This calls to mind an incident from a couple years ago in Columbus, Ohio. After a negligent lane-changing sedan spun my car 360 degrees and into the rail guard, the responding police officer ordered a tow truck for me without my knowledge. When the truck arrived, the driver told me he could either take my car to his body shop or the city impound lot, in which case I would need to pay later for a second tow to the body shop of my choosing plus any storage fees.
I did not appreciate this strong arm sales tactic and told him he wasn't touching my vehicle. The cop insisted that I allow the tow. She apparently was required to stay at the scene until the disabled vehicles were removed and did not want to wait for a tow truck of my choosing. I held firm. After several minutes of back and forth, the cop begrudgingly allowed me to drive my heavily damaged vehicle a few hundred yards to an exit ramp and park it on a side street.
An accident report was never filed, so my insurance company wasn't able to collect damages from the other party's insurance on my behalf. Perhaps there was a clerical error or perhaps the cop wanted to punish my assertiveness.
And you did not follow-up why the accident report was not filed? I usually keep following up on such cases, until all issues are resolved. It is a net negative investment for me, since the time and effort I have to put in it, is not worth it, but I get 2 satisfactions out of it:
1) Hopefully whoever "played" will learn a lesson not to again.
2) Hopefully the overall problem (whether it is bad customer service, strong arm tactics, etc.) will slowly be fixed.
I guess in your case, you already used up your quota of fighting-the-system when you had to argue with both the cop and the tow-man.
I am a former Ohio State student, a university located in Columbus, Ohio. In my experience, the tow truck businesses in area are corrupt. I suspect most other OSU students would agree. Two stories from my life:
* A pizza delivery was towed in the time it took to get the pizza from car to door and collect payment.
* My ex-girlfriends dad was towed while unloading the vehicle to move her into an apartment.
If your car is undrivable they can charge you to repair anything you damaged, such as the Jersey barrier. If you can drive your car a few hundred feet after the accident (cracked radiator) they can't get that money from you and don't care.
This is one of those cases where you're definitely in the right but getting justice costs several orders of magnitude more money than just letting it go.
I never understood why towing isn't a function of the provincial government. The government entering the industry would reduce violence, corruption, and insurance costs for all.
It is well known here in Toronto that tow trucks are scum of the earth.
Earlier this year [0] there were 10 charged, including one police in a corruption scandal in Toronto. They were so brazen that they stole from the police!
Then a month later, Toronto suspended 5 more police in the same tow truck scandal. [1]
All this to say, the corruption is a well known issue in Toronto. The provincial government has repeatedly claimed to go after "gangs", yet no solution has been put forth to end what is one of the biggest gangs in the province and the punishments that are doled out are pathetically light.
"The government entering the industry would reduce violence, corruption, and insurance costs for all."
???
Conversely, one would ask why on earth the government would ever get into such a thing it has clearly no business doing?
You could make the same arguments about Taxis, Entertainment, Auto Manufacture, R&D, Convenience Stores - hey, let's 'socialize the entire economy' - think of how much more efficient it would be!
The government doesn't really have a good track record in most of those things, so we like to regulate and have interventions where needed i.e. single point of failure.
The government in Quebec and Ontario control Liquor and Beer distribution (beer in the latter) and the result is vastly overpriced goods. The liquor stores admittedly are 'really nice' but there are long line ups, and prices are out of this world. Even as wine sales are allowed in grocery stores in Quebec, the 'Gov. Liquor Monopoly' thuggishly enforced rules such that the quality of the wine out of their stores is so bad it's undrinkable. The only wine that made it out of their mafia control was what you'd get in the US for $4 a bottle, i.e. undrinkable.
So no, some transparency, good laws and regulation would be appropriate, we don't need a cabal forming within the government taking over that system.
I don't have a source for this, but I grew up in NJ and now live in Montreal, and I am pretty sure the local corruption here is worse than where I grew up (where three of the four mayors of my hometown served time in jail after their time in office). Things got a lot better there and I think a lot of the organized crime might have moved up north.
The construction industry is very clearly siphoning billions of dollars of tax money into organized criminals' hands. Every few years a given street gets torn up with a new excuse. And it seems to be consensus that it's much worse these days than it used to be.. this year in particular I think something like one out of every five blocks downtown is closed off for "construction".
