My 22-year old son was in his first car accident about a week and a half ago. The accident included four (4) automobiles. Although not physically hurt, my son was very much in shock, extremely upset over the potential condition of the other drivers and the damage done to his 1990 car that he had kept in pristine showroom condition. We have AAA Road Service and our family is very used to calling them for tows and other auto-related needs. However, CENTRAL VALLEY TOWING just showed up and started loading up his car. He had no idea who they were, who called them, nor where they were taking his car. The next thing heard about it was a couple of days later when our State Farm insurance person said they making arrangements that day to have the car towed to their lot for insurance inspection. Yesterday, ten (10) days after the accident and about seven (7) days since our insurance company took possession of the car, we received a NOTICE OF PENDING LIEN SALE FOR VEHICLE VALUED $4000 OR LESS, as well as a document entitled NOTICE OF STORED VEHICLE / AMMENSTY OFFER. This is the FIRST notification or invoicing of any kind from this unethical towing company, so it wasn't like they invoiced us and we refused to pay, ignored them or anything. There was NOTHING before this at all! The first notice stated that they intend to SELL my son's vehicle by already putting a lien on it and selling it to pay their towing and storage bill. They also assert that they stored the car for ten (10) days, which they did not. Yesterday would have been ten (10) days and they haven't had it for a week or more as it is. It's a lot of legal and scam jargon, but the upshot is that it seems they want to be paid anywhere from $874 (Including the $70 they spent to file the Lien in the first place!) to around $3500! We of course, have sent these documents to our insurance company and I'm sure they will resolve this in some fashion, and are used to these scam artist, so I'm not as worried as when we initially received. However, my concern is not so much about us personally, but how this would devastate others on a fixed income, little-to-no auto insurance coverage, or just any other people 'taken to the cleaners' by this unscrupulous scam artist towing company. It's almost like these guys listen to the police scanners for accidents, swoop in like vultures, act as if they're are 'supposed' to be the company towing the cars, while everyone is in shock, not thinking clearly, or on their way to the hospital without the ability to make decisions about who is towing their car and where it's going. Then the towing company, like CENTRAL VALLEY TOWING holds their car for financial ransom for outrageous towing fees ($304), inflated storage days ($450 for nine (9) days and counting (according to them) at $50/day (when they didn't even have it stored for 9 days) and now a proposed "Sale Date" to sell my son's car on 9/30 at 9am to recover their bogus fees!) Between the scam artists drivers operating now who slam on their brakes for no reason at all to be purposefully rear-ended for insurance pay outs, to these vulture-like towing companies and their scams, one can expect a lot more problems with a car accident these days than ever before. I'm confident that Central Valley Towing is not the only unethical towing company operating in Sacramento with the same scam for automobile owners, so this is just a cautionary tale. If you have an auto accident and are 'okay' enough when it comes to the towing process, tell them you wish to call your own service (In our case, we have AAA Road Service) and don't blindly let someone like Central Valley Towing just take your car! Hope this helps anyone in the future...
Connie M. read more