicles and gets warranties and stuff. But family members, yes.

Delaney Hall (15:01)

So they're like, I know exactly who to call.

Shane Nation (15:04)

Shane. Yeah. Unfortunately, that is what seems to be what they do.

Delaney Hall (15:11)

Shane's first real towing job was with a company in detroit that had a reputation for predatory towing. Shane doesn't actually have a problem naming this company. He's spoken on TV in detroit about them, but we don't want to name them in this episode. We don't want shane to get in trouble.

Shane Nation (15:29)

So since day one there, they would say, hey, look, we're on the news all the time. It is what it is. People don't like their car getting towed. So that's pretty much how I was told there. Like, hey, you're gonna see that we're this, this and that and just don't believe it because, you know, we're just doing the public a service. And some people don't apprec.

Delaney Hall (15:49)

At first, shane thought maybe that's just how the world works. People just complain to the media a lot. Plus, he liked his job. He liked the trucks and getting greasy and how every day was interesting and new. A lot of the jobs he was doing were private property impounds or PPIs. That's when a tow company has a contract with a property owner, like an apartment complex or a 711 to tow cars that shouldn't be there. And this company that shane worked for was aggressive about it. They would work with spotters like the ones tom told us about. They had people sitting in the parking lot watching and waiting for someone to park illegally.

Shane Nation (16:31)

We had two different spotters. They would sit in tenanted out cars and just wait for somebody to pull up. We would sit around the corner. We wouldn't be no further than five minutes away.

Delaney Hall (16:42)

One of the Lots Shane worked was across the street from the med center, which is a cluster of major hospitals in downtown detroit. People would park in the apartment complex lot and then walk across the street to visit someone in the hospital. And Shane's job was to tow their cars. The moment they walked away, we'd pull

Shane Nation (17:00)

up right away, grab their car and drive off with it. Now, these people, sometimes they would come out and, you know, they'd be screaming, yelling, I don't have another car. How am I supposed to get to work? How am I supposed to take my kids to school? And when I was 17, I'm not gonna lie, I had no remorse for them. I didn't feel bad for them at all. But once I started getting older and having bills to pay and understanding that it's. It's genuinely hard out here in the world to. To survive, especially on a low income, and then somebody's coming and taking your car when you're just trying to visit, you know, your mom or your dad that's in the hospital, I can understand now that's like just a really crappy thing to do to somebody.

Delaney Hall (17:46)

Shane says he would sometimes spend whole shifts sitting in his truck near that one parking lot, waiting for spotters to call in tows, because that single lot was sort of a gold mine.

Shane Nation (17:59)

It's 100% returns other than the fuel you used on profits. So, I mean, they're making a killing just towing 15 to 20 cars a day off that one lot. And they have all of downtown Detroit. So, I mean, it's a big operation.

Delaney Hall (18:15)

Given the company's reputation, sometimes the detroit police would show up to see what was going on, or they'd respond to complaints from people who were getting their cars towed. But the company was ready for that. Shane says they trained their employees on what to say when the police arrived, which laws to mention in their arguments for towing a certain car. Shane's interactions with the public weren't any better. It was all so confrontational.

Shane Nation (18:43)

They would always beg and plead, and that's understandable, especially if you don't have the money. It was standard. I was constantly, for lack of better word, I was constantly the. A hole in every predicament I've ever like. Every interaction I had, I was the aggressor. And I just say it wasn't a good feeling.

Delaney Hall (19:05)

If you think about it, it is kind of wild that these non law enforcement private companies are allowed to just take people's unattended vehicles. Shane says that bad practices are common in the world of private property. Impounds because there are basically no checks in the system.

Shane Nation (19:23)

Definitely it's the least regulated. You're not pulling up on a police scene with police there, and you're not pulling up on a broken down vehicle with the car's owner there. You're pulling up on an unattended vehicle that you have full access to. And I mean, you just hook up this car and you call the police nearby and you go, hey, I'm towing this car because it's parked incorrectly on this lot. There's no verification of this whatsoever. You just, you call the police and you tell them you're doing it and they put the system, they put the car in lean so it can't be reported stolen. That's all it is to PPIs. And there's just no verification in the system. So everybody exploits it.