Cops saying "just don't look into it" regarding organized crime sounds about par for the course anywhere I've ever been though.
The corruption in Montreal is more visible than in many other metropolitan regions places, but the city and province do a lot more than other areas to bring it to light and fight it.
My estimation is that if we had a similar level of effort into looking into other regions, we'd see similar or greater issues. The refusal to look into real-estate or casino based money laundering as well as substantially counterproductive financial secrecy laws make for lots of issues in Canada.
Is there grift in Montreal? You betcha. Is there grift in Toronto? You betcha, but it doesn't make the news.
In this light, it's really crazy reading about the initial Montreal Metro construction -- completed in less than 5 years. They actually extended the orange line by two whole stations because they found their construction costs were lower than expected.
I recall a buddy of mine worked in construction industry in 80s/Miami Florida. It was “typical”, as he told me that they ordered truck of concrete, and then at the same time filled out the hole with as much garbage as they could. Then covered with concrete using less than 10% what was ordered. Of course rest was sold on black market. First people who were doing it (probably not first but the most “famous”) was Morgan family (constructions) before they switched industry to became Morgan&Morgan Lawyers (for the people).
This is correct. I lived in Montreal for one year, and the road closures (barree barree barree) is ridiculous. It's so bad that without a navigation app like Waze you can get stuck going in circles.
I lived in Montreal in the early 70s and this was rumoured to be the case then. I see little has changed in 50 fucking years.
I went back to visit right before leaving North America forever. I was shocked at how depressed the city was still. I assume it's these parasites stealing from the people.
I often think about ways of disrupting businesses which rely on shady deals/regulatory capture/other anticompetitive measures. I just as often decide that it’s not worth it, since I don’t want my legs broken.
Sunshine laws or the equivalent are the start. Without data on the problem it is easy for criminals to stay under the radar, or for the public to know if it is really a problem. A number of states have towing laws that require reporting any towed vehicle to the state within an hour. If a car is towed without being reported, in theory it is theft, or could lead to the business license or drivers license or insurance being revoked if enough people complain. And the second part is going after the money. The tow company can't legally charge anything if they didn't report the tow and follow the law. They can be sued for 3x the cost of the tow and any other out of pocket costs, and attorneys fees, so it is worth it for attorneys to take these cases on instead of small claims, and just a few of these to make this scheme more expensive than doing things the right way
I'd like a Good Government guidebook for citizens. List some general principles, some case studies, cites for further research.
I tried to read some books on auditing and financial accounting. Way over my head. I need the ELI5 layperson versions.
Am a recovering activist. So much (wasted) effort. I did learn two heuristics.
#1
Talk About Quality
"Fraud" is a convo full stop. Don't talk about fraud, theft, grift.
Mistakes are indistinguishable from fraud. And combatting both has the same remedies.
So only talk about quality, confidence, reducing errors, etc. Nice safe blame-free neutral 90/10 language that gets everyone on board and is less likely to trigger overt opposition. (Covert sabotage will continue, because the grifters won't be fooled by your Aw Schucks demeanor.)
#2
Follow The Money
Per quote from The Wire upthread. I learned from Bev Harris (Black Box Voting) that (mis)appropriations is a huge threat to election integrity. And in many places, that's the sheriff's office. They don't care about machines, voting, elections. For them it's just about the grift.
Twenty years later, I still don't have a clue how to mitigate this. One half-baked notion was to advocate for solutions that both more in line with the public interest and had more potential for grift. Another is, since scandal is evergreen topic, is feed info to opposition. That didn't work at all against Bob Moses (The Power Broker), so probably not a great plan.
>>I just as often decide that it’s not worth it, since I don’t want my legs broken.
Broken legs are still part of the warning phase.
They see this as "theirs" and who they hell are you to cause them to lose $x Million a year? Any business or person would sue the hell out of you and try to ruin your life if you caused them millions in loses.
The mafiosi are no different, with a slight twist, they skip the courts since they take too long ;).
>I often think about ways of disrupting businesses which rely on shady deals/regulatory capture/other anticompetitive measures. I just as often decide that it’s not worth it, since I don’t want my legs broken.
