Cost of retrieving car too steep for retiree
S.F. resolution doesn’t protect all theft victims from towing fees
You may remember that in February San Francisco city officials worked out a deal so that victims of car theft won’t have to pay towing and storage fees to get their cars back from a tow yard.
That followed a resolution sponsored by Supervisor Scott Wiener and passed by the Board of Supervisors last year saying it’s unfair for the victim of a car theft to be charged hundreds of dollars in towing and storage fees just because his or her car was stolen.
But it turns out there was a loophole.
The fee waiver only applies to AutoReturn, which signed a five-year, $65.4 million contract to provide towing services for the city. If you get towed by an independent company, there’s no waiver.
Which brings us to Kaye Kennedy, a 75-year-old retiree who has lived in an apartment in South Beach, near the
“It’s an ancient old heap. It runs well, but the paint is peeling off. I use it once a week, tops.” Kaye Kennedy, 75-year-old retiree
ballpark, for 24 years. Kennedy makes do on her Social Security payments and ushers at AT&T Park for extra income.
Kennedy says that around June 14, her 1996 Nissan Altima went missing.
“It’s an ancient old heap,” she wrote in an email. “It runs well, but the paint is peeling off. I use it once a week, tops.”
Kennedy filed a police report and on June 17 got a call from Deputy Sheriff Jason Reed of the San Mateo County Sheriff ’s Department. The car, he told her, had been recovered in San Francisco and sent to Courtesy Tow in the city.
She contacted Courtesy, and they said they’d be happy to give her back her car — as soon as she paid $450.
Kennedy was taken aback. She’d been told by Reed that the fee would be waived. When she learned the fee was so high, she figured what the heck,
she’d just give them the car.
“I was going to get rid of it at the end of the year anyway,” she said.
She mailed the Nissan’s pink slip to Courtesy and sent an email to co-owner Tracy Koehler, saying that Reed had told her there would be no fee and that the company could keep the car. “This will close out our business,” she wrote. Koehler replied, “The officer is incorrect. There is a charge that is company policy ... we will not take a pink slip without payment and will continue the lien process.”
“Isn’t that a son of a gun?” Kennedy said when I called her. “They are the nastiest people on Earth. They will not budge.”
Kennedy posted the details on Facebook, and among those who responded was local attorney Stephen Jaffe.
“It’s extortion is what it is,” Jaffe said. “Kaye’s main concern is not getting the car back. She’s worried about them pursuing her for the money and affecting her credit.”
I wrote to Koehler, who is on the board of the Tow Truck Association of California, saying “on any level this seems unfair and excessive.”
Koehler replied with a long email that said, “Let’s take a step back and look at this situation from a business owner’s point.” She listed costs, fees, insurance and operating expenses.
She can auction off Kennedy’s car, she said (Courtesy holds an auction every Saturday), but that includes costs for cleanup and mechanical checks.
And, she says, when a car is towed at the request of the California Highway Patrol, as Kennedy’s was, the drivers must be certified by the CHP, which incurs more costs. It’s all part, she said, of “hardships we face in the towing industry.”
Yeah, well, how about the hardship on a 75-year-old woman on a fixed income? Wiener, who thought he had fixed this problem, was not happy to hear about Kennedy’s experience.
“It’s simply not fair to penalize people like Ms. Kennedy,” he wrote. “This is exactly why I worked with the MTA to protect stolen car victims. It sounds like we have more to do.”
As it turns out, Kennedy was also a victim of bad luck. Reed spotted Kennedy’s car in San Mateo, confirmed it was stolen and followed it to Vermont and Mariposa streets in San Francisco.
“That intersection is well known for stolen cars,” said Saul Lopez, commander of the vehicle theft unit for the San Mateo County Sheriff ’s Department. “After surveillance, the deputy was able to arrest the driver for the Nissan theft as well as another stolen car.”
The bad news is that when Reed called San Francisco police, they were unavailable. So Reed turned to the Highway Patrol. Lopez says CHP has a list of tow companies and simply calls whichever one is next on the rotation.
If the tow had been arranged by SFPD, the car would have gone to AutoReturn, which would have waived the fee. Instead, it was hauled by Courtesy, which is not bound by the city contract.
To be fair, even Koehler could see this doesn’t look good.
“I feel for Kaye Kennedy,” she wrote, “and we will bend the company policy for her and let her surrender the pink slip at no cost. Please tell her to send the key.”
So, as a favor, the towing company is willing to settle for taking Kennedy’s only means of transportation.
And now, I assume, she’s supposed to be grateful?