My car was not towed. I own a business next door to these butt heads. I am the only person authorized to call and have vehicles towed from my business' property. Today, "Advanced Towing Company" stole a clients' car (they have no contract to tow from our property), refused to admit they had the vehicle until we pulled surveillance footage, and then charged me $135 to return my clients' car (all the while she is being kept from her medication for hours - that she needs to LIVE). I will be pursuing every possible avenue for redress. To make matters worse, before I had even spoken to anyone at the tow place I was nearly, and very intentionally run over by one of their trucks who was racing back and forth at a high rate of speed and then proceeded to actually hit a vehicle he was trying to back up and tow. According to the security guard, the tow truck hit his own car. What a jack ass -- poetic justice? That is a mountain of problems. Here's the evidence - Video of unlawful theft of a vehicle from private property: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAXhPZXJ9v8 Here is a second video of a tow truck revving his engine, pacing up and down the street swerving at me as I raise my arms and yell at him like WTF! They are bad neighbors and tonight this one guy was psychotic. Since I threw my arms up at him, he decided to make a second pass and almost hit me with the mirror of his truck. This alley is frequented by people walking between the grocery store on the corner and apartment and other high-rises, meaning that drag racing a tow truck is super dangerous - plus all of the garage doors and parking spaces are blind and and these tow trucks hit people constantly. I owned a motorcycle, and I like fast cars - but there are safer places for that behavior. For the full effect, listen with sound for my narration (which I had to repeat sans explitives) of the events since our security cameras do not capture sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez2dU9SxxlQ&t=8s This has all been reported to the towcomplaints@arlingtonva.us and police@arlingtonva.us Watch as nothing happens and the police do nothing. These guys have terrorized us for years but it has escalated in recent months to the point where they are threatening towing our people and have now done it. Calling the police after this tow company has stolen your car, no matter how illegally, does no good as they claim it is a "civil matter". The police refused to look into the erratic driving video. I am just glad no one got hurt. I open carry and being threatened with a vehicle, I may have shot the son of a bitch -- he was obviously trying to scare me with a large vehicle. That would really ruin both our days - either me or him getting hurt. It was especially concerning for me to step out of my vehicle and unknowingly into an improvised drag strip for tow truck drivers with attitude problems. They did not count on our surveillance cameras. Anyway, I may have to open a personal investigation into the individual truck driver, as the manager of Advanced Towing has apologized to me and returned my money, negating any long term need to pursue their business directly. Their vehicles are also banned from our property. I will now use this case to effect change in the industry legislatively, as there is obvious need of reform. It should be easy to follow this guy [the tow truck that almost hit me] around and catch him breaking the law. I have ignored them up till now. Now you have my attention, and where my attention goes, so do my cameras. A simple review of yelp shows you don't mind damaging the property of others. I will now plaster cameras all over that street and catch every little moronic thing you do. Nice job screwing yourselves boys.. but behave and all is well. My dash DVR will also come in handy. Will you even know when I am watching you? You want to act crazy? I eat crazy for breakfast, and my cameras are literally always recording. I have now also made friends with Matt from http://advancedtowing-fraud.com/, who is laser focused on Advanced specifically. Boy, we are gonna have some fun times together. Advanced, you are on notice. You are on camera. You are being recorded everywhere. I may now be following you around. Be careful! :) I warned you not to screw with your neighbors. Oh, and lastly - SHAME ON YOU "JEFF" - It is against the law to call and have a car towed in an unauthorized fashion such as this. I am fairly sure I know who you are. read more