Any smart organized crime is going to realize that directly intimidating startup founders with violence on American soil is a great way to a) get an overwhelming amount of federal heat on them and b) turn whatever it is they're doing into a scandal immediately.
On a hill station winter night me and few friends were on a remote old bungalow drunk and contemplating life, as it usually goes. One topic became specifically heated, partly because one of the participants was the son of a notoriously corrupt politician. He hated his father, except when it came to enjoy luxuries that was paid for by the father.
The topic was - how to deter, scare the criminals? How to make it less viable for them to be corrupt and criminals?
They often commit crimes of various nature including corruption in the hope that if not them their children, family would get to reap the benefits and they make financial arrangements so that even if they are indicted and properties seized, at least a decent part of the proceeds indeed goes to the family.
We reached an impasse with loosely discussing that vigilante justice is the only way. But then the family, wife, kids didn't really directly participate in the crime so how and when to punish them? For not denouncing the proceeds that was earned from the corrupt and criminal means? I mean there's a law against aiding and abetting in crime. So would that not work here?
Besides, even if we proceed with the vigilante justice, where to draw the line? Is everyone supposed to be picking up arms. That would be total revolution, anarchy in other words. Part of the discussion also included how criminals, politicians intimidate and harm weaker adversaries and if society collectively starts hitting back and hard at them where it hurts - their business, family members - it could deter them. How long can they provide security to them? How often? All it needs one successful target among many. Yes, they can keep the family in a steel cage. Good for them!
But we did reach an agreement that they should not be left untouched. How exactly? That remained the question.
Alongnside, I recommend you also watch this video episode of what the lawyer is fighting against. It's ridiculous how they're able to get away with such criminal behaviour in broad daylight.
Tow truck tricks: Don't get scammed after an accident (CBC Marketplace)
If this is such a big and expensive problem (reportedly $2 billion annually), why are insurance companies hiring a small private lawyer operating out of a strip mall?
Aren’t there big corporate law firms who would have more resources, and more protection/anonymity for their staff?
Why wouldn't the insurance companies just offer to deal with arranging a tow truck for you? If they're getting scammed so much wouldn't it make sense to have someone answering the phone and calling a preferred towing provider?
The service itself would have some value because knowing you can call your insurance provider after an accident and having them deal with everything would really help to reduce the stress of the incident.
My hunch is the insurance companies are a bunch of babies that would rather whine than solve problems. My sister got in an accident in AB last year and it took her insurance company forever to have her vehicle re-towed from a small garage in a little town to Edmonton. IIRC it took more than 6 weeks for her to deal with insurance.
Contrast that with SK where between the city police and SGI you don't have to do anything. They just deal with it and the rates we pay are probably the best in the country. It's ~1500 CAD per year for insurance and as long as you have a decent driving record you don't get penalized for getting in an accident. You can even cause an accident and pay $0 if you don't make a claim on your own vehicle. Plus they typically get everything dealt with very quickly.
If the police are calling corrupt tow truck companies that's it's own problem. That kind of corruption shouldn't be tolerated and if the police are calling a tow truck for you after an accident it should be a regulated process.
Maybe this one was visible and behind the scene the big firms are still at it? This lawyer was probably was working on some specific local cases but was also 'more accessible' by the criminals for intimidation?
I'm assuming because of the fragmented insurance market. Ideally, all of the insurers would band together, but in reality, you've got a bunch of players with 2-5% of the market who can't afford the big time Toronto legal firms.
I wonder what the properties are of a gig that permits mafiafication. I think it helps to have ties to the police, some sort of notion in the public's eye that you're legalish, and perhaps be able to use an army of foot soldiers as a human shield.
I think if I were in organized crime, a good one would be privatizing parking enforcement of city spaces and then being in charge of meter maids. But it can't be a single organization in charge of meter maids because then it's too obvious. You need it to look diffuse, through a network of companies.
Oh, I think body shops are a good one, but auto glass companies too. You could just stage some break-ins that just vandalize car glass. People will blame the guy whose glass was broken (why did you park there, was your car empty, blah blah). You're just a glass repair shop so everyone sees you as the good guy. And no one will see that your network of auto glass companies is actually controlled by you.
