- Report: #1480164
Complaint Review: Ajaco Towing Inc - Harrison New Jersey
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Ajaco Towing Inc
305 Mannor Ave Harrison, 07029 New Jersey, United States
Web:
https://www.ajacotowinginc.com/
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Ajaco Towing Inc They towed my vehicle in the parking lot where a festival was being held, with no visible signage or warning. They refused to take credit cards or checks, despite listing it on their website. Harrison New Jersey
Ajaco Towing had one of their employees spotting at a shopping mall parking lot where a festival was being held, and was towing cars left and right, mine included. A police officer was even on site to say that having a spotter was illegal but my car was already towed and because it was a private shopping mall, there was nothing they could do about it. The police was warning other festival goers of what was happening before Ajaco came to take their car too. Ajaco claimed that there was "signs everywhere" when there was just one sign, at the back entrance of this shopping mall lot.
They towed my vehicle to their Harrison location, where they proceeded to tell me and a whole group of other individuals, that it would be $225 to remove our vehicles and that it had to be cash only. I told them that their website lists that all major credit cards are accepted, and they said "our machine is broken".
I asked them if they could take down my credit card information via a flatbed, photo, any other means and one tall and skinny guy goes "it's not 1970" and proceeded to slam the gate shut and lock it. No, it's not 1970, it's 2019 so saying your "credit card machine" is down is not a good enough excuse to keep running your scam. You can clearly see via their Google Reviews (https://www.google.com/search?q=ajaco+towing&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS731US731&oq=aj&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j35i39j69i60j46j69i60l2.950j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#lrd=0x89c3077c55ecda7d:0xdf836d38c8289517,1,,,) that they've been taking the "we only take cash" scam and running with it for ages. This goes against the NJ Consumer Affairs Predatory Towing Prevention Act (including the trolling for vehicles portion of the act,too).
I refused to pay cash without a reciept/invoice, and had to fight them for that. They were overtly rude from the second we got there, and I pushed back. I don't like being taking advantage of, and seeing other people in the same situation. When asked why they were being so rude, one guy replied "I've been working since 7 am (it was 4 pm at the time) when we're not supposed to be open on the weekends". They had at least 5 people on site, excluding their drivers, and list that they are open 24 hours/7 days a week on their website. That's not an excuse, and if you're not supposed to be open, why are you fully staffed and have a spotter in a lot? Because there was festival and it was easy pickings.
There was at least 5 to 6 other groups of people there when I was dealing with them, whose cars where also towed at the same lot, many from out of town. More cars kept coming in, too. One woman had her car towed and she wasn't even there for the festival - she had just walked into the bank. Another group of girls wheren't fluent in English and came from Conneticut.
Ajaco was clearly conducting predatory practices and from the looks of it based off of online reviews, has been doing this for years. Shame on them.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Mike
Pennsylvania,United States
Be Very Careful...
#2Consumer Comment
Fri, July 05, 2019
Did you happen to be attending the Portuguese festival in the IronBound section of Newark? If so, for future reference, be very careful with parking. All over that part of the city, parking lots for stores, supermarkets, etc. all run scams like that. A few allow parking for a fee, like Seabra's on Lafayette street. You best bet is to use one of these pay lots. Or else drive around for hours looking for a spot on the street.
Anyway, sorry to hear that happened to you. Just wanted to make you aware that this is a common scam during the Portuguese Festival and also the Brasilian Festival that gets held in August.
