Connecticut Towing Companies Frequently Value Cars Low, Allowing Them to Sell Vehicles Quickly

The first time Ruedean Harvey saw the white Range Rover Autobiography at a New York City dealership, she fell in love.

“They took me up on this escalator, and the car was enclosed in a glass room, and I was like, ‘Yep, that’s the car for me,’” she said. The dealership arranged to have a limousine take her from their offices to get the bank check, she said, and when she got back, the salespeople had Champagne ready to pop.

Harvey, a construction contractor who now lives in New Britain, Connecticut, paid almost $135,000 in 2012 to buy her dream car. It had a handcrafted leather interior, walnut wood paneling and massaging seats with televisions built into the headrests.

But after the vehicle was towed from a public street in 2023, a tow truck company tried to sell it without her knowledge, writing on a form to the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles that it was worth only $1,475.

The value happened to be just under a $1,500 DMV threshold that allows towing companies to seek the agency’s permission to sell cars they tow after 15 days if the owner doesn’t claim it or says they can’t afford the fees.

Over the past year, The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica have reported on how Connecticut’s laws have come to favor towing companies over drivers, including the 15-day provision, which was one of the shortest windows in the country. A law that took effect in October says towers must wait at least 30 days to sell cars.

Connecticut towers have publicly insisted that most of the cars they sell are junk. To sell a car, towing companies need to get DMV approval by filling out a form estimating the value, which the agency is supposed to check against the book value.

But a new CT Mirror and ProPublica analysis of more than 6,000 forms processed by the DMV in 2022-23 and obtained in a public records request found patterns of low values listed by tow companies. And it highlights the DMV’s lack of oversight of the process.

To analyze the towers’ and DMV’s handling of the sales process, the news organizations spent more than a year building a database from the forms, some of which are handwritten. That involved sorting through thousands of scanned documents and manually entering DMV employees’ handwritten vehicle values. Together, the records allow the public to know for the first time what kinds of cars are being sold after tows, who’s towing them and what happens to the vehicles.

The data shows towing companies frequently take advantage of the provision to start the sales process for lower-value cars after just 15 days. About 60% of the forms requested these fast-track sales. By valuing cars under $1,500, towers can sell cars privately and avoid a more cumbersome process that requires them to wait 45 days and sell vehicles at a public auction.

One West Hartford towing company, Elmwood Automotive, valued about 90% of the 33 cars it tried to sell in the past few years at exactly $1,500, our analysis found. The next highest, Lone Star Repair Service and East Coast Towing, both of Stamford, listed around half their cars at exactly that amount. None of those companies responded to requests for comment.

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Attorney Eric L. Foster, who specializes in repossession cases and sits on a DMV task force studying towing regulations, said the odds of 9 out of 10 cars being worth exactly $1,500 is “zero.” Foster said it’s on the DMV to call out such data discrepancies and reject the tow companies’ forms because “until you get slapped on the wrist, you just keep doing the behavior.”

Many large companies value their cars below $1,500 and move the vehicles fast, the data showed. Nine companies that submitted more than 50 forms sought permission to sell over 90% of those towed cars after 15 days, as opposed to the longer 45-day process.

Even when towing companies do value vehicles over $1,500 and wait the 45 days, undervaluing cars helps. Under the law, towers are supposed to hold onto proceeds for a year, then hand the money over to the state for owners or lenders to claim later. Using a lower value allows towers to claim they had no profits after subtracting their storage fees.

It’s impossible to know the conditions of all the cars. But CT Mirror and ProPublica found that in nearly half the cases, the tower’s value was less than or equal to 50% of the book value.

In one of the starkest examples, towers sought permission to sell about 150 luxury cars, including nearly 40 BMWs and 20 Mercedes, for less than a third of their book value despite the vehicles having no accident record in the state’s crash database.

DMV spokesperson Shaun Formica said that the agency has reviewed its process for tows. She added that “recent discussions along with legislative changes have reshaped our process” for evaluating the values of vehicles.

At a meeting late last month, DMV program director Johnnine Dominique said employees review forms and make a call about whether differences between the towers’ estimates and the book values are large enough to cause alarm. Sometimes, they ask towing companies to submit evidence supporting the lower value.

“It’s not a good system regardless,” Dominique said, noting that it relies on judgment calls.

