A multi-part investigation by the Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica looks into how state laws have come to favor towing companies over the residents whose cars are towed.
WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Ginny Monk to discuss her article written with Dave Altimari and Sophie Chou, “CT towing companies frequently value cars low, allowing them to sell vehicles quickly,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short. Read the story here.
WSHU: Hello, Ginny. You and your colleague, Dave Altmari, in collaboration with ProPublica, have been investigating Connecticut's car towing businesses for a while now. As a matter of fact, your initial reporting prompted state lawmakers to pass a new law that took effect in October, and now this follow-up data analysis of more than 6,000 forms submitted to the DMV by towing companies. It's quite fascinating. What made you decide to do this?
GM: So when we started this investigation, we had requested all of these forms, not really knowing how many we'd get or what quality they would be, or how easy it might be to analyze them. And as we started asking the DMV more questions about the forms, we began to realize that they had not done a wholesale analysis of this data. So we set out to do that. We hand-cleaned a lot of these forms and eventually created a database that resulted in the story that you saw on Sunday.
WSHU: You know, it's quite fascinating. There's Ruedean Harvey, who had a very expensive Range Rover that was towed and valued at less than $1,500. How did that come about?
GM: That's a great question. So Ruedean had this, this vehicle that, as you mentioned, she paid a lot of money for. It did need some engine repairs, which is what the towing company attributed it to. They, I believe, valued it at $1,475 after the tow happened.
WSHU: This was a car she bought 12 years before for about $135,000, right?
GM: That's right. And it was, I think, one of those sales experiences that I have never personally had. But for her, it was really meaningful. They popped champagne when she bought it; the car was in a glass case. It was a really nice vehicle.
WSHU: Okay, now, so what happened to the vehicle, and how did it end up being towed?
GM: So the vehicle, she had taken it to a repair shop, because, as I mentioned, it needed engine repairs. While the vehicle was there, the shop closed down, and it's not immediately clear to us how it wound up being towed to a public street, but that's where it was, and from there it had been towed by this tow company, which eventually valued it at $1,475.
WSHU: However, she was able to stop it before it was sold.
GM: She was able to stop it before it was sold. She got her car back. But the form that the tow company submitted asking permission to sell her car, as I mentioned a couple of times, was at $1,475, which is just under the $1,500 mark for quicker and private sales.
WSHU: Okay, so basically, the reason why it was valued below $1,500 is that if it's below $1,500, you can quickly sell a car, right?
GM: That's how the system at the time in Connecticut worked. And you know, again, the tower does say it's because of the engine repairs that we valued it so low.
WSHU: But, you found a pattern here. There was one company that had more than 90% its shares valued below $1,500. How did they explain that?
GM: So a lot of them didn't respond to our request for comment, and some said, look, all the cars we tow are junk. But we, in addition to the kind of big, broad analysis we did of all of the forms, we narrowed it down to a few brands of luxury cars and found that those were also being valued far below their retail value, even those that we couldn't find had been in any accident.
WSHU: And you found towers altogether seeking permission for 150 luxury cars for less than a third of what they were valued and had no accidents.
GM: That's right. So for us, that was significant. A lot of toes do happen after accidents, right? You see an accident on the highway, those cars need to be cleared, and that's kind of what tours have been claiming. These cars are junk. They've been in accidents. They're abandoned, but we couldn't find evidence of that for 150 luxury vehicles.
WSHU: Now, what advantage does a tow company have by listing it as less than $1,500? How do they make money from that?
GM: So, for vehicles listed at $1,500 or less, first, the process is faster, so after 15 days, they can begin the process of requesting permission to sell the vehicle. Secondly, they can sell it in a private sale versus a public auction. So for these lower-value vehicles, you can sell them to anyone you want.
WSHU: But after they've sold the cars, the profits that they make from selling these cars, isn't that money supposed to go back to the owners after they've taken away those tow charges?
GM: It is supposed to go back to the owners after they've taken away the tow charges, or in the event they can't locate the owner, or the owner doesn't come forward to claim those profits, the money is supposed to go to the state. In previous reporting, the state told us that it had never happened.
WSHU: That's after a year, they hold on to the money for a year before it goes to the state, right?
GM: Right.
WSHU: And that has never happened?
GM: Right.
WSHU: When you ask the DMV about the situation, what's their response?
GM: The DMV says that they examine all the forms, and if they note that the values are very different between the retail value and what the tower put, they'll send it back to the tower to check it again, resubmit the form. They've kind of admitted that this is, I think the quote was, it's not a good system, and it really relies on judgment calls on the part of DMV employees. They also have said that if someone submits a form incorrectly and says, I want permission to sell this after 15 days, and that's not supposed to happen, based on the value that they'll hold on to the form for a while and then give it back to the tower.
WSHU: Do other states do it the same way?
GM: No. In other states, it's really a wide variety. So some states rely on police to value vehicles. Oregon requires a certified appraiser to value vehicles. I believe Florida goes by how old the vehicle is, versus the value. So there are really a lot of different ways that states handle this.
WSHU: So, Ginny, does it seem as if Connecticut is going to do anything different going forward? You were at the first meeting of the panel that was put together to oversee this last month.
GM: Yeah. So, like you mentioned, the legislation that passed during the last session and went into effect in October established a working group through the DMV that's kind of talking through a lot of these issues, and they're supposed to present a report to lawmakers in February. They're actually meeting today, so we'll see what comes with that.
