Have to rant a bit

[Archangel]

You're scaring me!!

ACT FAST

Do not allow your son to go there alone, especially with intent to violence.
Nor you later.

The tow operators expect confrontation, have experienced and and ready for it (and no doubt armed, being stateside). Here, in Canada, (without legal guns) tow operators, who are fierce competitors, have a panic code and they all gather.

This is considered a legitimate business practice.

My recommendations: if your daughter asks, the nice Beach Police might accompany you.
Have son find the Jeep repair place and have jeep towed there. ASAP, since most repair places don't charge for storage.
Get all receipts and let your insurance company argue with the tow operator. Or see if the insurance people will pay first and fax you with a paid in full statement specifying you will pay nothing when you pick up the jeep by a specific date/time.


Later on, you might want to discuss with your daughter, or Jeep Corp, how a vehicle designed for off-road, going less than the speed limit on a regular, since it is patrolled, road would sustain that much damage. If, in fact, it was below the speed limit.
But that's for much later.

First, get the jeep safely out of the hands of the tow operators.

[pipesndrumsnun]

"My recommendations: if your daughter asks, the nice Beach Police might accompany you." -Archangel

Here! Here! A great suggestion, Archangel!

[Mike1]

Hmmm, let me see...

A young lady,

driving a vehicle with out-of-state plates,

to a vacation rental property?

Surely someone isn't trying to take advantage of the situation, are they?

At this point, about all you can do is remain focused on how lucky you are nobody was injured.

[Ayin McFye]

I used to work for an impound/towing service company here in Arizona. I think the amount he is trying to charge you is Legal, but a serious rip off. I know that towing amounts not only change from company to company, but more so from city to city ,and state to state.

Here is Arizona whenever we had to go out of town to grab someone's vehicle, it was about 100-120 dollars towing fee to the yard, and then about 50 bucks a day.

Like I said, he's ripping you off, but unfortunately it's legal.

What you can do (at least here in Arizona) is call the police and let them know that he is refusing to release your vehicle. The police will come out and force him to release the vehicle to you, and make him just send you a bill, rather than pay up front. I'm not sure if this tactic will work where you live, but it's worth a shot.

Good luck!

[Big Paul]

That's a high price!! She is getting ripped!

[Beertigger]

What you can do (at least here in Arizona) is call the police and let them know that he is refusing to release your vehicle. The police will come out and force him to release the vehicle to you, and make him just send you a bill, rather than pay up front. I'm not sure if this tactic will work where you live, but it's worth a shot.

Good luck!

You beat me to it. Dunno what the law is like in NC, though.

[Jerry]

