Part 2: Tow Truck company threatened to dump my car in a ditch over $36 payment. The owner called my employer to lodge a complaint about me and is threatening to take me to court
This is a follow up from my previous post found here: link
The day after the incident I had just begun my pettiness campaign against the tow truck company. I had just submitted some negative reviews on a few sites and subsequently dropped their yelp score by a whole 1.5 points. At the start of the work day I was socializing and told a few colleagues about how a tow truck company had threatened me over $36. A colleague mentioned that they knew the family of people who run that company and they are a bunch of bullies. The owner's husband apparently isn’t welcome at school sport functions anymore because of inappropriate (racial) comments he made. During the work day my boss stopped by to say some very unhappy woman had called to complain about me. Fortunately he had heard my situation and eventually put two and two together about what was going on. My boss said he quickly dismissed her and thought she would complain to his superior about the both of us. He was very cool about the situation but needless to say I was embarrassed and ticked off that she escalated the situation to a professional setting. My name is unique enough so googling it and the city where I live leads to my employer profile so I am pretty sure this is how she figured it out where I work.
At this point my previous post was cooking and the suggestions were getting really good. I don’t know what she was trying to accomplish by complaining to my job about me but it only strengthened my resolve to go scorched earth on this company. By the end of the day yesterday I had done the following acts of pettiness:
- Updated my reviews on 4 sources (including social media) to include the fact she had called my job to complain about me and included screen shots of the text message exchange. They were careful to write in a slightly more professional language. It is funny though now if you search the company on google it shows an image of a tow truck and 3-4 screenshots of texts between me and her about where this giant tow truck is allegedly parked in my driveway. The company commented on the reviews about how drivers are not instructed to wait on properties but the texts clearly say if I don’t pay the driver will keep waiting and the fees will increase. The comments all say the discussion was “completely professional” which is a laugh but unfortunately I don’t have a recording of the conversation.
- Submitted a complaint to the BBB. It was received and submitted to the company yesterday. They have 14 days to respond. I asked for an apology to myself and my employer with no additional contact.
- Petitioned my insurance provider to blacklist the company. I sent in the screen shots and a description of events to my insurance. The insurance agent I spoke with was super unhappy when she heard the company was still contacting me and my employer after they had paid the $36.
- Submitted a complaint to the local tow truck association in my state.
- Submitted a complaint to a billing software company that handles invoices for this company. I am not sure this will do anything but worth a shot.
- Submitted a complaint for the Bureau of Consumer Protection for potential fraud about the alleged truck in my driveway which did not exist.
- I saved security footage from the time the driver was at my house. I have multiple angles of my car being stuck to my car being freed, my car parking and the driver driving away and not returning. I don’t have thermal on my security cameras so I couldn’t see him when he came back with his cloaking device.
Still need to do:
- Contact the State attorney general (consumer affairs division).
- Look into complaining to 311.
- I am not sure if I can get the company blacklisted from other insurance companies of which I am not a member.
Things I am probably not going to do:
- Put them on blast on reddit or Tiktok/Youtube. This seems like a potential defamation lawsuit but I honestly don’t know enough about it to make a decision.
- Go to the press. My job requires a squeaky clean social profile so I don’t want to risk that because of an unpleasant experience with a tow company.
At the end of the day I found that the company had blocked me on social media I mostly never use. I also received a text asking from the owner that stated the following:
Paraphrase of the text leaving out identifying information but I left the typos
Owner: Please do not contact this number or our business anyone.
Owner: I have never seen someone act this crazy over 36 dollars
Myself: Agreed please don’t contact this number again.
Owner: Im going to the Sherrif office! I said to stop
Myself: That’s your prerogative. I was agreeing to end communication.
Owner: We will see you in court!
I guess I need to lawyer up reddit.
If anyone has any additional suggestions I would be glad to keep my campaign going.