as far as charging 80 bucks to tow your boat and babysit it a few hours.....you'll occasionally read where some savvy investor contracted the little old ladies house and then flipped it in a day or so making 10's of thousands of dollars....you'd call him (or her) a hero, not a crook.........
the difference here is the little old lady musta got what she wanted for the house, and as long as she was happy then there was no harm done. If she sold it for $50,000 and it was worth $100,000. she shoulda did some checking into this before she sold. On the other hand I have to pay $80 to get it out and another $30 per day after that and i have no choice but to pay it. What if i dont have the money to get it out? then i have to let it sit there and collecta $30 fine for every day its there till it gets to the point where they keep the car. I guess all im saying is $35 -$40 would be reasonable, but $80 is unfair. I would hate to know what it is in an actual big city.
It was $160/$60 in Northern Virginia when they “stole” my car…I say stole because I was following all of their little rules and was in the grocery store in the strip mall (after having a coffee at the coffee shop in the same mall) and when I came back, my truck was gone…they told me that the “management” knew that I worked across the street and wasn’t supposed to park there (which was true), except I was on a vacation day and stopped for a cup of coffee and then went to pick up a few groceries.
I plead my case to the strip mall management and they actually gave me my money back. But, first I had to pay $160 in cash…and the tow lot was less than a mile away! Yeah, kenvest, they ARE a buncha knuckle-dragging crooks!
so the little old lady should have done her due-diligence…how nice…
anybody believing that is no better than any tow truck driver.
and i guess the tow truck driver was just waiting for you to park there while you went and had a frapacino or some such mess so he could tow your car…get real
So Kenvest…if your trying to sell your house for $50,000 and i offer you $40,000 and you accept it. Your obviously happy with that (or desperate to get rid of it). Then if i go and sell it for $60,000 or whatever…whats wrong with that?? you got your money, i made some, we should both be happy…comparing this to a tow truck situation is like comparing apples to oranges…you cant compare them
there’s things not to like about people or trends in every business and while we are comparing apples and oranges, i think we’ve shown that its a no win situation for the tow truck guy. no body wants to have their car pulled so he’s got a bad wrap before he even shows up.
if you want to complain about his prices, do your due-dilegence, just like the old lady should’ve, and stay off the hook!
I did NOTHING wrong and he stole my truck! Then he wants $160 to get it back…AND he’s a dick about it!
He actually says, “Don’t leave your toys where they don’t belong”! Well, Scooter…I was shopping. I legally parked my truck in a clearly-marked parking space, underneath a sign the says “2-hour parking for customers only”…I was gone 20 minutes into two stores in the mall (making me a ‘customer’) and when I get back you had stolen my truck…“Tough $hit…you want your truck back? It’s $160” --yeah he’s a dick and a knuckle-dragging grease monkey wanna-be (but is not smart enough to to be a mechanic)…
now that you’ve SINGLED him out as a “knuckle dragging, grease monkey wantabe”, i’ll buy into that…i still have a hard time beleiving he was just sitting there waiting for someone to park and pulled you out in 20 minutes. the tow truck driver isn’t the only one profiting here, somebody called him…
there’s pricks and a-holes in every sector of scociety…but i won’t lump all corporate execs as being theives because of the enron fiasco…
Geez what the heck happened to this thread?? Let’s admit it here and now, there are good and bad people in all industries.
Shake hands and let’s get on with it ;D If you happen to drive a tow truck for a living and take this thread that personally, tell everyone, nicely they are wrong, and move on – politely.
BTW Black I’ve been dying to know how this is all working out for you – please share. I, personally, learn from you all regularly. I’m very interested in how this is going forward.
as someone who’s had the good fortune of using my hands to make a living most of my life as well as graduating with a degree in business, it burns my tail when people lump all members of any given profession, even the sketchy ones, into such a negative category. i’ve had paper pusher, i’m going to assume thats what the largest part of the audience here is, look down on me and everyone else who gets dirty for a living most of my life and if i ever get the chance to call somebody on the ignorance they display, i’ll do it.
I let them use the contractor that he had. I have seen some of the work that they have done and it was ok. They still need to put the window and the door in but other than that it is done. I will be heading over there today to inspect and approve it. We are still trying to figure out the siding deal. He said he cant find the siding, but he doesnt want to pay to reside the entire garage. He insisted that he was going to continue to look, but how much time do i give him? I was actually pretty good and said i would side the garage myself for $1,500 with material including the wall the was busted up. I figure, what a great way to learn how to do siding. ive never done it before, but would like to learn and possibly side the house as well. I figured material to be about $800 and 3 days labor for $700…i have no clue on this, but the 1500 has to be alot cheaper than a siding contractor.
i’m glad things seem to be coming around for you. even though i may seem to be siding with the wrecker guy, he should still pay for at least half of the siding on the rest of the garage to make it match. he knows how much he’s saving by coming out of pocket and he also knows how lucky he was that the accident happened where it did instead of out on the road somewhere. stick to your guns!
siding, in and of itself, isn’t hard to do. good luck!
Thats what im figuring. I can use a tap measure, ive got saws, or can get a saw to cut the siding, and i can run a screw gun, nail gun, or whatever is used to secure the siding to the wall.
I am sorry I brought crooks into the question. Let’s get back on subject and disregard all the extraneous issues about good guys versus bad guys. Look at it a different way, assume the tow truck company is on the up and up. He is just trying to not report the accident so that his insurance rates won’t go up. The reason his insurance rates would go up is because he is a bad tow operator. His rates should go up. This guy dropped a car off of his truck. He could be a Sunday school teacher, but he should not be in the tow truck business. I say make him claim on his insurance and you take the money and fix the house with your own people. If he can’t even tow a car (his primary line of work) how do you expect him to fix your house right?
glad to see you don’t make mistakes. i’ve been waiting a lifetime to meet the perfect person.
making insurance claims can be a double edged sword. like someone mentioned earlier in the post, just calling for advice could be regarded and recorded as a claim.
you could twistedly say that the property owner is at fault for letting idiots live in the apartment who are stupid enough to call a jack leg to tow their vehicle. we all know this isn’t the case but i still haven’t been able to figure out the insurance industry and the liberties they take sometimes.
and we don’t know why the accident happened…equipment failures do happen.
i would call the wrecker guy on this though and remind him what could have happened and how you’re actually doing him a favor by not notifying his carrier. trust me, he doesn’t want to screw you on this.
you should definetly be able to find the wood siding. There will be one place in town that sells it and he may not have it in stock, but i assure you its avaliable somewhere…Home Depot or Lowes will not be carrying it…
working with vinyl is a PIA in my opinion and will do nothing to hone your carpentry skills. not only that, it looks cheap.
i would much rather use “hardiplank” which still isn’t crazy expensive if you can’t find the wood…
what im saying is, the siding is like 1.5’x 1’ shingle style siding with little wood carvings in it. Also it is a faded blue color as well, so if they do find it, they would have to paint the whole garage probably as well. What is hardiplank?
hardiplank is basically cement dust a nd glue compressed and extruded into long pieces. it comes in 16 foor lengths, will not rot, is fairly easy to work with if you have the right blade to cut it with and gives a much cleaner look than vinyl.
yes, its rare, i dont know if i have ever seen this kind of siding before. I will probably stick with the vinyl, or aluminum siding because the house is only worth about $60,000