Posted on 11/13/2004 9:35:52 AM PST by MississippiMasterpiece
No doubt about what is going on here. The public 'servants' couldn't care less about the city budget. I'm sure the owner of the towing service and some of his contacts at the city are living large.
oops
This is SOP for towed vehicles in every town and city and state highway across the country.
If your car gets towed for any reason, you'd better be there in 24 hours to get it.
Chicago may be more corrupt in awarding contracts than other areas, but if you check with your local municipality you will find similar practices. Forewarned is forearmed.
If the car is stolen, was reported stolen, and the cops recover it, what gives them the right to sell the car without contacting the owner?
All they have to do is look up the VIN number or license plate?
I think I'm beginning to understand why Chicago has such stringent gun-control laws....
"I just read in the Sun-Times your city's policy in regards to towed vehicles. Any representative of the people of Chicago that dies not fight tooth and nail to change such a disgraceful policy is worse than the scum on a shoe that has walked through a cow pasture. Where are you Mr. Mayor,? Does the shoe fit?"
The purpose of seizing and selling the vehicle must be to satisfy the fines, not to punish the debtor or to enrich the contractor. Hence, the car should be sold at city auction with a mininum bid price and the debtor's note holder notified of the auction. Absent, these safeguards, I fail to see how this sale has been properly effected. A lawyer should not have much of problem getting this sale overturned at the appellate level. (I'll assume all traffic court judges in Chicago are hacks.)
Furthermore, it is outrageous that city would not accept $700 towards satisfying the $1000 debt. The fines are pulled essentially from thin air and any towing costs would have been more than offset by the $700.
The sad thing is even if this woman files bankruptcy, the debt on the vehicle will be discharged but her parking fines will not. Hey government, thanks for nothing!
Citizens are scared to death of the tactics of these brutal politically "licensed" towing operations. Their employees are well armed and, in addition, are protected by attack dogs.
"Suburban businessman Igor Pashin had his yellow pickup truck stolen just before Christmas. Chicago cops recovered it. But Pashin never saw it again. The city sold his 2-year-old truck in January to a politically connected towing firm with the exclusive contract for city towing -- for $125.54."
"The city sold a 2002 Chevy Silverado -- with a Blue Book value of at least $13,000 -- for $125.54 to the towing firm, Environmental Auto Removal."
"EAR then sold that same truck to a Wheeling car dealer for $4,000, the company says, well below the book value because the vehicle had been stolen and damaged. "
"Who owns the truck now? A recently retired city of Chicago tow-truck driver. He says he paid $12,000 for it. "
"Pashin, who runs a gutter cleaning business, is still paying on an $18,000 loan for the pickup truck, which now sits miles away in front of the Northwest Side home of Thomas B. Smith. Smith drove a tow truck for the city's Department of Streets and Sanitation for more than 25 years."
I don't understand why this guy is still paying on his loan. Since he had an $18,000 loan he obviously had insurance. It was stolen. The police recovered it but he never got it back.
Why didn't his insurance pay it off?
I already posted a follow-up on my first reply in post 24. You might want to read it.
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