Yeah, auto glass companies in cities are a tremendous opportunity for mafiafication. If they aren't already.
Wasn't the taxi industry also one where it had its own corruption and connections with people who may resort to guns to protect their turf? How did companies like Uber and Lyft gain marketshare without incurring some physical penalty?
Never heard of such kind of corruption in western Europe. You never call a tow truck directly, you call your insurance which has a register of tow trucks and body shop. If any would overprice regularly, it would be out of the register. The same for the cons in construction, all constructions of sufficient size are audited by Veritas or something alike, it's not possible to replace concrete with garbage. How is it possible that things are so different in northern america ?
Well, the "kickback from an unscrupulous auto body shop, which then submits wildly inflated repair fees to an insurance company" part definitely makes sense.
I do autobody and have painted my own cars in the past. Total cost for basic materials for an entire car is less than $600, depending on type of paint, color and finish.
But earlier this year my truck tapped, quite literally TAPPED the back of an SUV when it rolled three feet forward from its parked position. The SUV owner and I had to look several times, and wipe off dirt and dust to see a 2 inch crack in the paint in the hatch.
Total repair bill? $1800 for that damn 2" crack! It's robbery and there's no way it should cost that, but that was a 'discount' rate. I could've painted his entire SUV three times for that price!
The autobody industry is out of control and insurance claims are often ridiculously inflated.
No surprise. The way you make it in the towing industry (in cities) is to make friends with the police. It's no surprise that people with those friends feel emboldened to do things normal people can't get away with.
This dynamic is the fault of the government for creating a captive market and secondarily the fault of insurance for divorcing many consumers from the costs of that captive market.
In rural areas where there's not much money to be made towing the tow operators don't do bad business to make a buck. They use their capital investment to haul things other than cars to make their gravy money.
I lived in Toronto for a couple of years in the early 90s. My apartment in a house had no off-street parking. No problem as all residents on street get a parking pass. But mine was never sent and so I got a ticket every day for many months. I ignored them. My wife and I went out to dinner with some friends one weekend evening. Parked on a side street even though there were temporary "no parking" signs posted on lampposts. Left restaurant to find a movie shoot in progress on that street. Someone gave me the name of the impound lot and our friends drove us there.
I had a sick feeling in my stomach because of those unpaid tickets. Certainly a much larger dollar amount than the value of my 15 year old Honda. Told my wife and friends that the best case was that they'd keep the car but that they may still come after us for the balance. But information flowed more slowly in 1991, and the tow lot had no knowledge yet of those unpaid tickets when I arrived to get my car, and I only had to pay $75 to get it back. If I'd waited, they perhaps would have accessed the ticket database.
Some time months later, we finally got our parking permit sticker. And somewhere in a file in the Toronto traffic department there's probably a couple hundred tickets with my license plate.
As for the Accord. I had purchased used in Pittsburgh for $5000. Got married. Drove to Toronto where I lived for 2 years during graduate school. Drove it to MA where I worked for 5 years. Had a baby. Bought a 2nd car (also an Accord). Drove it to CT where I did consulting for a year. Then drove it back to Pittsburgh where I sold it for $500. Haven't thought of that story for many years.
Some insurance companies where I live prevent extortion from tow truck companies by including a list of authorized tow companies as a part of the policy. Cars that aren't towed by those companies won't get paid out (or get less paid out, not sure on the details). Perhaps something similar could help here?
Given this situation though, it seems like the tow trucks might just violently threaten someone until they agree to let them tow their car while they wait for an authorized company to arrive. But perhaps that is easier for the police to deal with than organised crime.
Why is towing such a business in north america? Here in europe, you see rarely towing trucks. I remember, when I stayed in Vancouver in 2004, almost on every street corner was a towing truck.
