Joined Jul 2005
Scarydevil Monastery
Forum Thread
My friend lives in NJ. His car was stolen, stripped, and abandoned. The city is making him pay for the towing and impound fees.
September 3, 2010 at
06:15 AM
in
Rant
Does that seem right to anyone else? It's basically costing him over $350 to have his car stolen and, since he didn't have theft insurance, it's a total loss. The only possible redemption is going to be today if a mechanic offers him any money for the scrap.
WTF?
I'm not even going into how rude the city employees were to him or how they turned him away yesterday afternoon because they didn't think he could get a tow truck (at his own expense) to the impound lot before they closed at 4:45. OR how they wouldn't help his wife when she was there at noon, because they were all at lunch.
Please reserve any comments about him being dumb for not carrying a theft clause or whatever you call it on his insurance policy. It was an older Honda Civic and he didn't think it was worth insuring for very much. I'm not sure how all of that works but his deductible might even have been more than what he would've gotten for the car, if that applies.
I think it's infuriating that the city is forcing him to pay towing and impound fees when his car was stolen! Does he have any recourse here? Maybe he can deduct the cost of the fees from his taxes or something? Who should he contact?
My friend is a really nice guy--I would've raged out on those impound lot employees for sure. My buddy said he knows when he's defeated and he's licking his wounds and counting his losses, and that his anger is reserved for the car thieves. I understand that, but really, it looks to me like the city's just adding insult to injury here.
Anyone have any experience with this?
WTF?
I'm not even going into how rude the city employees were to him or how they turned him away yesterday afternoon because they didn't think he could get a tow truck (at his own expense) to the impound lot before they closed at 4:45. OR how they wouldn't help his wife when she was there at noon, because they were all at lunch.
Please reserve any comments about him being dumb for not carrying a theft clause or whatever you call it on his insurance policy. It was an older Honda Civic and he didn't think it was worth insuring for very much. I'm not sure how all of that works but his deductible might even have been more than what he would've gotten for the car, if that applies.
I think it's infuriating that the city is forcing him to pay towing and impound fees when his car was stolen! Does he have any recourse here? Maybe he can deduct the cost of the fees from his taxes or something? Who should he contact?
My friend is a really nice guy--I would've raged out on those impound lot employees for sure. My buddy said he knows when he's defeated and he's licking his wounds and counting his losses, and that his anger is reserved for the car thieves. I understand that, but really, it looks to me like the city's just adding insult to injury here.
Anyone have any experience with this?
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Sorry...just trying to lighten the mood here...
There's gotta be a moviemogul joke in here somewhere
I don't think it's a pipe dream to expect to live in a crime-free society. And I certainly won't accept that as an answer when I ask why something happened. Would you? Can you honestly tell me you could get mugged and then shrug and say, "well, that's the price we pay for living in society! Time to go make more money!" I'm pretty sure I remember reading that you foiled a home invasion or two--par for the course? Just how things are? Price of doing business? Honestly?
You do that with insurance, with self defense training, etc.
Since when did we absolve ourselves from our own personal responsibility? You would be foolish to think the police can save you and respond fast enough when it really matters. If i waited for the police to come to my rescue during my home invasion, I would be dead. Its through no fault of the police either.
You may not like it, but that is the harsh reality of life.
There's gotta be a moviemogul joke in here somewhere
Or did you mean how long was it unattended outside his house? Is he supposed to check his car every couple of hours to make sure it wasn't stolen?
I do have a lot of emotion invested in this. The guy is a good friend and I hate that shitty things are happening to him. This is the 3rd or 4th crappy thing in the past couple of months. So yeah, I get hot when people seem to be telling me it's his fault and he should pay the impound fees since "crime is a fact of life." Everything about that argument offends me. We shouldn't accept it and it's not good enough.
You do that with insurance, with self defense training, etc.
Since when did we absolve ourselves from our own personal responsibility?
But aside from right to carry, you always have a right to defend yourself in your own home.
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Would a prudent person learn self-defense against the day when a lawbreaker shows up and there aren't any police around to help? Yes. Should a person be required to do so, because the society and the government that has pledged to uphold the laws it wrote for itself isn't doing the job it promised to do? Absolutely not. At the end of the day that's what theft insurance really is, isn't it? Paying an extra tax because society's promise to an individual isn't being kept.
Huh. Maybe I'm a bit more liberal than I'd thought.
Or did you mean how long was it unattended outside his house? Is he supposed to check his car every couple of hours to make sure it wasn't stolen?
I do have a lot of emotion invested in this. The guy is a good friend and I hate that shitty things are happening to him. This is the 3rd or 4th crappy thing in the past couple of months. So yeah, I get hot when people seem to be telling me it's his fault and he should pay the impound fees since "crime is a fact of life." Everything about that argument offends me. We shouldn't accept it and it's not good enough.
Crime is a fact of life as much as people are sinners and liars. When you can find a way to change people, you let me know.
As far as the impound fees and such--that sucks. But you also have to think about who he was dealing with. I'll try not to make it political, but at that level of government service the employees are nothing more than mindless drones doing their job with little or no power to change standard procedure. In fact, if they offered to drop any of the fees they could probably be fired.
Crime is a fact of life as much as people are sinners and liars. When you can find a way to change people, you let me know.
As far as the impound fees and such--that sucks. But you also have to think about who he was dealing with. I'll try not to make it political, but at that level of government service the employees are nothing more than mindless drones doing their job with little or no power to change standard procedure. In fact, if the offered to drop any of the fees they could probably be fired.
Would a prudent person learn self-defense against the day when a lawbreaker shows up and there aren't any police around to help? Yes. Should a person be required to do so, because the society and the government that has pledged to uphold the laws it wrote for itself isn't doing the job it promised to do? Absolutely not. At the end of the day that's what theft insurance really is, isn't it? Paying an extra tax because society's promise to an individual isn't being kept.
Huh. Maybe I'm a bit more liberal than I'd thought.
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