ProPublica: Gone in 15 Days: How the Connecticut DMV Allows Tow Companies to Sell People's Cars

[Dennis Donovan]

ProPublica - Gone in 15 Days: How the Connecticut DMV Allows Tow Companies to Sell People’s Cars


by Dave Altimari and Ginny Monk, The Connecticut Mirror, and Haru Coryne, ProPublica
Jan. 5, 5 a.m. EST

Reporting Highlights
• An Outlier: Connecticut allows towing companies to sell some people’s cars in just 15 days, one of the shortest windows in the country.

•Towed From Home: Many cars are towed not for violating the law but instead for breaking a rule like parking the wrong way or failing to display a parking pass at their apartment complex.

• Far-Reaching Consequences: The sales have particularly affected low-income people, who have lost jobs after they were unable to get their cars back.

Melissa Anderson was trying to wrestle her squirmy 2-year-old daughter into a winter coat in December 2021 when she heard the neighbors yelling outside, “She’s coming right now!”

Anderson immediately knew what was happening. The tow truck company that regularly roamed her Hamden, Connecticut, apartment complex was back, and it had zeroed in on her recently purchased 1998 Dodge Neon.

She rushed downstairs only to see a MyHoopty.com tow truck driving away with her car.

Her temporary parking pass from the apartment complex had expired. She’d tried to get an extension because her Department of Motor Vehicles appointment to register the car was two days away. But she said the management wouldn’t give her one.

“I only came upstairs to put the baby’s jacket on,” Anderson said. “It was within like five minutes, my car was gone.”

She never saw her car again.

/snip

WTF???

[Johnny2X2X]

1. Surprising for a blue state

Hope the local elected leaders fix this.

I think some people forget or just never understand what life in the US is like for poor people. The entire system is built to make life more difficult for low income people. Everything is more expensive for the poor. This is just one more example.

Everything from parking to grocery shopping to utilities and cellphone service costs more if you’re poor. The cost of housing can be higher. Insurance is more expensive. It’s just a whole system that punishes poor people at every turn.

[Diamond_Dog]

2. So true, Johnny2X2X

[snot]

8. I think CT's blueness

is of a pretty conservative hue.

[Oneironaut]

3. It's called stealing from poor people - especially minorities who are poor.

We know they can’t afford to bail their car out. That’s why they do it.

It’s like fines and arrests for jay walking - another predatory mechanism we use in the ongoing class war.

[NutmegYankee]

4. I'm continually amazed that we don't see mass shootings at a towing business

The crooked antics and shady tactics are going to get people killed someday. Someone somewhere is going to go over the edge after their car 'theft'.

[dalton99a]

5. Too bad Luigi is in jail

[TheBlackAdder]

6. There's a lot in Jersey City that has a deal with a tow company and their employees walk the lot looking for cars.

It's a large supermarket strip mall and if you were to shop in a store and then walk to an adjacent lot, the tow company would pull up in minutes and tow you car, since you left their lot. The employees keep an eye on all of the shoppers and know if you leave. So you could buy a couple of hundred buck in food, hit up another store in the strip mall, then walk across the street for a to-go lunch meal. During that time you were getting your lunch meal, you car would be towed. These employees get a cut of every car towed.

How do I know, it happened to me and it was a couple of hundred dollars to get it out of the lot.

This car selling law is really going to incentivize tow drivers to scour the streets and work out deal with office spaces to tow vehicles.

[snot]

7. Robbery - so wrong!

Truly outrageous.

Where I live, the impound locations are far away. It might be extremely expensive and/or difficult for a worker with just one car to get out there at all, let alone within 15 days.

[Igel]

9. Text of the relevant laws.

Apparently this was updated, if I'm reading the legislative bill codes correctly, in '99 to raise one law's cutoff from $100 to $500 and another's to $1500.

As with all such things, it's a painful thing to read.

(e) Within forty-eight hours of the time that a motor vehicle is taken into custody and stored pursuant to subsection (b) or (c) of this section, the affixing department or parking authority shall give written notice by certified mail, return receipt requested, to the owner and any lienholders of such motor vehicle, if such motor vehicle appears on the records of the Department of Motor Vehicles. The notice shall state: (1) That the motor vehicle has been taken into custody and stored, (2) the location of storage of the motor vehicle, (3) that, unless title has already vested in the municipality pursuant to subsection (d) of this section*, such motor vehicle may be sold after (A) fifteen days if the market value of such motor vehicle does not exceed one thousand five hundred dollars, or (B) forty-five days if the value of such motor vehicle exceeds one thousand five hundred dollars, and (4) that the owner has a right to contest the validity of such taking by application, on a form prescribed by the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, to the hearing officer named in such notice within ten days from the date of such notice. Such application forms shall be made readily available to the public at all offices of the Department of Motor Vehicles, parking authorities authorized under an ordinance adopted pursuant to section 7-204a to enforce parking regulations and state and local police departments.

*(d) states that if the vehicle's abandoned--for example, no valid plate registration--and worth $500 or less, then 48 hours after impounding the car's to be relicensed and turned over for recycling.

I have no idea what the consequences of contesting the sale would be or how lenient the hearing officer would be. Or if the example in the ProPub article tried that. I'd think that would be an important thing--if she didn't try it, she should have; if she did try it and it was palpably unfair, there's something else to ding CT for; as it is, it's a gap.

Then again, with storage charges and such, $1500 would be less than the cost of paying to have the car released. At that point it would be foolish (or sentimental) to insist on paying more for a car not worth that amount. And wait 30 days, you're looking at probably $3k in fees, so I don't know what good raising the lower boundary would be.