QLD Car Towed - Paid to Get It Back

ColClur said:

We were towed in a private car park 30 minutes away from our car in Brunswick Street, New Farm, apparently viewed by cameras. Charged $550 by Brissie Towing

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Tim Finn said:

Hi. I was also towed from 52 McLachlan St by Cactus.

Walked with my 10year old son the 2.8k to cactus yard, $660.00?

I'm happy to pay for towing, as I was aware it was possible, but that's $235.72 per Klm! I am now aware cactus lease the site, cameras feed direct to them and it is only for the purpose of towing vehicles.

What I also am aware of is the owner's details, name, address, phone number, Bodycorp id (cts no.), place of employment. He owns both units at 52 McLachlan St.

Not sure what to do with this info?

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Brisbane tow truck rip-off trapping motorists, raking in thousands
Kelmeny Fraser, Charlie Peel, The Sunday Mail (Qld)
May 7, 2017 12:00am

UNSUSPECTING Queensland motorists are being held to ransom by a lucrative tow-truck racket using deceptive and predatory tactics to seize cars then demand hundreds of dollars for their return.

A Sunday Mail investigation can reveal private car parking lots are being used as honey traps by cowboy tow-truck operators using a legal black hole to rake in up to $1000 for each car towed.

Towing companies have been accused in court documents of “extorting members of the public for the return of their vehicles” by forcing them to pay arbitrary minimum release fees of between $440-$660.

Motorists unable to immediately pay the price rack up $66-$120 a day for storage, with one victim asked to pay $10,000 after four months of fighting for the return of his car.

There is also evidence of a luxury car surcharge, with owners of prestige vehicles slugged up to $1000.

That compares to the maximum charge of $325.75 under legislation covering accident towing, which includes three days storage.

But unlike accident towing, towing cars from private property is unregulated. Two companies – Cactus Towing and Elite Security & Parking Enforcement – repeatedly feature in online complaint forums and have been named in at least 20 civil court disputes in the past two years.

The scheme is simple but effective. Tow companies sign contracts for exclusive towing rights over vacant lots or car parks attached to unit blocks, retail and commercial premises in areas where parking is scarce.

Property owners or managers are offered the service free of charge in exchange for the right to tow cars from their land to vehicle compounds, with car owners then hit for a release fee.

Some landlords and body corporates receive as much as a 20 per cent cut of the takings in exchange for giving the companies towing rights for their properties.

One tow operator even took to Facebook to offer “people from all over Brisbane or who have personal parking spaces that have parking issues” the chance to “make money from your spot. Easy”.

The parking lots are then put under watch by the tow workers who are ready to swoop within minutes. Some properties have CCTV cameras and are closely watched by the operators, while “spotters” are also used as back-up to watch lots not under camera surveillance.

The workers are signed up with the promise of making “mad money” in return for doing a “small amount of actual work”, according to one advertisement that was posted online.

Operators then plant their own cars – usually cheap second-hand knockabouts – as “bait” (also referred to as “catchers”) to trick people into thinking they can leave their cars safely without being towed away.

Motorists, seeing a near-empty parking lot with no business activity and a parked car are then duped into parking their own cars.

A former Cactus worker, who quit after he began to “question the legitimacy of it”, told The Sunday Mail on the nights he worked Cactus was towing 20 cars a night on weekends – netting $10,000 plus a night.

“They’ve made a lot of money doing this and are highly aggressive, especially to women,” he said.

“They are operating from about 25 car parks.

“I watched them rip two spoilers off vehicles dragging the cars inappropriately.”

One man was charged $800 after he “made a fuss” while the owner of a new Mercedes-Benz had his release fee inexplicably jacked up to $1000, despite the tow company allegedly breaking the car’s fender, he said. The worker said he was threatened by a crowbar-wielding worker after refusing to tow a mother’s car.

“I said I’m not leaving a young woman in Fortitude Valley at 10pm at night stranded with a one-year-old,” he said.

Affidavits lodged in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal have also taken issue with inadequate “tow away” signs, complaining “intentionally vague signage” made drivers think they were correctly parked.

The tribunal ordered a refund in multiple cases after hearing that motorists were duped by signage that was discreet, ambiguous or hidden from view.

Inner-city retail and business precincts are also proving happy hunting grounds for the tow operators, with customers towed after parking in what they thought was the correct parking bay only to find out the hard way it belonged to a neighbouring retailer.

One such victim said she was “stood over” and verbally abused by a large “extremely aggressive” man when she pleaded for them not to tow her, pointing out the parking sign did not specify a business.

“I told the men at Cactus Towing I would take legal action and their response was ‘good luck b***h, everyone has tried but no one can touch us’,” Belinda Zordan, said in an affidavit lodged with the QCAT. Her case has yet to be heard.

The Sunday Mail is aware of at least one incident where a man claimed he was physically “wrestled” by four Cactus workers.

He paid a $660 release fee for them to unhook his car. One man who stopped to buy chewing gum at a Fortitude Valley Convenience store was charged $660 to get his car back after being falsely accused of visiting the post office in the same precinct.

Another woman, Hayley Tillard, was towed by a company owned by the boss of Elite. She said the operators “effectively stole my car and ordered that I pay the seemingly arbitrary, exorbitant fee of $660 in order to retrieve it.

“It appears that the respondent is involved in deceptive and predatory tow away practices,” she said.

Another litigant accused Cactus of charging “manifestly excessive” fees.

State Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey said the department was monitoring the industry to ensure laws relating to accident towing were enforced and action was taken over breaches.

‘I feared for my safety’
Victims of an aggressive private parking tow-truck rip-off are being forced to hand over their credit cards and drivers’ licences to unidentified workers at dimly lit “Fort Knox-style” compounds to recover their cars.

One such impoundment yard lies behind an unsigned concrete facade and roller door tucked in between a tyre shop and strip of offices on busy Breakfast Creek Rd at Newstead in inner-city Brisbane.

It is at this featureless frontage bewildered “customers” who have just had their cars towed come face-to-face with the operation of Elite Security & Parking Enforcement’s Christopher Kevin Addley, 38.

They are forced to hand over their driver’s licence to compound staff and pay their fee of up to $660 before being allowed to even see their car.

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muz28 said:

Cactus Towing and Elite Security & Parking Enforcement predatory tow away practices have now been exposed in today's Brisbane Sunday Mail 7th May from their regular appearances at QCAT.

No Cookies | The Courier Mail

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