
The Most Notorious Towing Company in Chicago Gets the Boot - petethomas
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-most-notorious-towing-company-in-chicagomaybe-in-americagets-the-boot-1536865780
======
tptacek
The ICC investigation, over the course of a year, identified over 800
violations, most involving making unauthorized tows --- often from places they
had formerly had contracts but no longer did, or places where they claimed
they had contracts but where no contract was on file with the ICC. Which
squares with the general take on Lincoln Towing, which is that they're just a
bunch of people in tow trucks looking to tow as many cars as they can.

Lincoln's defense: the ICC never told them they were violating the law.

What I learned from reading all the ICC filings: in Chicago, you need to file
different contracts to tow on a "patrol" basis (where the tow truck spots the
unauthorized car) vs. a request basis, where the customer asks you to have a
car towed. Lincoln Towing didn't care about the distinction; the ICC did.

Also, they had drivers without licenses.

Honestly, I doubt the other Chicago towing companies are much better.

Their Wikipedia page is pretty funny; it's pretty clear that someone with an
interest in Lincoln Towing has authored chunks of it.

~~~
duxup
Just allowing a towing companies to "patrol" would seem to invite bad choices.

After some rounds of bad towing companies / behavior Minneapolis passed some
city ordinances that limited towing. There still are bad actors but a lot of
the easier methods they can use are gone now.

~~~
koolba
Privatized law enforcement with a financial incentive to “find crimes”? What
could go wrong?

~~~
really3452
I got towed in Minneapolis on a Sunday because the Wisconsin DMV put a flag in
the computer system for my license plate. The flag was to remind the Wisconsin
DMV to make sure my address was updated next time I came in. The towing
company refused to release my car until I was able to get the Wisconsin DMV on
the phone with them (Monday afternoon) to verify that my registration was paid
up (it was) and I still had to pay the impounding fee (~$200) and had to take
8 hours of vacation because I couldn't drive home Sunday night like I had
planned and thus couldn't go to work on Monday.

That is what privatization of law enforcement with a financial incentive to
“find crimes” leads to.

~~~
crooked-v
> and I still had to pay the impounding fee (~$200)

Is that even legal?

~~~
tptacek
San Francisco towed my car and then lost it for 3 months. I called repeatedly
and they insisted they didn't have it, and that I file a police report for it
having been stolen. I got another car to replace it.

3 months later, Erin found it, while taking a walk past the impound lot on
Harrison. They made her pay all 3 months of impound fees.

~~~
blackguardx
I had my car stolen in San Francisco and had to pay to get it out. The city
contracts out towing services and the contract doesn't say they can't charge
for stolen cars, so...

The city made an effort to change this a few years back but stopped when they
realized that they would have to pay the towing company a bunch of money from
loss of revenue with the modified contract.

~~~
optimiz3
If you made a police report, make sure to amend it with any damages as well as
towing fees suffered in case they catch the perpetrator. This will give you a
basis for remediation.

~~~
blackguardx
It turns out that car theft is an extremely low priority class of crimes in
the Bay Area.

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dsfyu404ed
There's no way a company like this can piss off so many people for 50+yr
without some serious political connections.

In a corrupt city if you piss of people with connections you get run out of
business unless you also have connections.

~~~
godzillabrennus
Lived in Chicago for eight years.

Owned a small business that was trying to get work with a city agency.

Got denied to be an approved vendor when I applied. We were told they would
reconsider in two years.

A client of mine was wealthy and well connected. He was trying to convince me
to let him invest in my business. I told him about being denied.

He made a phone call on our behalf to city hall. We got a call from the city
agency within an hour that we were now an approved vendor.

Moral of the story. Chicago is corrupt AF.

~~~
mratzloff
I hope you let him invest.

~~~
acct1771
Why, to keep the nepotism thriving?

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nieve
This kind of thing is a problem anywhere that there's not aggressive
regulation and Seattle is pretty bad. At one point a partner was towed for
parking in a handicap spot and she had handicap plates and a handicap placard.
Similarly she was towed from in front of our house for not moving the car very
frequently and towed for parking in a part-time lane at a forbidden time...
before the forbidden time started. Once you're towed they got a motivation to
up the fees by keeping your car as long as possible, so you're likely to run
into very short retrieval hours (closed on the weekend) and fees over
$200/day. It's a pretty effective racket as long as the city goes along with
it and they're getting paid.

~~~
dmix
Regulation? It sounds like there was plenty of regulations already in place,
they clearly violated them as was decided by the agency. They found 800
violations according to another comment. What more do you need?

The problem was they weren't enforced. As others mentioned in this thread, you
can only operate this way as a business with political connections.

Regulations in themselves are never sufficient. They have to be practical and
their utility measured based on the reality of the efficacy in real life. A
hundred more rules for customers/businesses won't solve the deficiencies of
government inefficiencies, corruption, and cronyism.

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RobLach
People have posted pics on twitter of them still towing. At what point does it
cross over into unlawful possession or theft?

I assume they're just keep spooling up another LLC and continuing.

~~~
Spooky23
Vehicle based grifts are tough to deal with, especially with it being so
trivial and cheap to reincorporate.

A friend in the business took one of the Chinatown busses off the road after
they pulled up for inspection with the rear brakes on fire with bald tires and
no mirrors. The unlicensed driver ran off into a cornfield and vanished.

He pulled it off again a week later in the same condition, with another LLC on
the side (something like “harmonious dragon 2,llc). That time it was
associated with a more serious crime and seized.