In Harvey’s case, the tow company filed the form exactly 15 days after it was towed. The car was having engine trouble, and the DMV approved the tower’s value even though an agency document examiner listed the book value at $17,250. Used car listings show several Range Rover Autobiographies, with more mileage and fewer features than Harvey’s, for sale at higher prices.

Lack of Data

CT Mirror and ProPublica’s initial investigation of towing company practices prompted a legislative overhaul of the state’s law that makes it harder to tow vehicles from private property and easier for drivers to retrieve their vehicles after a tow. As part of the new law, the DMV also had to create a task force to discuss more measures to address how sales occur and what happens to the proceeds.

At the task force’s first meeting in September, Sal Sena, whose company was authorized to sell more towed cars than any other in Connecticut in 2022-23, said nearly half the vehicles he tows aren’t registered, and many of them never get picked up.

But when Raphael Podolsky, a consumer advocate and attorney, pressed for data, neither the DMV nor towers on the task force could provide any.

“The implication was there was no way we could find these things out,” he said.

In fact, Sena’s company, Sena Brothers, which operates as Cross Country Automotive, used the 15-day process for 98% of the towed cars it wanted to sell in 2022-23. Two other companies — Corona’s Auto Parts and Friendly Auto Body & Towing, both of Hartford — used the fast-track sales process 99% of the time.

Sena said he isn’t surprised that he’s the highest-volume company or that most of his forms are filed after 15 days because of the condition of the vehicles he tows. “The majority of the cars that we tow are unregistered and inoperable,” he said. “We do everything from city of Hartford towing to the housing authority towing in multiple towns, and we’re cleaning the parking lots all day long.”

Tom Amenta, owner of Friendly Auto Body, said that his company follows “the letter of the law,” and that low values are a result of towing cars in poor condition. “We can only apply” for the sale, Amenta added. “DMV is the ultimate judge.”

Corona’s did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.

Of the 6,000 forms processed in 2022-23 that the newsrooms reviewed, more than 2,000 listed values between $500 and $600. In addition, there were 362 where towing companies estimated the car’s value to be exactly $1,500. Metro Auto Body & Towing of Hartford submitted the most forms at exactly $1,500, with 60. Many of those were cars they towed for parking meter violations for the Hartford Parking Authority and not for crashes, which could significantly reduce the value.

Metro also did not return calls or emails.

Bristol resident Jason Trelli wondered how his 2011 Jaguar got such a low value after it was towed in May 2023. He was moving out of his rental home and loaded his possessions into a U-Haul, planning to return to get his car in a few hours.

“So I go to get the Jaguar back, and it’s not there,” Trelli said.

Trelli called the police, who told him the car was towed by Nelcon, which is also registered with the DMV as Maple Avenue Repair Service. But he said the company’s Plainville office repeatedly told him it didn’t have his car.

After several weeks, Nelcon acknowledged it had the car, Trelli said. He spent several more weeks calling the company. But he said Nelcon refused to waive the storage fees, which eventually mounted to $1,900, according to a text message his sister sent him right after speaking to the company herself in August 2023.

In a written statement, Nelcon’s owner, Saleem Khan, disputed portions of Trelli’s account and said, “No employee told Mr. Trelli we did not tow his vehicle.” He said, “Our records show Mr. Trelli was quoted a total price of $665,” when he initially called about his car.

Nelcon submitted a form to the DMV in August 2023 to sell the Jaguar at a public auction. Khan wrote the car was worth $3,500 — about $3,000 less than the book value a DMV employee wrote on the form.

Khan said he used the National Automobile Dealers Association value for the car, adding that the company sold the car to a salvage yard last month.

If Nelcon had written the DMV’s book value and sold it for that, the company would have owed Trelli the profits.

“I never felt so helpless and angry,” Trelli said.

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Over the Limit

In addition to some companies valuing high numbers of vehicles at $1,500, some towers submitted forms for 15-day sales even though they listed a value above the $1,500 limit for shorter sales. The CT Mirror and ProPublica found more than 200 forms that listed higher values than allowed.

Rather than rejecting those forms, Formica, the DMV spokesperson, said the agency typically just holds onto the forms until the 45-day mark has passed.

“We generally put them aside, and then once it’s time, we’ll process them,” Formica said, adding that “nothing is getting through.”

That’s what occurred in the cases of Saundra Magana and her niece Eloise Bennett this summer. They had been fighting with the New Britain Parking Ticket Department about payment for their spaces in a city garage for months when Magana went to get something out of her red 2008 Hummer H3 in early July and discovered her car was gone. Gone too were Bennett’s Chrysler PT Cruiser and Jeep Cherokee with a Dallas Cowboys star custom-painted on the hood.