I wish there was an app that could serve during time of emergency crisis. Based on your city, province, country of location, it could provide you step by step guide of handling next course of action. Right away, it tells user what is their crisis location address which will be required by insurance, and 911. Users can have option to start audio recording in app background to monitor themselves after crisis that they can use as proof later on. Based on crisis location, app can predict nearest locations of recommended service centres, hospital, fire, police stations and emergency contact location. For long term, it could shape up like Waze where people could report where crisis happened, which guideline they followed post crisis, rate them so other readers can read, interact etc. It would be nice if app can ask a series of questions and can dispatch info to your insurance company, CAA towing service etc. For example, all preliminary questions can be asked by app like How many passengers in car, any serious injuries, health related questions, license info etc. Once that is complete, it automatically submits this data to insurance for starting a case and dispatching tow service by recommeded parties like CAA at one touch of fingertip. This same info can be saved as PDF for distributing it to Police at scene. An app in form of educating people in a guided way can put an end to this corrupt business.
disclosure: I work as a diesel engine tech in a midwestern city.
Ive seen and dealt with a lot of tow companies, and a plurality are pretty shady but the worst are the police-centric ones. Lock-in deals with police departments for example are astroturfed as "the official tow company of $city police" without so much as an audit. Bidding almost never takes place for this service model, its just a cop whos wifes brother owns a tow company. These are generally the worst, as they rarely respond to anything but a parking enforcement dispatcher. The tow lot is derelect dirt property, and the only thing in the office is a credit card machine and a television. They exist to collect a fee and send a cut to the city, and rarely employ anyone who understands how to hook up a car safely, just quickly.
If you hire a tow driver: look for the words "recovery" or an endorsement from your insurance company. Avoid AAA towing as shady companies habitually stencil that logo on everything. If there is a heavy recovery truck with a crane in their lot, you're in professional hands.
If you're being towed: do not argue shout at or threaten the driver/operator, they're just paying their bills and if its an "official city" tow company it can get you a quick night in jail. instead document everything you can, take pictures and tak your time if you think you're being wrongly towed (it happens.) keep track of your vehicle after this. call and check up on it, as some of the shadiesst tow companies will actually send you a letter warning you of an intent to auction your property after a set date if you dont pay. Somethines this is just a scare tactic, other times its real (im told in Los Angeles they can do this.) Fighting a parking violation tow should be straight forward at your local courthouse unless the citys come to depend on tow revenue.
If you're booted: call the city and confirm it! ask them to confirm the device by its serial number or markings and that information about your vehicles violation EXISTS With them. If you call the number on the boot to pay your fine, ask the person on the other end when the car was booted, who booted it, and at what time (all of which should be documented by the tow company.)
[+] [-] istjohn|5 years ago|reply
I did not appreciate this strong arm sales tactic and told him he wasn't touching my vehicle. The cop insisted that I allow the tow. She apparently was required to stay at the scene until the disabled vehicles were removed and did not want to wait for a tow truck of my choosing. I held firm. After several minutes of back and forth, the cop begrudgingly allowed me to drive my heavily damaged vehicle a few hundred yards to an exit ramp and park it on a side street.
An accident report was never filed, so my insurance company wasn't able to collect damages from the other party's insurance on my behalf. Perhaps there was a clerical error or perhaps the cop wanted to punish my assertiveness.
[+] [-] nobrains|5 years ago|reply
1) Hopefully whoever "played" will learn a lesson not to again.
2) Hopefully the overall problem (whether it is bad customer service, strong arm tactics, etc.) will slowly be fixed.
I guess in your case, you already used up your quota of fighting-the-system when you had to argue with both the cop and the tow-man.
[+] [-] tyleo|5 years ago|reply
* A pizza delivery was towed in the time it took to get the pizza from car to door and collect payment.
* My ex-girlfriends dad was towed while unloading the vehicle to move her into an apartment.
[+] [-] strathmeyer|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] underdeserver|5 years ago|reply
You just gotta chalk it up to bad luck.
[+] [-] CamelCaseName|5 years ago|reply
It is well known here in Toronto that tow trucks are scum of the earth.
Earlier this year [0] there were 10 charged, including one police in a corruption scandal in Toronto. They were so brazen that they stole from the police!
Then a month later, Toronto suspended 5 more police in the same tow truck scandal. [1]
All this to say, the corruption is a well known issue in Toronto. The provincial government has repeatedly claimed to go after "gangs", yet no solution has been put forth to end what is one of the biggest gangs in the province and the punishments that are doled out are pathetically light.