Delaney Hall (20:04)

So you're doing this at this apartment complex lot. You've gotten a little older. You're like, this doesn't feel good because you understand kind of the implications of having your car towed. It's expensive. It's like a huge headache. So what happened from there?

Shane Nation (20:23)

So it was never that, like I wanted to continue doing it. It was kind of the fact that I had bills to pay in my own family to feed is why I stayed there for so much longer after that time period.

Kelly Prime (20:35)

Right.

Shane Nation (20:36)

But yeah, like, I hated it every day after that. Like, it made me lose my love for towing and I genuinely just wanted out in any way, shape or form. By the end of it, Shane was

Delaney Hall (20:48)

having a full blown crisis of conscience. He dreaded going to work and spending all day towing people who he believed didn't really deserve it. Eventually, he left the predatory tow company. He thought he might go back to working in fast food, but instead he started with a different company where he was doing different kinds of tows.

Shane Nation (21:09)

I just didn't want to do PPIs. That was my biggest thing was private property. Impounds feel like they're just not necessary. Like, at least in the way they did it, like it was just unnecessary. And I just, I did them so much 247 that I just didn't want to do them ever again. And that was my main thing. Where I'm at now, all I do is services. Like I, I'm not towing anybody's car because I want to. You know, it's simply they call or the police call and I'm going there to either clean up the wreck or I'm going there to get those people home. Especially where I'm at now, it's Never the case that I'm going there for any other reason other than to service them.

Delaney Hall (21:57)

These conversations with tom and shane helped me understand so much better what might have happened with kelly's car. She was involved in a private property impound situation. She parked at that 711 illegally. There may have been a spotter that saw her do it, and the company probably had a relationship with a tower who was contacted as soon as she walked away. So after standing in the parking lot trying to figure out what to do, she and her friends decided to call the tow company.

Kelly Prime (22:29)

So we called the number, and we actually had to call, like, multiple times to. To get the information we needed, because, like, we'd call, and then they would hang up or we'd call and sort of not get the right information.

Delaney Hall (22:44)

At one point, Kelly asked the tow company to confirm that they had her car by reading back the license plate number.

Kelly Prime (22:51)

And they're like, we can't give you the license plate. And at one point, they were like, yeah, we have your car, but come back tomorrow.

Delaney Hall (22:58)

It was all extremely confusing. But eventually, Kelly took a cab home to let her dog out for a walk, and her friends decided to go get the car themselves. The impound lot was about a mile from the 7 11, and they had to walk there. They eventually found the place, and through the holes in the front gate, they could see Kelly's car.

Kelly Prime (23:19)

They got there, and there was a building that was brightly lit up inside, indicating that perhaps the office was not actually closed, but they were brought into this building. And the guy was like, it's gonna be $350 to get your car back because the office is closed right now.

Delaney Hall (23:38)

Wow, that's a lot of money.

Kelly Prime (23:41)

Yeah, especially. I'm pretty sure the sign said 125. Like, the sign had a pay scale on there, and he was immediately like, that's going to be 350.

Delaney Hall (23:53)

So there's sort of this. There's this negotiation going on. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, totally.

Kelly Prime (23:59)

There is totally a negotiation. And it included, like, at first, they said, oh, because I'm not physically there, that's an extra fee. And then they said, oh, the business is closed. It's after hours. So that's another fee. But there wasn't actually a fee structure. It was just, like a negotiation, like a bartering.

Delaney Hall (24:21)

They were just making it up.

Kelly Prime (24:22)

Yeah, they kidnapped my car and then, like, ransomed it for an uncertain amount of money based on how much cash my friends had on. On hand. Like, it's crazy they can do that.

Delaney Hall (24:34)

But According to Tom, the retired cop, tow companies do this all the time. They pretend they're closed so that people have to come back the next day. And that allows them to inflate the storage fees they charge. They demand to see registration and insurance, which is often in the car that's been impounded. And so people have to run around gathering new documents.

