CM Wong on unlicensed tow truck enforcement

Thank you, Chair.

In my district, there's a big problem of unlicensed tow trucks.

And the problem is this.

Whenever there's an accident, the police is no longer required to show up at the scene.

So we have these tow trucks that pop out of nowhere quite often with fake plates.

And with a combination of coercion and threats, they were able to convince many of these drivers to let their cars be towed away with that.

And they don't know, the drivers don't know that they were fake, unlicensed, or with fake licenses.

This is only my fifth month at the job, and I'm hearing like over a dozen of these complaints

that their cars got towed away to some backyard shop, and they're being extorted on hundreds of thousands of dollars in storage fees and in repairs that they...

They did not expect.

So can you talk about what is being done and how could your increase in headcount be able to step up the enforcement of checking their licenses?

Thank you.

I'm very happy to do that, Council Member.

I'm going to frame it up and then turn these over to our General Counsel to talk about our, including our recent enforcement action against one of these unlicensed companies.

Let me just start by saying this is a huge problem across the city, a big problem in Queens.

And one thing I really want to stress is we always want to educate consumers about this.

We want to educate New Yorkers to use.

There's licensed tow providers.

But one thing I always say to people is it is not on consumers to get this right.

You've just been in a car accident.

Your car just broke down.

You can't realistically expect people to go to DCWP.gov and see if, .nyc.gov, and see if they're licensed.

So my big focus is on making sure these unlicensed tow companies are held accountable.

The onus has to be on the tow companies to stop operating illegally on our streets, not on consumers to do their own due diligence when they're in some of the hardest moments of their lives.

Yeah, we take this very seriously.

I mean, this is one of our core license categories that we get the most complaints about, not just about unlicensed activity.

In fact, often it's from licensed actors who are overcharging.

The council has very wisely set very strict limits on how much tow companies can charge consumers because it is such a precarious time for consumers, as the commissioner was alluding to and

as you were referencing.

So we look through those complaints.

We choose which ones are getting the most complaints, and we focus our enforcement in that direction.

We filed a case against instant recovery, as the commissioner alluded to in his opening testimony.

We always have several major open-toe investigations ongoing.

As far as unlicensed activity, that is a little trickier because it's out on the street in real time.

That's something that we're partnering with the New York Police Department to figure out what the best next steps are.

And I will say it's...

very important

If you are getting complaints from constituents, we're all ears.

And there's a lot of different avenues that you can approach.

Individuals, you know, despite what the commissioner said, can always go to DCWP.

But you and your staff, we're always, Carlos, my team, we always want to hear what are the companies.

Because actual individual names with individual facts on the ground will always help sharpen our investigations.

Yeah, I'll share the list with you based on the info I collected from my constituent complaints.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Coban, followed by Councilmember Aldebal.