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Allstate Roadside Towing Contractors Across the US are NOT being paid for towing your car! Internet
I'm filing a lien against your car. That's right. If you used my services through Allstate Roadside to have your car towed to
the dealer, the tow bill is still outstanding and I would like to be paid. You will be receiving a notification letter followed by a court date to take possession of your car in lieu of my tow bill. My name is Bill. I own a small towing company in Denver Colorado called "Skyline Recovery Systems LTD". For many years, I provided service through many different motor clubs. When you called for roadside assistance through more than 100 different providers, I was most likely the guy that showed up to help you out. 3 years ago, I won the holy grail of motor club contracts. I was selected as the "Market Bid Winner" for Denver Colorado by Allstate Roadside in a program that I was told would mean better care for their policy holders
and more call volume for me. They were right, I reached a point where I was doing an average of 50 to 70 tows a day for Allstate Roadside. Right about the same time, they started short paying me on the work we were doing. They were losing PO's, trying to pay us 5 miles on tows that exceeded 300 miles, even telling us we never did tows that we had photos
of.The resultant problems I had because of that caused me to start overlooking smaller repairs on my trucks, looking for ways to pay my drivers less, looking for loopholes and other ways to trim my overhead just so I could survive until the payment they kept promising us arrived. A payment that has still not arrived almost a year after I stopped taking their calls. I had such trouble getting them to pay us that I had to hire someone just for the job of submitting our invoices to Allstate for payment. That person worked 40 hours a week for me and her only job was to deal with Allstate's designed to
fail bookkeeping system. The design was a total success. It failed. How good were we? We were (and still are) the most digitally literate towing company in Colorado. A 24/7 call center that would rival what the fire departments use.Full GPS tracking of every truck, all the time.Digital dispatching using the latest technologies from Beacon Software,
including their TowMagic auto dispatch system designed specifically for Allstate. Touch screen TomTom units in the trucks that updated call times (dispatched, arrived on scene, left scene, arrived at drop, finished with call)Digital photographs of EVERY SINGLE CAR I'VE EVER TOWED FOR ALLSTATE, both starting and ending. In most cases more
than 10 photos per car. The ONLY zero degree loading flatbed in Colorado, designed specifically to eliminate the need of ever putting a chain on a car to load or secure it. (maximized the use of wheel strap technologies). We had the truck built special just for this account in California and transported here for our use. We actually carried and used white cotton gloves to load and unload high end cars! (BMW, Audi, Ferrari, Bugatti Veyrons (yeah 2 of them in Denver) After
2 years as their top provider, I finally could not keep current with my bills any longer. After 2 years of their programmed audits and shortages, the amount they owed us in arrears reached a staggering $90,000.00 Even though I prided myself as the best contractor to perform these warranty tows, I had to call 17 employees into my office near the end of last
year, people with children, people with house payments, people with special needs kids and tell them that I am sorry, but they would be unemployed for the Christmas Holiday season. I no longer had the funds to pay them because Allstate Roadside doesn't pay it's bills to it's providers. You haven't experienced any kind of pain until you've been forced to tell 17 long standing, hard working employees who were devoted to your company that they no longer had a source of income. Allstate, the good hands people. Yeah right. Does anyone remember this ad? A better explanation of this ad might be this: "Allstate Roadside, so bad at caring for the towers that the members need to haul the tow trucks on trailers behind their cars because the towers can't afford to buy fuel." I am serious about this and I am on a campaign to get paid. I do not care if I have to spend the rest of my life suing individual car owners, I will not allow Allstate to use me up and throw me away like some small piece of garbage. I also recommend that other towers that have had this problem adopt this strategy. If you are a tower, outside of a massive class action suit, suing them individually to get paid is a lost cause. After several meetings with my attorney, it was explained to me how Allstate and their team of 10th story attorneys can drag a lawsuit like this through the mud for eternity until you just run out of money or give up. I will never give up but I will run out of money taking this approach. Exposing these tactics to the public is my only other recourse. There are going to be some really ticked off $100,000 car owners calling them in the near future. Can you imagine the media event if I am successful on even one lien collection (with video?) It is time to call these corporations on their nonsense. It is time to stop Allstate from not abiding by the rates and payment structure that they signed and agreed to with the towers in this country. In closing, if you have Allstate Insurance and you are using their "Gooey Hands" roadside program, be prepared to get a letter from an unpaid tower.....
6 Updates & Rebuttals
Larry
Phoenix,Arizona,
U.S.A.
You are not alone
#7Consumer Comment
Sun, March 18, 2012
A couple of years ago I operated a towing company that was the polar opposite of the operation you described. One truck, one driver (me), no GPS, no sophisticated software. I landed a contract to tow for another national auto club, Cross Country. Like you, I got screwed, too.
Cross Country refused to take me on unless I had a million-dollar liability policy, and that alone ran me a thousand dollars a month. Then I had to agree to a rate that was actually below my cost. They called me during the day maybe two times a week on average because, incredibly, they had other contractors who agreed to do the job for even less!
I did, however, receive a lot of middle-of-the-night calls and found that they called me only after at least four others had turned them down. They wanted me to go out in the middle of the night for the same price as a weekday tow.