I am pretty sure anyone who has had to come into contact with any of the employees of this company would not have anythign nice to say. I had parked my car and closed the door before I can even get to where i was going the tow truck driver had hooked it people where yelling get into your car they cannot tow it with you in it. These were peopel passing by on the street who obviously had seen everything from the start and how shady this company is. I hopped into my car and the tow truck driver came to me and said pay me 25 and I will drop the car. I said I had not even done anything illegal so you cannot tow me I called the cops on 911 and described the situation. he said 25 bucks and I drop it i said well if the police officeer says pay the 25 I will. Police arrived and I was told this was an ongoing issue with the laws that are in effect that there is a huge grey area the fee has gone upto the max 125 because they had to wait for the ploice to show. This is apparently legal in Arlington. I think that is a legal form of extortion. Which is ironically ilegal. Bottom line this company is a bunch of sleeze balls the car was in my wifes name so they made her come pick it up even though we are married. They gave me a hard time because I called the police. My wife went to go there the girl at the counter said I hope you are not carrying anything it could get ugly and your husband is acting a fool calling the police and all. Kinda weird since we were both in business proffessional attire suits. The tow truck driver had told me some numbers that the company runs 80 percent of the towing in arlington and 40 percent in fairfax county. I am not sure why anyone would hire such a bunch of thugs anyway. Botom Line I never made it to where i wanted to go which was to open a business account with Virginia Common Wealth bank. I am happy I actually did not make inside since I had found out that advanced towing was hired by the bank.. Its unfortuante that virginia commonwealth bank treats any possible new members like this and even existing. After building some rapport with the spotter in the parking lot he went on to say that they even tow bank customers if they go inside then leave their car there to walk across the street. He had said the minute they leave the parking lot on foot he calls the tow truck driver. I actually witnessed this first hand as a lady about 55 or so parked went inside as I was waiting for my wife to come scoop me up and then started to cross the street. I ran over to her and told her they will tow your car. I jsut got towed as I turned I saw the guy in the red 1990's chevy pick up start to go block her and get on the phone with the tow truck driver. She started to run back to her car waiving her finger no. I had helped her save 125 dollars while at the same time stopping this horrible company from ruining this ladies day. I am sure there are plenty of stories on this you can actually contact your state representative and the more they here from us the more they will get annoyed and do something. I am not really sure why the businesses do this all it is doing is destroying there very own business. I will not be going back to arlington anytime soon and I am sure that I am not the only one. According to the spotter they tow atleast 150 cars every night. and over 2500 a month in arlington alone. If I was a local business I would have a meeting with the area business owners on how to solve this problem and get people to come back time after time not drive them away. FYI the one star is BS it should be 10 negative stars. read more

A rating of one star is being generous for these jag-offs. Like many, I want to give them ZERO stars. Or like that one person who wanted to give them a rating of "rats". I want to give this predatory and barely legal entity a rating of F.O. and die. On December 1, 2016 I parked in an adjoining parking lot for the building on 3300 N. Fairfax Drive Arlington, Va. I have had appointments in the building before and parked in that lot numerous times with no issues. What I didn't realize is that since my last visit, the lot had converted to "permit only" parking and was being patrolled by "spotters" who call the tow trucks. To the spotters and tow truck drivers as well as the disgusting, bleach-blond, ugly, asshole with bottle bottom glasses behind the plexiglass who took my $135: I hope you all die in a flaming car crash and end up scraping your fingernails trying to escape the charred walls of the damned while you choke eating 5 gallon buckets of salted cocks. Did I mention that I hope you die? I saw, after the fact, that there were two signs filled with small text next to one another, jammed into the planter adjacent to the entrance of the lot on N. Fairfax Drive. One of them announcing that it was $90 per month to park and the other that towing was enforced. Unfortunately for normal people, the signs are positioned in a way that when your attention is focused on not getting hit by the N. Fairfax Drive traffic while turning into the lot as you are making sure you've left room for exiting cars through the narrow entrance, it is practically impossible to see the sign through your passenger side windows, much less be able to read the small print on the signs as you drive past. There are no other signs in the parking area alerting anyone that it is a "permit only" parking lot or that towing was enforced. Had there been appropriate signage announcing that I needed a permit to legally park, I would have found another place. But, that's not what the, as of yet unidentified, property management company or Asshole Towing Crapany wants. Because MONEY! I parked in a corner parking space and went in to the property for my appointment. 2 hours later when I came out, I noticed not one, but two Asshole Towing Crapany trucks hauling cars out of the garage. And, my car that had been neatly parked in the corner space was was long gone. When the assholes in the tow trucks let me know where my car was, I had to walk with no jacket, in the close to freezing temperature and windy day from 3300 N. Faifax Dr. to the seedy location behind the American Service Center. $135 later, I was on my way back home, but having felt like I had taken that money, thrown it into my kettle grill and used it to light some charcoal only to find the charcoal failed to ignite. Pay attention when parking in Arlington. It's become like walking a minefield. read more