Just a quick update. My son and I arrived, and met my daughters Friday night.We got a few more details about the incident. My daughter is the one who called the towing company. She was given the phone number along with the number for the local police. fire and emergency rescue by the real estate company when they checked in on the previous Saturday. The police showed up because my daughter called the rescue squad because the girl that was riding with her bumped her head and had to have 3 stitches. The speed limit on that section of the beach is 35 mph. At the time of the accident, they were running 20 as clocked her sister's YJ speedometer. According to my GPS, this actually around 24 mph. The washout she his is only 2.5 miles from the towing lot, not 5. Anyhow,back to Yesterday's events. We leave the cottage at 9 AM and my son and I go back to the Food Lion store that gave us permission to park our flat bed trailer over night. WE pick the trailer up and head back to the towing lot to meet my daughters.. It's around 10 AM when we get there. Of course, no one is there. At 10:30 the guy shows up, towing a Honda Civic which we had seen on the way down, buried up to his doors at the side of the paved road. We wait until he is finished dropping the Honda off in the lot.When he pulls out and locks the gate, we walk over and tell him we are there to pick up the jeep. All four of us are there, including both of my daughters (who he has just talked with face to face the day before) The first thing the towing guy starts out with is, "I've been doing this over 30 years, and you shouldn't be picking up the vehicle. You are supposed to wait until the insurance company sends the adjuster. You're costing them extra money." When I try to explain that since I'm bringing the Jeep back to Va, it isn't costing the insurance company anything and is in fact saving them money because they don't have to pay for the tow back to Va. He won't or can't seem to understand that concept. Then I told him I was also saving the insurance company money because The Jeep wasn't sitting on his lot running up $50 per day in storage charges. He said he wasn't charging $50 a day, in spite of quoting that to my daughters the day before. I tried to tell him that the adjuster told me, she was happy we wanted to bring the jeep back to Va , and he accused me of somehow convincing the adjuster to let us get the Jeep after it had already been arranged by him and the adjuster meet at his lot and check out the damage there. At that point, I was close to losing my temper so I just told him that arguing isn't going to get us anywhere, We'd wait until "He", whoever "He" is shows up, pay the charges and get out of there. So we sit and wait. The towing guy leaves. About 15 minutes later, he comes back and starts cutting the grass in his lot. We took some pictures of him cutting the grass, because I figure he is just messing with us. My daughter had told the towing guy we would be at the lot by 11 AM when she talked to him the day before. At 11:30, she called the phone number for the towing company. Of course all she got was voice mail, so she left her cell number and told him to call. Five minutes later, my daughter gets a call on her cell phone. She tells him we want tp pay the charges and pick up her Jeep and it's now half an hour later than he'd agreed to for meeting him at the lot. He tells her "I've been at the lot all morning, where are you?" She tells him, "we're standing here looking at the Jeep. " So, we walk over again and I ask him what the total charges are. He says $550. I pay him and get a receipt. The receipt shows $450 towing and $25 a day for 4 days storage, counting a full days charge for Saturday. (the third storage rate we have been given) My son ask him, "why didn't you let us pay and get the Jeep the first time we talked with you?" He told my son, "This is the first time I've seen any of you this morning." My son just about lost it at that point and ask the idiot, " What's wrong with you, do you have (insert forum inappropriate word here) Alzheimer's or something. Towing guy just says, "No" Them my son asks, do you want me to back into the lot and load the Jeep? Towing guy says no, I'll tow it out here. At that point I was thinking, he'll probably charge for that tow too, but he didn't.We changed out the two busted front rims for spares we had brought and my son checked out the damage. The front axle is broken, and most of the other front end parts are bent. There is no apparent damage to the frame, but my son says we can't be sure about that until he checks the frame with a tape. Anyhow, we got the Jeep back home. around 6PM yesterday, and the adjuster is coming over on Tuesday. Overall, I can't figure out if the towing guy is that big an ***. or if he really has some kind of mental problem. Either way, someone should make him get out of that business before he hurts someone or someone beats the crap out of him. It's over for now, we have the Jeep, towing guy is still in one piece and none of my family is in jail. WE are going to "Blacklist" A1 towing with several 4x4 and off roading forums to which my son belongs.

[emolas]

Later on, you might want to discuss with your daughter, or Jeep Corp, how a vehicle designed for off-road, going less than the speed limit on a regular, since it is patrolled, road would sustain that much damage. If, in fact, it was below the speed limit.
But that's for much later.

As soon as he said that it was a TJ, that answered the question for me. They are designed to LOOK like an off-road vehicle not actually ACT like one.

The $50/day storage sounds pretty standard, everywhere I have seen is right around that much. It sounds pretty shady that he kept stalling you to rack up the storage charges though. Off-road towing is substantially more than normal towing but $450 seems a little high. I do a lot of off-roading (in my YJ) and I have seen some people get pretty high towing bills for being in the middle of nowhere but if it was only 5 miles away it shouldn't have been that much. I suggest taking a camera with you when you go to the garage. Frequently the towing and storage rates are posted on signs within the office so if you are being charged more than prices posted on the signs you can snap some pics as evidence to report to the BBB and/or police.

[ccga3359]

Speaking from Canada. I wrecked my car in March and had it towed to a yard. My car was totaled but the insurance company paid towing and storage fees in addition to payout for the car. I would assume that our base insurances policies are quite similar. For me the yard was quite helpful, this was my first accident in 25 years of driving, my fault and inexperienced in this situation. They told me to not accept the adjustors first offer for settlement. I refused and was immediatly offerd $450 more that their first offer. Not bad for a car on it's last legs (250,000 km) for a total of $1900.

Since (I think you said) that it was the police whom initially called this towing company I would contact them regarding your concerns. The company might have a contract with the police and might not jeapordize this if you have a name and number to go with it.

Good luck and go kilted (a little further "don't mess with me, dude").