[0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/beta.ctvnews.ca/local/toronto/2...
[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5649083
[2] https://correspondence.premier.gov.on.ca/EN/feedback/default...
Edit: After writing this, I realized it would be more productive to write to my premier, so I did. You can too. [2]
[+] [-] Scoundreller|5 years ago|reply
The best was when the clone was put back in police service and the original kept by the cloners.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-police-tow-tr...
[+] [-] dwaltrip|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThePowerOfFuet|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phkahler|5 years ago|reply
But then you mention: >> Then a month later, Toronto suspended 5 more police in the same tow truck scandal.
If you want to go after corruption that's fine. But it's probably not sufficient to just change an industry from private to government run.
[+] [-] happyopossum|5 years ago|reply
It’s like saying my car is too slow, let me add 500lbs of weight.
[+] [-] jariel|5 years ago|reply
???
Conversely, one would ask why on earth the government would ever get into such a thing it has clearly no business doing?
You could make the same arguments about Taxis, Entertainment, Auto Manufacture, R&D, Convenience Stores - hey, let's 'socialize the entire economy' - think of how much more efficient it would be!
The government doesn't really have a good track record in most of those things, so we like to regulate and have interventions where needed i.e. single point of failure.
The government in Quebec and Ontario control Liquor and Beer distribution (beer in the latter) and the result is vastly overpriced goods. The liquor stores admittedly are 'really nice' but there are long line ups, and prices are out of this world. Even as wine sales are allowed in grocery stores in Quebec, the 'Gov. Liquor Monopoly' thuggishly enforced rules such that the quality of the wine out of their stores is so bad it's undrinkable. The only wine that made it out of their mafia control was what you'd get in the US for $4 a bottle, i.e. undrinkable.
So no, some transparency, good laws and regulation would be appropriate, we don't need a cabal forming within the government taking over that system.
[+] [-] cowpig|5 years ago|reply
The construction industry is very clearly siphoning billions of dollars of tax money into organized criminals' hands. Every few years a given street gets torn up with a new excuse. And it seems to be consensus that it's much worse these days than it used to be.. this year in particular I think something like one out of every five blocks downtown is closed off for "construction".
Cops saying "just don't look into it" regarding organized crime sounds about par for the course anywhere I've ever been though.
[+] [-] ABCLAW|5 years ago|reply
My estimation is that if we had a similar level of effort into looking into other regions, we'd see similar or greater issues. The refusal to look into real-estate or casino based money laundering as well as substantially counterproductive financial secrecy laws make for lots of issues in Canada.
Is there grift in Montreal? You betcha. Is there grift in Toronto? You betcha, but it doesn't make the news.
[+] [-] interestica|5 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Metro
[+] [-] joering2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragosmocrii|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TomSwirly|5 years ago|reply
I went back to visit right before leaving North America forever. I was shocked at how depressed the city was still. I assume it's these parasites stealing from the people.
[+] [-] ycombonator|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elevenoh|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexose|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnopgnip|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] specialist|5 years ago|reply
I tried to read some books on auditing and financial accounting. Way over my head. I need the ELI5 layperson versions.
Am a recovering activist. So much (wasted) effort. I did learn two heuristics.
#1
Talk About Quality
"Fraud" is a convo full stop. Don't talk about fraud, theft, grift.
Mistakes are indistinguishable from fraud. And combatting both has the same remedies.
So only talk about quality, confidence, reducing errors, etc. Nice safe blame-free neutral 90/10 language that gets everyone on board and is less likely to trigger overt opposition. (Covert sabotage will continue, because the grifters won't be fooled by your Aw Schucks demeanor.)
#2
Follow The Money
Per quote from The Wire upthread. I learned from Bev Harris (Black Box Voting) that (mis)appropriations is a huge threat to election integrity. And in many places, that's the sheriff's office. They don't care about machines, voting, elections. For them it's just about the grift.
Twenty years later, I still don't have a clue how to mitigate this. One half-baked notion was to advocate for solutions that both more in line with the public interest and had more potential for grift. Another is, since scandal is evergreen topic, is feed info to opposition. That didn't work at all against Bob Moses (The Power Broker), so probably not a great plan.
