Illegal Towing

[rosealyn]

I have to know if this is Legal. My mother is a commercial floor cleaner. She has major accounts where she is locked in all night, and she waxes and buffs their floors. She had a deepscrub at a mall in our area, in which she was locked inside all night so that she can strip and wax the floors. When she was let out in the morning she saw that her Truck, and Trailer with her equipment was missing. She called the police and came to find out that it had been towed. The tow company she contacted was not helpful what so ever. They said we have a contract with the new owners of this mall to tow any car parked here after 10:00 pm. How is this possible when they have contracters hired to be locked inside their mall doing work for them ? Who is responsible for this ? Can this be taken to small claims court ? It cost my mother $288.00 cash to get her car out today. When she had no way of knowing this would happen, or preventing it from happening. Please help !

 

[refusetostop]

Have your mother contact Mall Management and let them know that they will have to pay for the towing expense, impound fee, and any lost revenue including whatever she had to pay for transportation that night including loss of revenue while the equipment was impounded. The mall should be cooperative. If they are reluctant to help then let them know that you will be seeking legal help and plan on a civil case with them and the tow company.

What you will find is that the tow driver is paid on the number of vehicles he impounds. They may have a contract as the towing for that mall, but they should not tow unless contacted on a certain vehicle. I doubt the mall gave permission to tow any vehicle after 10.pm as many employees may still be at the mall. (This same thing happened to my wife when she was working at a mall location till 5 am). We found out that the tow company was only supposed to tow when directed by mall security and the name and time that the security officer called was to be on the tow bill. (the name the tow company gave was a security officer that was off that night and all other security officers stated they did not call). The mall paid for the impound fees (or at least worked it out so we could pick up the vehicle free) and paid the cab fair my wife had to get to come home and pick up her vehicle.

If the mall states they did not have your vehicle towed and the tow company is not under contract with the mall you will have a civil / criminal case against the impound yard and driver- for auto theft (if you then pay the fine they could probaly be charged with a theft by deception also).