CHARLOTTE — Brittney Wall runs Dragonfly Homes, a business that stages homes for sale, and she keeps a lot of her supplies in a U-Haul truck.
She said she recently parked in a shopping center lot in southeast Charlotte overnight. It sounds risky, but she said, “It’s not something I’ve had a problem with, and there are other vehicles that park there overnight as well.”
“The next morning, I got a big wake-up surprise,” she said. “My truck was missing. It was like a magician had come and swept it away.”
So Action 9 went to the lot to see firsthand. It does have a sign warning about towing. But Action 9 only saw one, and it’s off to the side, easy to miss if you enter the lot from any other direction.
“I had about $4,000 worth of inventory on board,” she told Action 9 investigator Jason Stoogenke.
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Her first thought: U-Haul somehow found it and took it back. But she says the company told her no.
Her second thought: a thief. So she called the police. Officers usually know because tow companies are supposed to tell them. Otherwise, police would end up investigating a lot of stolen car cases that turn out to be merely towing cases.
Wall says officers told her a company, Kings Ton Towing, had towed it. She says she got it back, but it wasn’t cheap: more than $3,600. She says she paid it because she “had no choice.” Not to mention, she had to return the truck at some point.
“This was an honest mistake, but it was a hefty price to pay for an honest mistake,” she said.
Action 9 tried getting in touch with the towing company and owner of the shopping center in multiple ways, but there was no response in time for this report, other than an automated one from the wrecker service.
Remember, the City of Charlotte has rules for towing companies.
They say property owners must post warning signs. But it’s a gray area how prominent they have to be.
Here are some of the main rules:
- There have to be signs on the property warning you about towing.
- They have to be easy to read.
- The tow company has to accept cash and two major credit cards.
- It has to have someone on-call who can release your vehicle within 45 minutes.
- You’re entitled to retrieve your personal property from the vehicle.
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In the meantime, North Carolina lawmakers are considering a bipartisan House bill addressing predatory booting and towing. This bill goes further in a lot of ways than Charlotte’s ordinance. Plus, it would apply to the entire state.
If it becomes law:
- Companies would need a permit to do this kind of work and have to get it renewed every year. “You have to have more training and certification to be a barber in the state of North Carolina than you do a tow truck driver,” the bill’s primary sponsor, N.C. Rep. Laura Budd (D-Meck. Co.), told Stoogenke. “Just pause a second and think about that piece.”
- Every time companies booted or towed a vehicle, they’d have to put certain information into a database, including the address where it booted/towed the vehicle, the address where it stored the vehicle, fees, the name of the owner/supervisor who authorized the boot/tow, the name of the person who booted/towed the vehicle, the reason, and vehicle information.
- Companies would have to post clear signs about the parking rules.
- They couldn’t tow your ride more than 25 miles away.
- The bill would create a commission. “The commission that we’re setting up will set the maximum rates for the type of tow,” Budd said. Budd also said the towing and truck industries support the legislation.
VIDEO: ‘Didn’t deserve this’: Tow truck driver killed in east Charlotte was father to 2
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