Service Request #5: Dude, Where's My Car? — A Comprehensive Digest

When Kelly Prime, an editor at 99% Invisible, parked her 2011 Mazda 6 in a brightly lit, empty 7-Eleven parking lot in Brooklyn for just 15 minutes while grabbing takeout, she returned to find it gone—not stolen, but towed. This episode of *Service Request* (a production of 99% Invisible and Campside Media) investigates the murky, under-regulated world of private property towing, revealing how a system designed to keep parking lots clear for customers has evolved into a multimillion-dollar industry where predatory practices, hidden fees, and outright exploitation are alarmingly common. Host Delaney Hall takes listeners through the mechanics of predatory towing, the human cost of these operations, and the regulatory vacuum that allows them to thrive, using Detroit as a case study and drawing on interviews with a retired police officer turned fraud investigator and a current tow truck driver who once worked for a notoriously aggressive company.

5:15What Is Predatory Towing?

The episode introduces the term "predatory towing" to describe towers who actively hunt for cars to pick up and then demand inflated fees when owners try to retrieve them. This is distinct from legitimate towing, which serves a clear public good: clearing accident scenes, removing abandoned vehicles from roadways, and hauling away cars that block driveways. Tom Berry, a retired Detroit police officer with 35 years of experience who now works as a fraud investigator for insurance companies, explains that in an ideal world, towing is straightforward. A resident calls police because someone is blocking their driveway; police dispatch a tow truck from an approved list; the truck removes the car; everyone goes about their day. Similarly, after accidents, tow companies clear wreckage so traffic can resume.

But the private property impound (PPI) sector operates very differently. When a business owner—say, a McDonald's or a 7-Eleven—has customers who can't find parking because non-patrons are using the lot, they can contract with a tow company to remove unauthorized vehicles. This practice makes sense in principle. However, as Berry explains, some towers have turned this into a predatory enterprise by maximizing the number of cars they can grab through aggressive tactics, including the use of "spotters"—paid civilians who watch parking lots from nearby apartments or tinted cars and call the tow company the moment someone parks illegally. The spotter gets $50 to $100 per tow, tax-free, and the tow company gets a steady stream of vehicles. In New York City and Detroit, using spotters is perfectly legal.

8:58The Mechanics of a Predatory Operation

Berry walks through how a typical predatory towing scheme works, starting with the observation that most towers are honest but that a significant minority exploit the system. The core dynamic is simple: a business owner tired of non-customers using their lot contacts a tow company, which then removes the offending vehicle. But the sketchier operators go further. They recruit spotters—neighborhood residents who keep watch over specific lots and call in tows. The tow truck driver then arrives within minutes, hooks up the car, and drives it to an impound lot before the owner returns.

Shane Nation, a current tow truck driver in Detroit who started in the industry at age 16, provides an insider's perspective on how this plays out on the ground. His first real towing job was with a company notorious for predatory practices—so notorious that they appeared on local news regularly. From day one, the company told him, "Hey, you're going to see that we're this, that and that, and just don't believe it because we're just doing the public a service." At first, Shane accepted this framing. He liked the job—the trucks, the freedom, the variety—and most of his work was private property impounds. The company had two spotters who sat in tinted-out cars watching lots, and Shane would wait around the corner, no more than five minutes away, ready to pounce.

One of the most lucrative lots Shane worked was across the street from the Detroit Medical Center, a cluster of major hospitals. People would park in an apartment complex lot and walk across to visit family in the hospital. "The moment they walked away, we'd pull up right away, grab their car and drive off with it," Shane recalls. At 17, he felt no remorse. But as he got older, started paying bills, and understood how hard it is to survive on a low income, he began to see the cruelty: "Somebody's coming and taking your car when you're just trying to visit your mom or your dad that's in the hospital." That single lot was a gold mine, generating 15 to 20 tows per day with near-100% profit margins beyond fuel costs. The company had contracts across downtown Detroit, making it a multimillion-dollar operation.

15:51A Tow Truck Driver's Crisis of Conscience

Shane Nation's story is the emotional core of the episode. He describes the daily reality of private property impounds as deeply confrontational. Owners would beg and plead, especially those who couldn't afford the fees. "I was constantly the aggressor," he says. "It just wasn't a good feeling." The system has almost no checks: when a tower hooks up an unattended vehicle, they simply call the police to report the tow, and the police put the car in the system as a lien so it can't be reported stolen. "There's no verification of this whatsoever," Shane explains. "You just call the police and you tell them you're doing it, and they put the car in lien. That's all it is to PPIs. And there's just no verification in the system. So everybody exploits it."

Shane's crisis of conscience grew over time. He hated going to work, dreaded the confrontations, and eventually lost his love for towing. He left the predatory company and found work with a different firm where he does only service tows—responding to breakdowns, accidents, and police calls. "Where I'm at now, all I do is services," he says. "I'm not towing anybody's car because I want to. It's simply they call or the police call, and I'm going there to either clean up the wreck or I'm going there to get those people home." His story illustrates how the structure of the industry—the lack of oversight, the financial incentives, the ease of exploitation—can corrupt even well-intentioned participants.

24:36Kelly's Ordeal: The Ransom Negotiation

Kelly's experience after her car was towed from the 7-Eleven lot illustrates the chaos and exploitation that predatory towing creates. After discovering her car was gone, she and her friends called the tow company multiple times, but the company hung up or refused to give clear information. When Kelly asked them to confirm they had her car by reading back the license plate, they refused. At one point, they told her to come back the next day. Eventually, her friends walked a mile to the impound lot, where they could see Kelly's car through holes in the front gate. The office was brightly lit inside, suggesting it wasn't actually closed, but the attendant told them it would cost $350 to get the car back—despite a posted sign that said $125.