To make matters a little worse, their dispatchers did not know east from west. I got one call from Cross County where the client was said to be broken down at 6700 West Camelback. I went there and found no one there. I called the client directly and found that they were actually at 6700 East Camelback, some 15 miles away. Of course, I was supposed to eat that expense as Cross Country would not pay the mileage to the start of the tow.
After a few months of this nonsense, I just stopped answering calls from Cross Country and ended the bleeding.
My point is that the auto clubs screw towing companies over backwards. Allstate did it by just simply not paying the OP. Cross Country did it to me by imposing unreasonable terms and conditions. Since there is always one more sucker with a tow truck waiting in the wings, companies like Allstate and Cross Country will never run out of victims.
Steve
USA"Allstate has been doing this for some time now. This is nothing new and a little web research will show you that. "
#7Consumer Comment
Sun, March 18, 2012
Really? So I take it you did not do this "little web research" before you took the business? Or do you expect that the people who you are supposedly going to file liens against (I don't think you will) should have?
There is something fishy about this story. If it is true, then file suit against Allstate and/or with your state's insurance commission. If you think going after individuals who are not to blame is going to be good for your business, I think you will be in for a bit of a surprise.
Robert
Irvine,California,
U.S.A.
While.
#7Consumer Comment
Sat, March 17, 2012
While I do understand your situation. The first thing I would wonder is how in the world you let them get to 90K in arrears?
Next, while you may legally be allowed to place a "Mechanics Lien" on the vehicles this tactic will backfire.
Now, you did mention going after $100,000 car owners...while I don't know the economic climate of Colorado..exactly how many cars worth $100,000 did you end up towing? Generally people that use Roadside assistance are people that are driving "clunkers" and may be worth a couple thousand dollars at best. So you are not going to take the expense of filing the lien, and taking them to court. If you get the car you are now going to have to sell the car..more expense. If all of this still doesn't cover the bill then what? It seems as if you are doing this as some sort of "revenge", but it is revenge against the wrong group.
Because the people you will be doing this too won't see it as an Allstate issue, they will see it as an issue with your company. So you may get media attention, but not the attention you want. It just takes you doing this to one person who relies on their car to get to work and because you "took it", they got fired and are now homeless. The media would eat a story like that up and you will be seen as the bad guy. Tow truck companies probably are liked about as much as Banks and Used Car dealers, and this would not help people's opinion. Unfair to you...perhaps but something you need think about.
Even if I were to win, I'd lose.....
- Not necessarily because not only would you be awarded your "arrears", the courts would probably also assess Interest on the back amount and award you your court and legal fees. If you have as solid as a case as you think, it would seem like a pretty easy case to get a lawyer to take your case on contingency.
Towers Getting Screwed By Allstate
Denver,Colorado,
United States of America
No other recourse...
#7Author of original report
Sat, March 17, 2012
I am sorry to disagree with you but the facts remain. If you used Allstate Roadside to procure a tow for your disabled car and Allstate Roadside does not honor their guarantee to pay the tower for the service, then you as the person that initiated the tow are still liable for the payment to the tow contractor.
It's the same as if you hired a general contractor to re-roof your house and that general contractor uses a sub-contractor for part of the work and does not pay them. You, as the homeowner, are now liable and must pay that sub contractor EVEN IF you have already paid the general contractor for the work.
Allstate has been doing this for some time now. This is nothing new and a little web research will show you that. They have done so much damage to my small company because of their 'designed to fail' bookkeeping practices that I am at risk of losing everything! The 90k they didn't pay in a timely fashion has cost me valuable employees, many thousands of dollars in added tax liabilities and the utter destruction of my own and my companies reputation.
Large corporations in this country are taking us all to the bank in this same fashion. They have garnered such power politically and legally that they are essentially free to screw the public with utter impunity. In other words, there is NO WAY I can defend myself in a court of law because I do not have the money to pay for a legal frontal assault against a team of lawyers with literally billions of dollars backing them. Even if I were to win, I'd lose.....
My only other recourse is to do exactly what I am doing. What would you do?
voiceofreason
North Carolina,United States of America
Tactic will backfire
#7Consumer Comment
Fri, March 16, 2012
I feel for your plight, but we both know you're targeting the wrong people for revenge.
What I see coming out of any high profile action as you have threatened, is a push for legislation to OUTLAW third party mechanic liens.
I can understand such liens against a primary direct contracting customer, someone who did business directly with you without any middleman connecting y'all, but nobody should be able to go after someone who's only business tie to you was that the company THEY contracted with in turn contracted out the work to you. Same with a subcontractor who's screwed by a general contractor; yes, they can place mechanic liens against the property they worked on, but they ought NOT be allowed to do so.
Your beef, whether you feel you can resolve it on your own or not, is with Allstate, and I hope any suits you file against Allstate's customers get tossed out summarily.
Ginksel
cocoa,Florida,
U.S.A.
Allstate Does Not Pay
#7General Comment
Fri, March 16, 2012
I am sorry to hear of your problems with Allstate Motor Club. That why we no longer tow for them.Most times they dispute the bill and when they pay, they take 3 months.