[+] [-] ehnto|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrischen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onetimemanytime|5 years ago|reply
Broken legs are still part of the warning phase.
They see this as "theirs" and who they hell are you to cause them to lose $x Million a year? Any business or person would sue the hell out of you and try to ruin your life if you caused them millions in loses.
The mafiosi are no different, with a slight twist, they skip the courts since they take too long ;).
[+] [-] rl3|5 years ago|reply
Any smart organized crime is going to realize that directly intimidating startup founders with violence on American soil is a great way to a) get an overwhelming amount of federal heat on them and b) turn whatever it is they're doing into a scandal immediately.
[+] [-] crossroadsguy|5 years ago|reply
The topic was - how to deter, scare the criminals? How to make it less viable for them to be corrupt and criminals?
They often commit crimes of various nature including corruption in the hope that if not them their children, family would get to reap the benefits and they make financial arrangements so that even if they are indicted and properties seized, at least a decent part of the proceeds indeed goes to the family.
We reached an impasse with loosely discussing that vigilante justice is the only way. But then the family, wife, kids didn't really directly participate in the crime so how and when to punish them? For not denouncing the proceeds that was earned from the corrupt and criminal means? I mean there's a law against aiding and abetting in crime. So would that not work here?
Besides, even if we proceed with the vigilante justice, where to draw the line? Is everyone supposed to be picking up arms. That would be total revolution, anarchy in other words. Part of the discussion also included how criminals, politicians intimidate and harm weaker adversaries and if society collectively starts hitting back and hard at them where it hurts - their business, family members - it could deter them. How long can they provide security to them? How often? All it needs one successful target among many. Yes, they can keep the family in a steel cage. Good for them!
But we did reach an agreement that they should not be left untouched. How exactly? That remained the question.
[+] [-] neya|5 years ago|reply
Tow truck tricks: Don't get scammed after an accident (CBC Marketplace)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOboCgIhcfk
[+] [-] Reason077|5 years ago|reply
Aren’t there big corporate law firms who would have more resources, and more protection/anonymity for their staff?
[+] [-] donmcronald|5 years ago|reply
The service itself would have some value because knowing you can call your insurance provider after an accident and having them deal with everything would really help to reduce the stress of the incident.
My hunch is the insurance companies are a bunch of babies that would rather whine than solve problems. My sister got in an accident in AB last year and it took her insurance company forever to have her vehicle re-towed from a small garage in a little town to Edmonton. IIRC it took more than 6 weeks for her to deal with insurance.
Contrast that with SK where between the city police and SGI you don't have to do anything. They just deal with it and the rates we pay are probably the best in the country. It's ~1500 CAD per year for insurance and as long as you have a decent driving record you don't get penalized for getting in an accident. You can even cause an accident and pay $0 if you don't make a claim on your own vehicle. Plus they typically get everything dealt with very quickly.
If the police are calling corrupt tow truck companies that's it's own problem. That kind of corruption shouldn't be tolerated and if the police are calling a tow truck for you after an accident it should be a regulated process.
[+] [-] achow|5 years ago|reply
Maybe this one was visible and behind the scene the big firms are still at it? This lawyer was probably was working on some specific local cases but was also 'more accessible' by the criminals for intimidation?
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] refurb|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] renewiltord|5 years ago|reply
I think if I were in organized crime, a good one would be privatizing parking enforcement of city spaces and then being in charge of meter maids. But it can't be a single organization in charge of meter maids because then it's too obvious. You need it to look diffuse, through a network of companies.
Oh, I think body shops are a good one, but auto glass companies too. You could just stage some break-ins that just vandalize car glass. People will blame the guy whose glass was broken (why did you park there, was your car empty, blah blah). You're just a glass repair shop so everyone sees you as the good guy. And no one will see that your network of auto glass companies is actually controlled by you.
Yeah, auto glass companies in cities are a tremendous opportunity for mafiafication. If they aren't already.
[+] [-] drchiu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jessaustin|5 years ago|reply
https://www.salon.com/2020/08/27/the-case-of-steven-donziger...
[+] [-] bdauvergne|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcguire|5 years ago|reply
That's where the corruption is.