~~~
kposehn
Hold up - can you give more detail? I saw a bus on the 101 almost exactly like
that a few weeks ago.

~~~
Spooky23
The magic of a bus that costs $5 to go a hundred miles away is that it’s
probably unsafe.

Chinatown busses in particular are very bad.

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atomical
[http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-
edi...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-lincoln-
towing-license-revoked-20180912-story.html)

> Then there was poor Peter Salva, a construction worker who in 2015 was doing
> roof work when he noticed a couple of Lincoln Towing workers hauling away
> his truck. When he began climbing down, the workers unhooked his ladder. He
> fell and broke his leg

~~~
EdwardDiego
...this is some straight up gangster behaviour.

~~~
jrockway
That just sounds like good-old attempted murder. I hope the DA pursued it as
such.

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jessaustin
A folk song about these bastards was written in 1972? How did this take so
long? They must have had someone protecting them.

~~~
a_e_k
Yep! Steve Goodman's "Lincoln Park Pirates"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF3q7o8Yjrg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF3q7o8Yjrg)

[http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?lyrics=9522](http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?lyrics=9522)

    
    
        ...
        We break into cars when we gotta
        With pick axe and hammer and saw
        And they said that this garage had no license
        But little care I for the law
        ...
    

Funny that it's their license that's been revoked in this case.

    
    
        ...
        To me way, hay
        Tow them away
        We plunder the streets of your town
        Be it Edsel or Chevy there's no car to heavy
        And no one can make us shut down
        ...
    

I'll believe it when they're actually gone (and not just reopened under a
different name).

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topkai22
But... the city should just disallow coercive towing generally, unless it’s a
public safety concern. Ticketing, fine, but roving packs of tow trucks really
only add value to the towing companies. Having lived both in a city where it
was nigh impossible to get towed and one where I was towed out of my own spot
I could notice no difference in parking availability.

~~~
whatshisface
Ticketing can also turn in to a "roving packs" situation, by means of
misaligned government incentives. At the end of the day, if someone does
something wrong we should probably just take the fine and burn it.

~~~
topkai22
Yeah, but at least with a fine you can contest prior to paying. If a car is
seized most people don’t have the luxury of being car less for the length of
the appeals process.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
And the fines keep piling up. And the people who do the appeals know the tow
company because they deal with them all the time whereas you're just a random
person off the street so the appeal by default is skewed toward their favor.

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wiradikusuma
In Indonesia, this kind of business is well known but in toll roads.

Having your car broken down is the least of your problem. They will come, drag
your car to their affiliated workshop, charge you high fees, and then the
workshop charges you high fees as well. You can refuse, but it involves lots
of persistence.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
This is how it works on the Jersey turnpike but the IIRC right to tow people
from a particular stretch of road on a particular day of the week is bid on
like any other state contract (my details may be a little off but point is you
can't call whatever company you want).

~~~
berbec
Same on New York thruways. Each section is leased to a single tow company that
will "cut you a deal" on the tow if you go to their shop for repairs.

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neurotech1
Non-paywall archive version:
[http://archive.is/SV4UY](http://archive.is/SV4UY)

~~~
nautilus12
Its sad but i dont even need the article anymore. The discussion up to here is
easier to read and deeper. Paywall=article title becomes hacker news
discussion topic

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notananthem
They're going to be back under a new business name for sure. They're tied into
local politics and protected. My friend was a repo man and towed cars, and
said lincoln was way worse about vehicles than even his owner's sleazy
operation

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ams6110
Just another reason not to own a car in Chicago. I lived there for a few years
and it's insane. City car taxes, outrageous parking expenses, high insurance
rates, and predatory towing. No thanks. In fact I quit that city altogether
and wouldn't care if I never see it again.

~~~
dylan604
No, someone else doing something illegal is NOT a valid reason for me to not
legally own something. Sheeple need to pull the wool from their eyes.

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atomical
I had a tow truck company lie to the attendant and tell him there wasn't a
parking pass on the car. The attendant knew me though and told this guy not to
tow my car. I bet this happens all the time.

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telaport
I'll just leave this here...
[https://i.imgur.com/Pc6gFvN.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Pc6gFvN.jpg)

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gok
My sole interaction with them was a flagrant bribe solicitation. I paid.

Good riddance.

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ourmandave
Article behind a paywall. =(

Hopefully they're shut down for good and people went to prison.

My fear is they'll pop back up under a different name and continue the same
f*ckery.

That's what a scam auto auction place in South Chicago did. They had numerous
BBB complaints and dozens of on-line horror stories.

The state attorney finally shut them down several years ago but it looks like
they're back and in the same freakin' building in Harvey IL. Only now they're
called First Marshall Auto Auction.

I've seen their ads on craigslist and flag them, but it's like playing whack-
a-mole.

[https://abc7chicago.com/automotive/bbb-issues-warning-for-
fi...](https://abc7chicago.com/automotive/bbb-issues-warning-for-first-
marshall-auto-auction-after-consumer-complaints-/3368275/)

~~~
oh_sigh
I assume there is some way to pierce the corporate veil and go after owner's
private assets if they are continually operating in an illegal manner like
this.

~~~
spitfire
RICO violation or something? Of course, it's Chicago so that'd go nowhere
fast.

~~~
dylan604
At this point, couldn't all/any metro gov't be considered a RICO violation?

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drngdds
How did it take these guys literal decades to get shut down?

~~~
fiveFeet
Exactly what I was wondering. Looks like it has been going on for more than
half a century as per the article.

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justaaron
I won't read paywalled content, but this articles title wins an award for
punniness

