Towing corporations arriving unannounced on the scene of an accident solely to do some shady shit appears to be a recurring theme. It’s the proper grift sadly and it’s occurred once more, this time to an enormous rig driver within the Windy City, as Chicago’s WGN9 studies.
On January 18, large rig driver Steven Yonan hit a viaduct in his semi and overturned the truck. Authorities, together with an ambulance, arrived on the scene of the accident. A tow truck additionally confirmed up, and Yonan couldn’t get any information out of them. “They said, ‘We don’t give a price. We don’t know how much it will be, you need to contact our dispatch,’” Yonan advised WGN.
Now, over every week after the accident, the tow firm, often called Emergency Towing & Recovery, is holding Yonan’s truck and charging him $41,000 to get it again. Worse but, Yonan claims that, in paperwork shared with WGN, the corporate cast his signature on the bill. All of that is made even worse by the truth that the corporate that towed the truck doesn’t appear to be a tow firm in any respect, as a rep for Yonan’s trucking firm defined to WGN.
“From what I understand they don’t even have tow trucks,” stated Junior Smith of Cartage Experts, the corporate Yonan drives for. “They’re just guys who run around with police scanners, get on the scene, lock you down, then they start calling in people, like Official Towing was one of the trucks that showed up.”
The firm engaged in some shady exercise after towing the rig. The precise proprietor of the truck, a person named Ledmon Yousif, stated that they drained over 150 gallons of diesel gasoline from the truck and separated the trailer from the cab, one thing he says he has footage of to show. WGN tried to get data on Emergency Towing & Recovery as Yousif stated they wouldn’t return his calls; a name the quantity was met with a “number disconnected” dial tone.
WGN went to their alleged tackle and located an unmarked impound lot that was gated and locked with nobody round to query. Official Towing — the tow truck that really arrived on the scene — was found to have been fined 4 instances within the final three years for numerous violations. The plot thickened when it was found that Emergency Towing — which is listed on the bill — hasn’t even existed lengthy. The firm was simply registered with the workplace of Illinois’ Secretary of State initially of the month.
Cartage Experts has now filed a criticism with the Illinois Commerce Commission hoping to get the truck again. But as a rep for the corporate identified to WGN, they’re on a good timetable as the corporate needs to keep away from getting charged any extra charges. “Time is of the essence, that’s our biggest fear. Is that when we do resolve this they’re going to come back and say, ‘You owe us another $10,000 in storage fees.’ We just don’t know how it’s going to play out.”
Source: jalopnik.com