What followed was a bizarre negotiation. The attendant added fees for Kelly not being physically present and for after-hours service, but there was no actual fee structure. "It was just like a negotiation, like a bartering," Kelly says. "They were just making it up. They kidnapped my car and then ransomed it for an uncertain amount of money based on how much cash my friends had on hand." Her friends eventually paid $200 and received no receipt. Kelly's summary captures the absurdity: "None of this feels legal. You can just take someone's car, ransom it, figure out an amount of money between you."

Tom Berry confirms that this is standard practice for bad actors in the industry. Tow companies pretend to be closed so owners have to return the next day, allowing them to charge additional storage fees. They demand registration and insurance documents that are often locked inside the impounded car, forcing owners to spend days gathering new paperwork—while storage fees accumulate at $50 per day. Some companies even manipulate the timing: if a car arrives at 11 PM and the owner shows up at 1 AM, they might charge for two days of storage because the car "touched" two calendar dates, even if it was only there for two hours.

28:22The Economics of Never Getting Your Car Back

Perhaps the most disturbing revelation is that some tow companies don't actually want you to retrieve your car. Berry explains that towers know "good cars and bad cars"—they can assess a vehicle's value by its tires, struts, and overall condition. If a car looks like it might be worth something, they may hold it until the storage fees exceed the owner's ability to pay, then sell it at auction or scrap it for parts. This is why the towing industry is a multimillion-dollar business: the revenue comes not just from towing fees but from the cars themselves.

Berry notes that predatory towers often target older, less valuable cars like Kelly's 2011 Mazda—vehicles that might be underinsured or whose owners might not have hundreds of dollars on hand. "Go after the low hanging fruit versus the high hanging fruit," he says. These owners are less likely to complain or fight back, making them easy marks. The economics are brutal: a car worth $2,000 can generate $500 in towing and storage fees in a few days, and if the owner can't pay, the tower sells the car for parts or at auction, pocketing the full value.

29:52The Regulatory Vacuum

The episode makes clear that predatory towing thrives because of a patchwork of weak and inconsistent regulations. According to consumer watchdog research cited in the episode, only about half of U.S. states set a cap on towing or impoundment fees. More than 30 states don't require rates to be displayed or disclosed. Thirteen states don't even require the towing company to notify you that your car has been towed. And in 34 states, kickbacks—payments from towers to those who refer business, including police officers—are legal.

Berry describes this as a "massive gray area." When asked where aggressive business practices cross the line into fraud, he admits, "I don't know where the line is, but there's certainly a wavy line there that nobody knows about." The only solution, he argues, is for cities to pass clear ordinances and then enforce them relentlessly. "Nip it in the bud," he says. "Stop it when it's small so we can control it." But many cities don't act until the problem is out of control, and by then, "the box has been open and that crap's flying all around."

Some cities have tried a different approach: creating their own public towing operations, cutting out private towers entirely. But this is rare because it requires acquiring land for impound lots, buying trucks, and hiring staff—all significant costs that most municipalities prefer to avoid. As Berry puts it, "They want somebody else to do it."

33:20Practical Advice and the Episode's Resolution

Berry's advice for anyone whose car gets towed is blunt and pragmatic. If the tow is legitimate—after an accident, for example—let insurance handle it. But for private property tows, his counsel is stark: "Don't get towed. Do not get yourself caught up in this situation." If you come out and see your car on the hook, pay the "drop fee" immediately—it's cheaper than the alternative. If you're already at the impound lot, negotiate. "Try to barter it down," he says. "Say, 'Would you take $250?' Barter, barter, barter. But get your car back. Don't leave it. Don't wait."

The episode concludes by answering Kelly's original question: how can you park for 15 minutes and end up negotiating a ransom in a dark parking lot? The answer is that towing regulation varies wildly by state, but in many places, private companies have contracts with businesses to monitor lots, use spotters to maximize tows, and operate with minimal oversight. The system is designed to generate revenue, not to serve the public, and it exploits the most vulnerable—people who can't afford legal battles, who need their cars to get to work or visit sick family members, and who have no choice but to pay whatever is demanded.

Conclusion

What stays with the listener is the sheer power imbalance at the heart of predatory towing: a private company can seize your property without a court order, hold it for ransom, and face almost no consequences. The episode matters because it illuminates a hidden infrastructure—a system most people only encounter when it's too late, and one that operates in the shadows of legal ambiguity. The stories of Kelly, Tom, and Shane reveal that this isn't just about parking violations; it's about how regulatory gaps allow exploitation to flourish, and how the people who suffer most are often those with the fewest resources to fight back. The episode's final note—"don't get towed"—is less a solution than a lament, a recognition that for now, the best advice is simply to avoid the trap.

Key takeaways

• Predatory towing describes towers who actively hunt for cars to tow and then demand inflated fees, often using spotters—paid civilians who watch parking lots and call in tows for a kickback.
• Private property impounds (PPIs) have almost no verification: a tower simply hooks up an unattended vehicle, calls police to report it, and the car is entered as a lien so it can't be reported stolen.
• Tow companies often manipulate fees by pretending to be closed, demanding documents locked inside the impounded car, and charging storage for calendar days rather than actual hours.
• Some towers target older, less valuable cars because their owners are less likely to fight back or afford legal recourse, and they may hold cars until fees exceed the owner's ability to pay, then sell the vehicle at auction.
• Only about half of U.S. states cap towing or impoundment fees; 13 states don't require towers to notify owners that their car was towed; and in 34 states, kickbacks are legal.
• The best practical advice if your car is towed: pay the drop fee immediately if you catch it on the hook, negotiate the price down at the impound lot, and never leave your car overnight—storage fees escalate quickly.
• Cities that want to curb predatory towing can either pass and enforce strict ordinances or create public towing operations, but the latter is rare due to high startup costs.