07/11/2026
We have been contacted by some of our local towing partners who have shared concerns about unethical business practices occurring within the towing industry.
There are multiple out of state entities advertising on internet search engines as if they are a local towing service. When local residents search online for a towing company, these businesses often appear in the search results. In reality, they do not operate towing services themselves. Instead, they act as third party towing “broker”, (often without the customer’s knowledge), leading the customer to believe they are hiring a local company.
These brokers frequently charge customers significantly higher rates (sometimes four or five times) more than what a local towing company would charge. They then attempt to subcontract the tow to a local towing service.
Unfortunately, we are aware of a couple of instances where the broker’s credit card was declined when attempting to pay the local towing company. As a result, the customer had already paid the substantially higher rate, yet no local towing service was paid to respond.
We encourage residents to verify the legitimacy of any towing company before hiring them. One way to do this is to confirm the company has a legitimate local physical address and contact information.
While customers are free to choose any towing service they wish, and we recognize there may be legitimate towing broker services within the industry, we also want to help our citizens avoid becoming victims of unethical business practices.