Tom Berry (24:57)

Might take them a day, it might take them two days to go get that information and bring it back to satisfy the tow company. Meanwhile, another 50 bucks a day. Another 50 bucks a day for keeping your car.

Delaney Hall (25:09)

Often these businesses don't disclose their fee structures, and even when they do, the fees can be manipulated.

Tom Berry (25:17)

So, well, it came in on the second at 11 o' clock at night, and here it is the third and it's one o' clock in the morning. Well, that's two days storage. That's $110. Well, wait a minute. My car's only been here for two hours. Yeah, but that's the way it is

Delaney Hall (25:32)

because it's technically touched. Two days, even if it was just a few hours in the middle of the night. I see.

Tom Berry (25:40)

Exactly.

Delaney Hall (25:41)

Kelly's friends were lucky, if you can call it that, because they showed up that same night. They eventually paid $200 to get the car back.

Kelly Prime (25:50)

It's really, really sketchy. Like, none of this feels legal. You can just take someone's car, ransom it, figure out an amount of money between you. And then they said no receipt, so they just had to pay their $200. How else are you going to get your car back? Like, these five guys have it. What else are you going to do?

Delaney Hall (26:09)

It almost seems like the Towers don't want you to get your car back. Or at the very least, they might not mind if you don't retrieve your car.

Tom Berry (26:18)

Well, what some of these tow companies do, they know good cars and bad cars. You know what I mean by that? Like, hey, that's a. That's an older car, but it's got good treads on it, good struts. You know, it looks pretty okay. I could probably get some money for that. So they kind of pull that to the side of the auction that they have every 30 days. Cars are valuable.

Delaney Hall (26:37)

This is another way they're making money.

Tom Berry (26:40)

Exactly.

Delaney Hall (26:41)

They hold a person's car until the fees are so high the person can't afford to get it out. Retrieve it. Yeah, and then they sell that car at auction, scrap it for parts, make money on the car itself.

Tom Berry (26:56)

That's why it's a multi million dollar business. Towing is and people don't realize that.

Delaney Hall (27:03)

For that reason, Tom says bad towers might target cars that look a little bit junky or old, like Kelly's 2011 Mazda. Cars that look like they might be underinsured or their owners might not have hundreds of dollars on hand to get

Tom Berry (27:17)

them back because they're easy targets. And generally those, those owners of those cars don't squeak. They don't make complaints. I don't know if that's their reasoning, but it sounds reasonable to me. You know, go after the low hanging fruit versus the high hanging fruit.

Delaney Hall (27:35)

Towers can get away with this in part because there's very little oversight. The towing industry is regulated by a patchwork of laws across the country. They vary state by state. According to research done by a consumer watchdog group, only about half of states set a cap on towing or impoundment FEES. More than 30 states don't require rates to be displayed or disclosed. Thirteen states don't even require the towing company to notify you that your car has been towed. And in 34 states, kickbacks are legal. All of which creates a massive gray area. Some of what they do just sounds like aggressive business practices, you know, like towing companies working hard, working proactively to tow illegally parked cars and to make money. And I guess I'm wondering, when do you think it crosses the line from, you know, going hard for business to something more like fraud?

Tom Berry (28:35)

You know, I don't know where the line is, but there's certainly a wavy line there that nobody knows about.

Delaney Hall (28:44)

It's interesting what you're saying, because it strikes me as part of the problem, which is that you hear about these tactics that bad Towers use and they just seem unfair, and yet it's not totally clear they're breaking some law.

Tom Berry (29:04)

You're absolutely right. There's a big gray area there. Huge. So the only way to stop it is get a law, make a law or an ordinance in the city. You can make it and prosecute them and don't take your foot off the gas. And unfortunately, many cities don't fight it till it's so out of control that now they can't get it all back in the box. You know, the box has been open and that crap's flying all around. How are you going to get that box closed again? You know, it's difficult. And that's what happens when you let little things like the little toe, hey, you charged your four days, Stone. You only had it one. When you do that, if you don't stop it, it's just going to Be six days, seven days, because that's what happened. That's just human nature. It's just going to keep growing. So the only way to stop it, in my opinion, is sort of nip it in the bud, you know, stop it when it's small so we can control it.

