Not Nice
21 Sep
Blogs have many purposes. One of them is to vent, right? Because that’s what I’m about to do.
Nathan and I have an old Dodge Caravan that we use in the winter instead of the scooter. His parents gave it to us for free. It is worth about $600-$800 or so. We were out of a job when the registration expired, so we decided to wait until fall when we would need it again to re-register it.
BIG mistake.
Some lovely person in our neighborhood decided to call the towing company and have it hauled away. 5 days later, Nathan’s parents get a letter saying it would be $275 to get it back. When we went to pick it up today, the grand total came to $375. They charge $15 per day to hold it, even on weekends. This is absolutely absurd, since we called to pick it up on Saturday and they said we couldn’t do it until Monday. But they still charged us for those 2 days. Oh, and a 3% credit card processing fee. We had to use the card because we didn’t have enough money in our account to pay it.
So, whoever you are, thanks for ruining Christmas for our family this year. Literally. You suck.
Usually I’ll play devil’s advocate with Fiona’s dramatic posts but this is pretty much right on. Except for “you suck”, that’s a bit much. I will ask though, where is the civility of yesteryear when we talked about neighborly disagreements and came to an understanding. At least put a note on the car saying you’d appreciate it moved. It’s an expensive lesson to learn in these lean times but I hope I can make the best of it. Last few times we used that van were to help people move, those people will be out of luck soon as we sell this vehicle to cover bills. You cannot act in a vacuum.
That is a big chunk of change! Do you really think someone called it in? I’ve seen the towing people just patrolling, so it could be that they just noticed it was not registered and hitched it up. I hope no one would just call something like that in … lame!
I remember there was a big to-do about that sort of thing at a HOA meeting a few summers ago. I *think* there may be a by-law were you can’t keep a car parked in those lots for more than three days without moving it? I’m not sure, something to check into!
Yea- I agree with Natalie, I’m pretty sure they do patrol for expired registration, I remember reading a flyer about it a while back. Anyway, I’m sorry that happened to you, either way it’s a total bummer! Maybe you should start parking both cars in the garage instead? It’s a pain to squeeze in and out, but at least you won’t get towed.
i loathe tattlers. that bugs. i dont blame you for venting.
ps, thanks again for the party invite- it was a blast to see you and catch up :)
That happened to us in Garden park once, it was so annoying. It cost us $225 to get our car back but the same day we got a check in the mail from our mortgage company saying we had overpaid our interest for the year and they were refunding some of it. The check was for the exact amount of the towing bill. I felt really blessed and it reminded me that Heavenly Father is always looking out for us and paying tithing really pays off! I bet you will find some blessings from it some day.
Sam once got two tickets in two days on an unregistered car he had. He went to the police department and told them that he had not even seen the first ticket in order to move the car before they gave him another one. He just went to his car and had two tickets. They told him they are allowed to give a ticket every 24 hours. We didn’t know that unregistered cars are not allowed to be parked on the street. And so then he moved the car and it got towed. I am so sorry that happened to you. I think the whole process of registering cars is so stupid. The government is up in everything.
No matter how it happened, that is really lousy! :( :( :(