These people are PREDATORY MANIACS. While we were waiting for a prescription at Walgreens, they towed our car WITH OUR DOG INSIDE. (We had brought her along to run a few errands and were planning to take her for a walk afterward.) We had no idea what had happened and thought perhaps the car had been stolen (which it basically had been). Finally another customer who had been sitting in his car reported that this company had towed it, even though he told them that we were in the building and were Walgreens customers. We called the towing company and had to put the Walgreens manager on the phone to convince them that we were customers. The company said they wouldn't charge us if we could provide a receipt. We had to take a cab to their "office" (a.k.a. disgusting trailer in Ballston). Once there, I ran over to the car just to make sure our dog was okay while my wife walked up to the door of the trailer to speak to the people on duty. They came out screaming at me about approaching our car and told my wife to "calm down" (she wasn't yelling) and that she wasn't "even at the right entrance." Apparently in the dark we had missed a sign behind a chain-link fence directing us to the customer window. The woman on duty asked us dubiously if the receipt was for a prescription and then spent about 10 minutes on the phone with someone. My wife and I really try to treat everyone with respect, but after the events of the evening, we were ready to unleash our wrath on these people. Of course, they had their son at the "office," which I am sure is an effort to keep people from yelling at them (poor kid). They finally gave us back our receipt and told us to get our car. Honestly, we didn't care nearly as much about the car as our dog who was shaking inside. If you or anyone you know ever considers using this company for any reason, I implore you not to. This is a business of the worst kind--one that preys on people just to make a buck. While we are thankful that our dog is okay and (less importantly) that we got our car back without charge, there was absolutely no reason for this event to have happened in the first place. Oh, did I mention that this occurred on THE NIGHT BEFORE THANKSGIVING? Yeah, these people are completely evil. read more

Oh, Advanced Towing. Whatever should your tag line be? "Towing So Predatory, It Should Be Illegal. Oh Wait, It Is." "Employees So Soulless and Sadistic You'll Want to Break the Plexiglass Partition." "Advanced Towing: We Put the 'Rat' in Racket." Perhaps this is all part of a grand punishment for drinking. I can hardly imagine what else would have possessed the universe to make me part of the heartless scheme with which you fill your Friday nights. I parked beside a car at the end of a line of cars in a full lot on Wilson. I blocked no person. I was not in front of a fire hydrant or double-parked. I wasn't antagonizing the world with so much as a sassy bumper sticker. I then went into the liquor store with my friend and emerged, literally, not five minutes later with the most expensive bottle of whiskey I will ever purchase in my life -- because it included a $115 tax from Advanced Towing. I ran yelling after the truck that was towing my car behind it. But the men, so superhumanly fast with their hands in absconding with my vehicle, were awfully weak in the ears and hearts. They looked at me as I pleaded for them to stop. Then they drove on. (A lady at the pickup spot later told me it's really hard to hear through tow-truck windows. Puhhhhh-lease.) There physically wasn't time for the truck to have responded to a call; it took longer to drive from the liquor store parking lot to the tower's den of iniquity in Ballston. Which means they were there lurking, likely waiting to fill some quota -- and meanwhile not caring if they ruined a weekend. If that was the case, they were also breaking the law. As other reviewers have mentioned, it's called predatory towing -- related terms to throw around: extortion, a-holes, lawless swindlers, etc. At least literally, the opposite of a "star" is "rats." So I give Advanced Towing a rating of rats. Thousands upon thousands of rats, the broiling sea of which the finest piper could not imagine. It seems an appropriate symbol to mark the company as the professionally dirty one it is. "Advanced Towing: Bringing Unwarranted Misery to Virginia One Car at a Time." read more