Delaney Hall (29:58)

Tom's advice is to pass regulations and then crack down. But some cities have tried a different approach. They've just cut private towers out entirely, and they've set up their own public towing operations. But getting that going can be a heavy lift. It requires a city to acquire land for the impoundment lot and trucks to do the towing and people to staff the operation. How common is it for a city to have their own trucks, their own lot?

Tom Berry (30:29)

I don't think it's common. I think it's a rarity.

Delaney Hall (30:31)

And why isn't it more common?

Tom Berry (30:36)

It's a lot. Who's going to oversee it? Are you going to have policemen oversee it? There's so many cost considerations, I think, for that, that they just don't want to do it. They want somebody else to do it, which I would too. I think that's what happens with the cities is they don't want to deal with it.

Delaney Hall (30:54)

What's one piece of advice you have for someone whose car has just been towed?

Tom Berry (31:01)

Of course it's a situation. If it's legitimate, you had an accident and the police come out in a normal city and they're going to tow it to their yard, that's the way it should go. If you got insurance on your car, let it run its course. Make your claim, call your company, make an insurance claim. But be aware of, especially in parking, private property tows. It's extremely lucrative. When you pull into a lot, if you see a sign, you know this area controlled by Tom's Towing, you know, violators will be towed. Pay attention to those signs because a lot of those places, they got somebody watching and they're going to tow you. Be careful where you park.

Delaney Hall (31:44)

What I hear you saying, when I say, you know what, what's your piece of advice? It's basically don't get towed. Like, do not get yourself caught up in this situation.

Tom Berry (31:55)

If you come out and they got the car on the hook, okay, pay the drop fee, Pay it. Just pay it right Then you're saving yourself time, aggravation, trouble, problems, just pay it. Try to negotiate it down. Say, you know what? And this is what I tell people. Let's say it's 400, say, oh my God, would you take 250 barter, barter, barter.

Delaney Hall (32:23)

But get your car back.

Tom Berry (32:24)

Yeah, get your car back. Don't leave it. Don't wait. Don't wait.

Delaney Hall (32:31)

We started with the question how is

Kelly Prime (32:34)

it that you can just park your car at a 7:11, 15 minutes later it's gone and you have to negotiate a ransom with someone, some guy in a dark parking lot. And that is an actual business.

Delaney Hall (32:46)

And we have a pretty good answer. The reality is that towing regulation varies state by state, but in many places, towing companies have contracts with private businesses to monitor and tow illegally parked cars in their lots. Some towers use spotters. Those are people who keep an eye on parking lots and call the tow company as soon as they see someone park there illegally. Some tow companies don't post their fees and then bargain with people once they show up to try and reclaim their car. And in many states, there are few regulations governing how tow companies operate. With that, Kelly, consider your service request resolved. Today on the show, you hear heard Kelly prime, an editor with 99% invisible. You also heard Tom Berry, a retired police officer who's now an investigator for the insurance industry, and Shane Nation, a tow truck driver in Detroit. What infrastructure mystery keeps you up at night? Is there something in your life that you use every day but you don't actually understand how it works? Submit your service request by recording a voicemail memo with your question and emailing it to servicerequest99pi.org and remember, if your car gets towed, try to negotiate the price down. Or better yet, don't get towed in the first place. I'm Delaney Hall. Infrastructure is everywhere and we're here to help you decode it. Service request is a production of 99 99% Invisible and Campside Media. The show is produced and fact checked by Julia Case Levine and edited by Shoshi Shmulovitz, mix by Ewin Lai Trimuin Theme song and music by Swan Real Additional editing by Emmett Fitzgerald and Vivian Le show art by Aaron Nestor. Roman Mars is our boss at 99pi. Cathy Tu is our executive producer. Matt show is the executive producer at Campside. We are a part of the Sirius XM podcast family. You can find us on all the usual social media sites as well as our Discord server. There's a link to that as well as every past episode of 99pi@99pi.org.