This ticketing scam was one of many reasons I was thrilled to leave the windy city after 8 years. Don't get me wrong Chicago has some great features: Museums, Lincoln Park Zoo, Don Wade in the morning.
Once my car was in the garage and I needed to rent one for the day. Because I forgot to place a temp parking permit on the rental I get a ticket for $115. I was steamed. The Alderman was all set to help me 'FIX' it until he discovered we were getting ready to move out of state.
And yet, they keep re-electing the bastards.
Where's Jesse?
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?"
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?