I am writing to add to the ever-growing disgust for this company. Since 0 stars is not an option, I will hesitantly give them 1. I was towed from a parking lot in Ballston where, yes, there were signs and therefore I should not have been parked there. MY FAULT. I was literally stopping for 2 minutes to run in and grab something and thought it would be fine. Within (I kid you not) 10 seconds, my car was being snatched up. I wasn't even in the door of the store I was going to - predatory is an understatement. Again, I am fully aware that being towed was my fault, I am not arguing that. What I find increasingly more infuriating with every second longer I think about it, is their illegal business practice. I am new to Arlington and was not familiar with the "$25 drop fee" which I was offered to pay when I begged the driver to replease my car. However, I was told that I could pay it in cash only - no credit card, no check. Since I didn't have cash, I had no other option but to accept a ride to the tow yard and pay $135 to get my car back. Upon doing some reseach I found (well, my boyfriend found) that it was illegal for them to deny payment by credit card. Long story short, I filed a complaint with Arlington County, and when they investigated Advanced Towing the Sergeant was given a completely FALSE story from Advanced Towing. According to them, they were already out of the parking lot, and on N. Glebe Rd. when we spoke, and therefore the drop fee was no longer apllicable. So, are they alleging that I chased them down the street by foot since they had driven away with my car? Where we then proceeded to have a conversation in the middle of N. Glebe Rd. about a drop fee that I didn't even know existed but was no longer applicable anyways? I'm confused. Bottom line, it was not enough for them to con me out of my money, they felt it appropriate to then lie to law enforcement when confronted. This company does not deserve to be in practice and if I worked for them I would probably go to bed every night stuffing my face with twinkies while crying myself to sleep and basking in my self-loathing. Just saying. read more

Are you a redneck or white trash? Do you like to argue and ruin someone's day? OK! You're hired! -- Advanced Towing, Arlington VA I parked my car in the Gold's Gym parking lot, a little before 9pm on Tuesday night. After a challenging workout, I leave exhausted at about 11pm. Standing in the parking lot, I don't see my car. In a panic, I try to remember, "where did I park my car tonight!?" From out of the shadows and without warning, a tow truck pulls up. I'm clear what happened. As I stand in the spot, where my car should be, I look down and read... "No Gold's Gym Retail Parking" Shit. Now I see the "No"! Pulling into a crowded parking lot, I'm happy to see Gold's Gym. Idiot. When I go to pick up my car I asked, in a somewhat bubbly tone, "So my Gold's Gym Parking sticker didn't help me tonight?" "No Mam! You weren't parked in a Gold's Gym spot," barked the redneck bitch. "What time did you get me?" I stare and clinch my jaw. "9:01pm, just about two hours ago. That'll be $125," she bats her eyes and fakes a smile. Condescending little.... "Do you take AMEX?" "Nope. VISA or Mastercard." That fucking slut. The retail parking spot was for stores that closed at 9pm. My question to Advanced Towing is, where do you think the owner of the car is? If the car is parked right in front of Gold's Gym and has a Gold's Gym parking sticker on the dashboard, maybe you'd think they're inside Gold's Gym!? Or did you blow your load at a car you get to tow!? HEE YAHH! I've seen what you do to these cars. You'll drop someone's red two door from 4 feet in the air at the BB&T parking lot in Clarendon and have no problem giving it another whirl to see if you can "load er up". Fact. I saw it happen. I'd like to know, what exactly is your thought process? You didn't tow my car to make room for the retail parking customers. read more

Advanced Towing practice PREDATORY TOWING. I took my wife to the DMV in Shirlington, for her to take care of HER business. I parked in a MarketPlace private parking space and proceeded to GO TO and PATRONIZE both the dollar store AND the convenience store and I have the receipts to prove it. While I was in line to pay for my items, I see OUR CAR being towed down Four Mile Run. It is possible to do a dual mission, me drop my wife off at the DMV and for me to legitimately patronize the adjoining shopping strip. I will take this to court. The redneck, trailer trash who work at Advanced Towing are trigger happy about towing, even when cars are parked LEGALLY. I called the cops of Arlington County and they were defending Advanced Towing! Guess who probably pays who! I was told I'd have to file a CIVIL SUIT over a SMALL CLAIMS matter. I will pursue this. The Advanced Towing people get bad reports from sources around the Internet. They bend the "law" in very twisted, corrupt ways. Car thieves who register as a "towing business" should not be enable to use slim jims to break into cars UNLESS there is an EMERGENCY. Grabbing a car 30 seconds after the lawful owner leaves it is NOT an emergency. It is a criminal racket. The DMV is SHAMEFUL in not FLAGRANTLY warning people with HUGE NEON LETTERED SIGNS that this parking space costs $125, plus taxi fees, regardless whether you are parked legally or not. That Arlington County and their cops allow this, and do not WARN people with big signs shows they are probably being paid off by the towing predators. This has been going on for years, Seven on Your Side had an expose on it, it is posted on YouTube, under the title TAG TEAM TOW. Despite a law saying you can pay towing companies by credit card I was forced to PAY CASH!! read more