New Britain police told Magana that the city had hired Skytop Motors to tow the vehicles because she and her niece owed thousands of dollars in parking tickets.

Skytop requested the DMV’s permission to sell Magana’s Hummer on July 22. On the form they wrote the car was worth $5,900, well over the $1,500 limit to sell a car after 15 days. But Skytop still checked the 15-day box.

Records show the DMV gave Skytop permission to sell the three cars in August — 47 days after the tows.

Magana said Skytop never notified her that her car would be sold. Both women said they never got an itemized towing bill, and Bennett said she never got any notice from Skytop that it had towed her vehicles. The form Skytop submitted to the DMV listed Bennett at an address that was on her registration but that she hadn’t lived at for several years.

Magana and Bennett filed complaints with the DMV, which closed their cases because it was a civil matter that needed to be handled in the courts, according to letters they received.

A Skytop official said in a statement that the company had been “cleared” by the DMV and the state Department of Consumer Protection. “All cases have been dropped and found out we did no wrong doing,” the company said, without addressing specific questions.

Under the law, towing companies are required to provide evidence that they notified the registered owner and any lienholders, but relying on registration isn’t foolproof.

Foster, the attorney, said the biggest problem with the system is that owners aren’t notified about tows and pending sales because towing companies rely on the address used for registration, which is sometimes out of date.

The result is drivers lose their cars, and “the penalty should not be punitive,” Foster said.

Properly notifying people their cars have been towed is also one of the biggest issues towers face, Sena told consumer advocates at the task force meeting in September.

“If we could create a system where they’re being notified and everybody is aware of the situation, then half the problems you guys are dealing with — and half the problems we are — are going to go away,” Sena said.

As of the last week of October, at least two of Magana’s and Bennett’s vehicles, the Hummer and the PT Cruiser, could be seen sitting in Skytop’s tow lot. It’s unclear what happened to the Jeep.

“This Freaking Car”

For Podolsky, the problem that remains, even after the revised law went into effect last month, is making sure that people who want to get their car back can do so.

Consumer advocates and towing companies remain far apart as they try to agree on solutions to recommend to the legislature by a February deadline.

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At the October task force meeting, Podolsky recommended stopping the fees from accumulating once a person notifies the tower they want the car back. Minnesota, for example, allows extra time for vehicle owners who notify the tower to pay. Towers proposed getting rid of valuing cars altogether and holding all vehicles for 30 days, regardless of the value.

Other states don’t rely on towing companies to value vehicles, according to a survey the Connecticut DMV conducted this year. Florida considers the age of the vehicle, for example, while Oregon requires certified appraisers to value vehicles.

“The end result should be they get the car back because they need the car and they don’t abandon the car because they don’t have the money,” Podolsky said.

Harvey was lucky enough to get her luxury Range Rover back.

Her ordeal started in 2023 when the SUV had an engine problem. She took it to a mechanic an acquaintance recommended in Bloomfield. But town officials closed the repair shop because of building code violations.

Somehow, the car was moved to a street in Hartford, where police noticed it sitting for weeks and, assuming it was abandoned, had it towed by Modern Garage.

Exactly 15 days after towing it, Modern Garage submitted a form seeking to sell it. Modern Garage used the 15-day process in 85% of its sales requests in 2022-23. Harvey said she was never notified her car had been towed, but after finding out the repair shop had closed, she called the Hartford Police, who told her that her car was at Modern Garage.

Harvey said when she got there, a man who identified himself as co-owner acknowledged her Range Rover was still there but that it was “leaving today.”

“My partner’s gonna be very upset; he was keeping the car for himself,” Harvey said the man told her.

Modern Garage owner Michael Sardelli denied anyone was planning to keep the car. “Nobody would have told her that,” he said.

Sardelli said the $1,475 value on the form was accurate because “there was a massive puddle of oil under it. It was clearly disabled.”

“They’re a dime a dozen,” Sardelli said of Range Rovers on the marketplace. “They are just so expensive to maintain and once they get mileage on them, the repairs of the car supersede its value tenfold.”

Harvey ended up paying nearly $2,600 that same day to get her car back. Still inoperable, it sits in her garage needing expensive engine repairs.

“I worked my whole life for this freaking car,” Harvey said.

This story was originally published by ProPublica. Read the story here.

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