My 16-year-old son attended a high school football game in Arlington on Friday night. Because there were no parking spots anywhere, he parked on private property, a homeowner’s driveway. Even though he parked it off to the side of the driveway neatly away, he was wrong. The homeowner (rightfully so) called a towing company and had it towed. My son knows now it was not a smart thing to do; he wasn’t really thinking it through and just wanted to get to the game.
The tow company originally was going to charge us $477 to retrieve the car, which is totally ridiculous! The towing company towed it two miles and it was there for only three hours. When I quietly mentioned contacting a lawyer he took off $100. We still paid $378 to get the car back. This is just plain unethical and highway robbery! There should be a cap on tow charges — we had no other recourse but to pay it — leaving it there any longer would have cost us more!
The tow charge itself was $250. (This seems $150 higher than it should have been.) My son was wrong to park where he did, but the cost of this is also wrong. The towing company took advantage — because they know a person has no other recourse but to pay it if they want to get their car back.
Theresa Ochiltree
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