RECAP
Quick recap:
I get a letter from City Tow charging me $??? for storage of a car that got towed but I couldn’t retrieve ’cause I was broke. I signed the title over and then 4 years later got a bill. I flipped out. I started a class action suit and brought City Tow to it’s knees. The piece of mail they sent me cost them over $50,000,000. Can I say that again?
FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS!!!
(fiddy million ‘dahlas - fo’ my homies)
Read on if you want the details…
Published by: admin on July 12th, 2007 | Filed under Stuff
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The Original Issue: We Will Not Pay!
The ISSUE:
Below is the text version of the ad Chicken placed in the SF Weekly and the SF Bay Guardian:
See the original Ad here in all its graphic-designed glory
This is a collection notice from a car that got towed 3 years ago. A car that I signed over to City Tow because they told me that I wouldn’t owe any tow charges that way. And now, a year after the city got rid of them they have come up with what I think is a scam to send bills from years ago for charges we paid by signing over the car. I got really, really angry. I felt helpless. I felt like I had no choice but to pay it to save my credit rating. But I decided to take action. I contacted the office of the City Attorney who is aware of the problem. Any additional complaints they receive will help with an investigation. So I decided to take out a full page ad in the SF Weakly and the Bay Guardian and have Simone make a website so that you can do more then open your window and scream: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!!!!!!”
The City Attorney told me their hands were tied and the only way to resolve the issue was to file a civil lawsuit which required at least 700 signatures. That sent me out of the building, ready to collect said paperwork.
The ad mentioned above was run, I got 700++++ signatures, raised over $8000 (more than covering my costs for the print) and promptly returned to a court date to see ‘da judge about all this rigamarole….
7 minutes into my case, the gavel was dropped, all charges were ordered null and void, all monies were nulled and the rest is in the POST below..I won.
LOOK BELOW FOR SOME OF THE ORIGINAL POSTS AND INFO THAT LED UP TO OUR (ULTIMATE) VICTORY
Published by: admin on July 12th, 2007 | Filed under Stuff
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City Tow(ed) no MORE! (info from 2005)
City Tow defeated!
“We defeated the bums!” gloats Chicken John, maniacally.
After tossing his anger management class lessons out the window, Chicken John (with the help of Simone, Gal Friday) defeats monolithic, corrupt towing racketeers.
Rickenbacker collection activity deemed unethical, impure, immoral, illegal and bathed in vileness.
Whoo Hoo!If you paid any money to Rickenbacker Collections for any car that you signed over to them between 1999 and 2004, you are now OWED. Rickenbacker collections will re-pay any money collected for City Tow on cars that were impounded and subsequently surrendered to the towing company. Any and all other collection notices are rendered invalid.City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed for an injunction back in in July. Tuesday, Nov 30th the court ruled that the collection agency would return an estimated $340,000 that they already collected.
The 72,000 motorists that were to be charged are now off the hook. Simone was charged $700 or so. $700 times 72,000 people = $50,400,000. Fifty million, four hundred thousand dollars. Wow. What a scam. We won.
But all is not sunshine and roses. There is more:
This is a message I wrote to Carol Stuart (awesome woman, makes you restore your faith in government):
The following is from this link….
http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/site/cityattorney_page.asp?id=1300
The second paragraph is a quote from the city attorney. I’ve pasted it here:
“The City will no longer allow itself to be victimized by a company that has repeatedly violated its duty to the citizens of San Francisco,” said Herrera. “As a result of our investigation, changes have already been made to ensure that no city contractor has the ability to repeat this kind of fraud in the future. And we’re pleased with the cooperation we’ve received from the Department of Parking and Traffic toward that end.”
I’d like to pull out one line:
“…changes have already been made to ensure that no city contractor has the ability to repeat this kind of fraud in the future.”
The most relevent thing that may come out of this whole thing is that Auto Return is going to do the same thing. I asked them. They said they were. Today, if you walk into Auto Return at 850 Bryant, and say to them that your car was towed and you just want to sign it over to them, they will let you do that. If you ask if you have to pay anything, they will say no. At their option, they will bill you later. I firmly believe that they will do just that. I think that sucks.
Just pointing it out….
chicken
You should all send email to Carol Stuart and tell her that she is totally AWESOME!!!! She is the one who really made this happen and has been battleing City Tow for 10 years. She is an investigator, in other words she does all the work while someone else gets their picture in the paper. Somebody send her chocolate. She is the one who will be babysitting Auto Return and will make sure that JUSTICE PREVAILS!!!
Carol.Stuart@sfgov.org
Published by: admin on July 12th, 2007 | Filed under Stuff
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Media: We Will Not Pay! (info from 2004)
| Past Media:We were featured in the SF Chronicle, Saturday, July 31 2004,and theSF Chronicle Wednesday, July 28 2004.We were also in the SF Examiner Thursday, July 29 2004
The City Attorney set up a hotline for this investigation! From the desk of Simone Davalos: Welcome to Wewillnotpay.org. Maybe you saw our ad in both the SF Weakly and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, or perhaps you encountered us on one of many permutations of social software that are out there. However you got to us, I am guessing that at some point you had a car, and that it was towed. Getting your car taken is a major bummer, however, getting your car taken and having it come back to bite you in the kiester is even worse. My car was stolen in 2001. When the police found it, I happily signed over what was now a burned out, useless hulk to City Tow, thinking that was the end of the matter. Not to be! This July I received a notice that was very similar to Chicken’s. There was no way I had seven hundred dollars to pay for a car that was a distant memory, so we decided to do research instead. The City Attorney of San Francisco has opened an investigation on this very issue, and we decided to help them out. City Tow/Pick Your Part is a Southern California based company that, up until last year, had the towing contract for the City of San Francisco. Now that their tenure is up, they appear to be resorting to questionable tactics to keep the cash rolling in. This is not the first time City Tow has been embroiled in scandal: From a previous class-action suit Please click on all the links on this site, then tell us your story. Tell your friends! By getting as many people as possible to come forward with these collections notices we can keep many more people from being duped into paying. -Simone, Gal Friday |