BE CAREFUL WITH PREDATORS!!! My friend and I went to shopping center to buy stuffs inside that. I parked at the legal parking lot for customers and saw doubted white boy and black guy parked near my car. They seemed to monitor us but I didn't care much about that. Within 10 mins, I came back and didn't see my car anymore. Those guys were laughing at me inside their car when I was totally confused what was going on. Then, I tried to contact a police officer and he led us to Advanced Towing Company. When we got there, I saw the young white boy and the black guy, who monitored us since we were at the shopping center. The white boy is the manager's son. They are real predators. That sucks. We ask them the reason why they towed our car, the female manager was very rude and she didn't show any evidences for the towing reason. She also tried to kick us out and wanted to hit me when we refused to pay $135.00 after we had the right reason. When we called the police officer to involve, they acted nicer a little bit. As a result, I still had to pay that amount of money to get my car back although it was not our fault. However, I realized that my car has a lot of scratches on the body at driver side and broken windshield at the passenger side after being towed. My car just passed emission inspection yesterday and it was like new on this morning. I'm sure they did it. Moreover, we saw the young boy got inside another customer's car to steal something, no one knows, so I took picture of him while he was doing that. I will go to the court to sue them about it. I don't want other people get into trouble with this horrible towing company. They suck. read more

My friend and I went to pick up food on columbia pike, we saw a parking lot with a couple other cars and no sign saying we couldn't park there so we thought we could. We run into a taco store to pick up our orders and could not have been gone for more than 10 mins. When we get back to where our car was we find out that it has been towed. When we call the company to ask about what happened they gave no details and immediately used a demeaning tone with us. On the we ask about how much it would cost and told us it would be 200$ to get the car back. Once we arrive at the towing company the lady changes the price to 215$ and once again used a demeaning and discriminative tone. Before going to the shop we looked up how much they are legally allowed to charge us on the official Arlington, VA website and it ended up being way lower than what the worker claimed it was. Once shown this website and what it says on it, she yells at us saying how the Arlington website is wrong and that they made a mistake on it. On a government website??? When calling the cops was threatened, the lady working yells at us that we can either pay her the price she told us and get our car back, or to not pay and not get our car back. The people that work there are known to be extremely racist, white supremacist, and very heavily MAGA. This may be one of if not the most shady, scummy, and unethical places of business I have ever been to. I usually don't even care enough to write a review but I feel like I have to for this place to warn others of who these people are. read more

Here is another review one year later! They towed me AGAIN even though the sign said "15 min parkin for 7-11". I was inside not even for 15 mins and my fiance inside the burger joint next door. I came out to go get my fianceafter i went to 7-11 and when we came out our car was gone. I called the same rude lady she started screaming at me when i tried telling her to listen. When we went there both women working there 1) one nicer than the other but still rude 2) the other screaming and cussing me out. She slammed the door on my hand when i tried tapping on the window to open it bc they had my card she opend the window so hard she harmed my wrist, broke my nail, and got into my face like she was about to hit me and if my fiance didnt step in she would have. She specifixally called me a whore, my mom a whore, and other explicit language. I dont care if you own a restaurant or a towing company you do not verbally and physically harass ur customers no matter what the condition!!! I was tryingto explain to her that my car was unfairly towed when she began acting like this. This lady is mentally ill and needs help immediately she can harm people and she should not be working. Needless to say the police didn't do anything bc she didn't physically put her hand on me - but i have now opened a civil case against them and they will soon hear about it. I will also make sure to petition in arlington county so we can take this business down. read more