[+] [-] namdnay|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RocketOne|5 years ago|reply
I do autobody and have painted my own cars in the past. Total cost for basic materials for an entire car is less than $600, depending on type of paint, color and finish.
But earlier this year my truck tapped, quite literally TAPPED the back of an SUV when it rolled three feet forward from its parked position. The SUV owner and I had to look several times, and wipe off dirt and dust to see a 2 inch crack in the paint in the hatch.
Total repair bill? $1800 for that damn 2" crack! It's robbery and there's no way it should cost that, but that was a 'discount' rate. I could've painted his entire SUV three times for that price!
The autobody industry is out of control and insurance claims are often ridiculously inflated.
[+] [-] throwaway0a5e|5 years ago|reply
This dynamic is the fault of the government for creating a captive market and secondarily the fault of insurance for divorcing many consumers from the costs of that captive market.
In rural areas where there's not much money to be made towing the tow operators don't do bad business to make a buck. They use their capital investment to haul things other than cars to make their gravy money.
[+] [-] refurb|5 years ago|reply
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/snow-removal-montrea...
[+] [-] intrasight|5 years ago|reply
I had a sick feeling in my stomach because of those unpaid tickets. Certainly a much larger dollar amount than the value of my 15 year old Honda. Told my wife and friends that the best case was that they'd keep the car but that they may still come after us for the balance. But information flowed more slowly in 1991, and the tow lot had no knowledge yet of those unpaid tickets when I arrived to get my car, and I only had to pay $75 to get it back. If I'd waited, they perhaps would have accessed the ticket database.
Some time months later, we finally got our parking permit sticker. And somewhere in a file in the Toronto traffic department there's probably a couple hundred tickets with my license plate.
As for the Accord. I had purchased used in Pittsburgh for $5000. Got married. Drove to Toronto where I lived for 2 years during graduate school. Drove it to MA where I worked for 5 years. Had a baby. Bought a 2nd car (also an Accord). Drove it to CT where I did consulting for a year. Then drove it back to Pittsburgh where I sold it for $500. Haven't thought of that story for many years.
[+] [-] jariel|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-tow-truck-i...
[+] [-] denni9th|5 years ago|reply
Given this situation though, it seems like the tow trucks might just violently threaten someone until they agree to let them tow their car while they wait for an authorized company to arrive. But perhaps that is easier for the police to deal with than organised crime.
[+] [-] _trampeltier|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MattGaiser|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tpkahlon|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nimbius|5 years ago|reply
Ive seen and dealt with a lot of tow companies, and a plurality are pretty shady but the worst are the police-centric ones. Lock-in deals with police departments for example are astroturfed as "the official tow company of $city police" without so much as an audit. Bidding almost never takes place for this service model, its just a cop whos wifes brother owns a tow company. These are generally the worst, as they rarely respond to anything but a parking enforcement dispatcher. The tow lot is derelect dirt property, and the only thing in the office is a credit card machine and a television. They exist to collect a fee and send a cut to the city, and rarely employ anyone who understands how to hook up a car safely, just quickly.
If you hire a tow driver: look for the words "recovery" or an endorsement from your insurance company. Avoid AAA towing as shady companies habitually stencil that logo on everything. If there is a heavy recovery truck with a crane in their lot, you're in professional hands.
If you're being towed: do not argue shout at or threaten the driver/operator, they're just paying their bills and if its an "official city" tow company it can get you a quick night in jail. instead document everything you can, take pictures and tak your time if you think you're being wrongly towed (it happens.) keep track of your vehicle after this. call and check up on it, as some of the shadiesst tow companies will actually send you a letter warning you of an intent to auction your property after a set date if you dont pay. Somethines this is just a scare tactic, other times its real (im told in Los Angeles they can do this.) Fighting a parking violation tow should be straight forward at your local courthouse unless the citys come to depend on tow revenue.
If you're booted: call the city and confirm it! ask them to confirm the device by its serial number or markings and that information about your vehicles violation EXISTS With them. If you call the number on the boot to pay your fine, ask the person on the other end when the car was booted, who booted it, and at what time (all of which should be documented by the tow company.)