ComplaintsforDerek's Towing & Recovery

• Initial Complaint

  09/25/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  According to the posted sign on 5th street, vehicles need to be moved off the street by 7am for In the Streets. My mother saw her vehicle in the midst of being towed at 6:15am. She went outside & spoke with the tow truck driver. She pointed out to him that the sign says NO PARKING 7AM TO 7PM. The driver told my mother to speak with the police officer. The police officer ignored the posted sign & said cars need to be moved by 6am. My mother pointed out the posted sign, saying that forcing her to move early was wrong & inconvenient. The tow truck driver told my mother that he is just doing what the police officer tells him to do. He pulled my mother aside and told her that she was right and that the officer was wrong because the sign says 7am. The driver then asked my mother if she had any money and said it would cost her $75 for him to remove her vehicle from his truck. The driver accepted $60 from my mother and he unloaded her vehicle from his truck. All of this occurred before 7am on 9/10/22. This incident was an abuse of power, lack of integrity, and exploitation by a city contracted vendor. The tow truck driver was in the process of illegally towing vehicles in preparation for the festival and exploited money from innocent residents who were unjustly caught up in the situation. It is bad enough that residents don't have a parking permit to remain parked during the festival (only vendors can get a permit to park on residential streets during the festival).

  Business response

  09/30/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/09/26) */ We are sorry you experienced this. Unfortunately I am 100% certain that you have given the wrong business a complaint with the BBB. We do not have this contract to work with city police to remove vehicles from parked downtown during certain hours. We have never even bidded on this and based upon the complaints we have heard from the drivers that do, we will likely never bid/apply for this contract with city of frederick Consumer Response /* (2000, 7, 2022/09/28) */ (The consumer indicated he/she ACCEPTED the response from the business.) If this is not the correct business, I do apologize. I will continue to search for the towing company that is responsible for this incident.

• Initial Complaint

  11/15/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I hit a hay bale left in the middle of the road on Nov 15 2021. I called my insurance State Farm to dispatch a tow truck to tow my vehicle to a body shop from the Brunswick MD area to Choice Collision Center in Mercersburg PA. The towing company advised my insurance that they could not tow my vehicle to the body shop, but could tow it to their storage yard and then tow it to the body shop the next day. At no point was a second tow order mentioned by the insurance company or the tow company. The driver arrives and loads my car without any issue, said he wasn't sure why he wasn't towing it to the body shop, and said he would be in by 7am to make sure my car was at the body shop for when it opened at 8am. Next day is Monday. 8am and the car is not at the body shop. I called the phone number provided by State Farm three times and got an automated message that the phone number was incorrect. I called the phone number the tow company texted me from on Nov 15th and the automated message said incorrect number. I texted the number and received a response that they were waiting for a second tow order from insurance. The tow company contacted me and the guy was incredibly unprofessional, cursing at me because his call interrupted his time on the toilet. Not only was he incredibly unprofessional, but the company's business practices are unethical. There was absolutely no reason he had to tow my car to his storage lot and incur a storage fee and a second towing fee. Choice Collision advised they have an after hour key drop and my vehicle could have been left on their property. I know he has a contract with the local police so I'll be contacting them about his unethical business practices as well in the hopes that he is no longer able to defraud insurance companies like this in the future.