If there was an option of giving negative stars, I would. I just had an absolutely horrible experience with these people. My friend's car got towed from a parking spot that had NO sign. Of course, these predators came and picked up the car. Upon arriving there, my two friends and I were not only ignored, given dirty looks, but got beyond rude treatment from the lady there. She then advised us to call the Arlington County non-emergency number if we thought it was an unlawful tow. She knew very well that there was nothing the County could do about it, as we were told when we called. Her co-worker, as he heard our complaint, advised us to wait, as they would call the driver that towed the car with a photo that supposedly it was an unauthorized spot. In front of us, he told the lady (although I would even consider her that) to call the driver and tell him to come. Two hours later, the story changes (it seems obvious that she never even called the driver) now all of the sudden the driver will not come and she attempts to kick us out, as "I can not have you waiting here." Following that, she calls the police to escort us out making up a story that we were 'mouthing her out.' Extremely unprofessional and low. The police of course saw that it was a complete waste of time and left shortly after. This is a horrible horrible place with miserable and very low people...I wouldn't wish for anyone to have any dealings with them. read more

I'd give them negative stars if I could. My girlfriend parked in the Gold's Gym parking lot and went inside to sign up for a membership. She was inside for less than 5 minutes and outside to find her car gone, WITH OUR 2 DOGS INSIDE. Both dogs are large and would be easily spotted if the driver had bothered to look inside. The tow truck driver was busy towing another car away, with all the grace of a mentally deficient baboon. He was seriously slamming cars around! My girlfriend asked if he has just towed her car away and he indicated that he had. She told him that our dogs were inside and just shrugged and acted as if he didn't care. When she told him that she was coming from the gym he remarked "well you sure don't look like it" since she was still in her work clothes. He didn't own up to his mistake when she told him she was signing up for a membership, and the tow lot made her pay $125. Imagine that, you get the PRIVILEGE of paying for a tow you didn't deserve, the sass of a driver who can't tow a vehicle properly and didn't bother to look inside of it, AND your car gets molested in the process. A TRULY QUALITY BUSINESS! Note to all business owners: Don't let Advance tow vehicles from your lot, or you'll get massively upset customers to deal with. There are tons of other tow companies in Arlington, give someone else your business. read more

Advanced Towing was in the Washington Post for Towing peoples cars with their children in the car or dogs. Which is highly illegal. I also had a friend who was parked at his apartment complex, in his assigned spot with his decal present. Advanced Towing came in and towed his car in the middle of the night. Advanced was not the towing company signed with the complex. So when my friend went to retrieve his stolen car, they cussed him out and were disrespectful. Until he had his apartment complex call the Police department and notify them, that not only did Advanced Towing Trespass on the complex's property, but then proceeded to steal a car from the lot and tried and charge to get it back. All of it being highly illegal. I have witnessed this company on countless occasions predatory tow customers of my shop while they had their dogs in the car or were not even illegally parked. I have also witness this company towing vehicles in improper and illegal manners. I have witnessed on countless occasions this companies drivers tow vehicles without properly securing them. I've even witnessed them tow rear wheel drive cars with a regular wrecker, causing severe axle damage. This company needs to be shut down for their illegal practices. read more

So my husband and I used a Groupon to go to Tandoori Nights (excellent by the way) on Friday night and come out to see that our car has been towed. I did not know the meters weren't County meters so I was using my Arlington iPay to pay to park there. One of the thugs from Advanced Towing was there towing another car and I saw him use a bar to unlock the car, set off alarms, get inside the car, turn off the car alarm and position the wheels so he could tow it more easily. After a nice Red Top Cab took us to their lair, we were extorted for $115.00 and subjected to the truly heinous Advanced employees. I hadn't yet been treated to the underbelly of Arlington society before this experience but you can go see it for yourself behind American Service Center off Glebe Road. I can't believe the merchants at Market Common and Arlington County allow this kind of treatment of their good patrons. This is truly County condoned, predatory, organized crime in Arlington. They had to tow a car from in front of mine just to let me out - that is how many cars they'd towed just that night. They must make thousands every night...so where does the $$ go ? Where is 7 On Your Side when you need them? read more