  Business response

  02/04/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 13, 2021/12/27) */ You needed service and went through 2 middleman companies to set up a service with us. The first middleman company, your insurance, contacted agero, agero calls us and pays us. Beings Agero contacts us, handles everything with dispatching, and pays us, everything must be done through since they are paying the bill. Agero is a middleman who has to get approval for things from your insurance carrier. When your roadside assistance powered by agero called to set up the service with us, I was very clear when I told them we would be unable to take it straight to Mercersburg at that time a day because I was shorthanded and already had other commitments with other customers. They were the ones who gave me the approval to tow store tow. Agero does always setup and send over a tow out job in a timely manner which often upsets the vehicle owners as they are not understanding. Since we are the local guys who are easiest to get ahold of and the ones in possession of the car, we are often the ones who look bad and have to deal with upset owners and complaints alike this very one. We deal with the same run around too when we need something and try to reach out to Agero. We cannot just act on our own and do what we feel would be the right thing as this would put us in violation of our contract and we likely won't get paid for services rendered. You were offered the option to pay us for the tow when you started calling not being very nice, you stated that your insurance was paying for it. Without a purchase order number they in fact are not. This is why your car say there so long. We were waiting for them to send over the purchase order number. Within Agero's company they were taking their sweet time for reason we could only suspect. The car is delivered. The service is done. You can avoid all of the middleman companies and contact us direct should you need anything in the future and we would be delighted try to be accommodating. Best of luck to you. Consumer Response /* (3000, 15, 2022/01/03) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) Who State Farm contracts with is not the customer's responsibility. My State Farm agent contacted Derek's Towing on a recorded line Monday morning by approximately 930am EST to provide the second tow order and the insurance representative spoke directly with an employee. Despite this early confirmation of payment, Derek's Towing's representative later lied to law enforcement saying they had no confirmation of payment and attempted to extort additional payment from me. My car was not delivered until Tuesday morning despite reassurance from both the company and its representative, the driver, that it would be delivered Monday morning by 8am after being unnecessarily stored. At no point did Derek's Towing or any "middleman" representative inform me of a required second tow order on Sunday when the request went out or when the car was picked up. It is the responsibility of Derek's Towing to manage expectations while on site to prevent these sort of situations and, when confusion arises, to conduct their business in a professional manner rather than throwing a childish tantrum and holding customer property out of spite. I have contacted State Farm with my complaint and informed them never to dispatch Derek's Towing to any of my calls in the future. I have detailed this experience on several consumer review sites in the hopes that it encourages others to steer clear. I further hope State Farm and any other insurance company unlucky or unwise to do business with Derek's Towing takes the time to investigate each contracted tow to discover if they or their customers have also been defrauded in a similar manner. At this time, there is little more to do than to shame you for your unprofessional and unethical conduct and advise you to get a little perspective with what you consider "not being very nice". Your agent called me while on the toilet and proceeded to curse me out for interrupting his personal time on the only phone that could be successfully used to contact your company. Unfortunately, judging by other complaints submitted against your company, this childish and unprofessional tantrum is par for the course for Derek's Towing. Business Response /* (4000, 17, 2022/01/05) */ BBB is a waste of my time and bears no weight. I'm going to put time and energy into beneficial things.

• Initial Complaint

  09/11/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  On September 11, I live at Field pointe apartment complex and pay my rent on time every month. I rarely have any one over. I came outside and my car was gone. I was told my car was towed from my own apartment complex. I was told the apartments should have my license plates to check if I live there. Why wasn't my license plates checked. I'm very upset. This is not right. I was told by my neighbors this happens a lot. To my understanding it's sounds like fuel pointe apartments is getting a cut/ money from the towing company to take cars they should not be taking. I'm going to file more complaints. Also I am elderly and feel attacked. I do not have a lot of money and do not feel I should pay this.

  Business response

  01/13/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/09/14) */ Sir/Mam, I am sorry you feel targeted, you are not. I believe you are misunderstanding the parking agreement you previously signed prior to get your parking permits. The parking agreement is very specific regarding the rules of parking in your community. The very 1st line item of the parking agreement tells you that the parking permit must be visible from the front windshield. The driver photographs this prior to towing. We do not run plates, we are not contracted to. We are contracted to check parking permits. If we had access to plate information, we would need have unnecessary access to a lot of your sensitive information. We are not targeting anyone, we are simply enforcing the rules in the community as contracted. There are no illegal kickbacks to the property. With regards to making more complaints, in the past perspective property managers have acknowledged these complaints and bad reviews as validation that we are dependable enough to handle they're parking issues within they're communities. Thank you for your concern, we hope we addressed all of your concerns. Take care

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