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 considered filing a complaint with the police department, but I'm skeptical anything would have come of it. Ideally, I would have done it regardless. It's true that the root problem will not be addressed if people don't pursue things.
I think on net I do more than my fair share of tilting at windmills though. Ask me about self-storage companies sometime.
> I considered filing a complaint with the police department, but I'm skeptical anything would have come of it.
Your instincts are correct, it is a waste of time. If the matter is serious enough, hire a lawyer and get a judgement against the officer or department. For everything else, let it go.
I had my car stolen a while ago. The police found it abandoned midweek, and had it towed to an impound lot. Then they waited until 4:45pm on Friday to tell me. The impound lot was an hour away, so I had to wait until Monday to get my car back. I also had to pay the tow lot for towing and storage of my stolen car for all the extra days.
It seems that the US self-storage market can be roughly segmented into two groups: UHaul Self-Storage and everyone else. UHaul is up to double the cost of their budget competitors like Public Storage. I'm budget conscious, so I quickly ruled out UHaul.
The other companies all follow the same template. I didn't find any locally-owned self-storage companies, only franchises. It's impossible to call the local franchise office directly, even after you've rented a unit. The phone numbers listed in ads and on websites have local area codes but they are forwarded to national call centers.
My first attempt to rent a unit, I find the best rate online, drive to the facility, and ask to rent a unit at the advertised rate. The manager has me fill out the application. The lock I'll need is $10. Sure, that's reasonable, I guess. Then she explains that there is a $20 move-in fee. No problem! This fee was hidden in a footnote on the comparison shopping site, but I spotted it and was willing to pay the 50% markup on the first month's rent. It's still a third of the cost of UHaul. But the amount she wanted to charge my card still seemed high.
"Well," she explained, "it includes a $15 monthly insurance premium."
"I don't need insurance."
"Everyone's required to have insurance."
I was indignant and walked out on principle. It was false advertising, plain and simple, and I refuse to reward that behavior with my business.
I now resolved to get an actual-for-real-no-takebacks final price over the phone before driving anywhere else. So I sat in my car and called a local Public Storage franchise. Or tried to. This is when I learned about the call centers. I was frustrated at having just driven 20 minutes for nothing, and getting a call center agent after dialing a local area code phone number did nothing to improve my mood. The agent asked for my first name. Then she asked for my email address. I balked. I explained to the agent that I just wanted to get an actual-for-real-no-takebacks quote to rent a storage unit at my local Public Storage franchise. She couldn't tell me. I'd have to ask the local manager, she explained.
"OK, can you just give me the phone number?" I asked, exasperated.
"Once I get done with you" she responded impatiently.
I was incredulous. Some of the quotes in this story may not be word-for-word accurate. But that is a word-for-word quote: "Once I get done with you."
In what is not my proudest moment, I informed her that I was quite certain we would be altogether done very soon, but first I would like to express what a dumpster fire I have found the self-storage industry to be. My prophecy came to pass as she soon hung up on me.
At this point, I was becoming less price-sensitive. I didn't embark on this venture thinking quality customer service would be a high priority for me, but I didn't realize how low the baseline was in this industry.
There was a reasonably priced place near my home, so I decided to drive there. I figured there couldn't be much more that could be unexpected at this point. I filled out the application and listened patiently as she explained the move-in fee and required insurance. I wasn't completely resigned, however, and I asked if I could forego the insurance, perhaps by signing a waiver. She told me the insurance was required by state law. I wasn't going to argue with her--I really just needed to rent a unit already--but that seemed highly unlikely. I rented the unit.
But when I got home, I did some research, and it turns out, she wasn't as far off as you might think. Ohio does have a state law devoted to self-storage unit insurance[1], believe it or not. But rather than mandating insurance, the law sets out a number of regulations that self-storage providers must follow in order to sell insurance to their customers. Normally, an agent must pass a test to be certified to sell insurance, but this law, which was passed at the behest of the self-storage lobby, makes a special cut-out so that minimally trained self-storage company staff can sell company-mandated insurance to their customers as a hidden monthly fee they can tack on to advertised prices without getting in trouble for false advertising.
And hey, what do you know? The business did not comply with several points in the regulations. For example, the literature describing the insurance did not include various mandated disclosures. So I went ahead and wrote a complaint to the Ohio Department of Insurance outlining the violations.
I felt my blood pressure rising just reading that. But I do have to applaud your complaint to the Ohio Department of Insurance. What I've noticed is that companies like these tend not to be up on 100% of regulations. If you're willing to spend an hour or two doing some research, you're likely to find some obscure violation that your local gov't is more than happy to use to make an example out of them.
The first time I bumped into Public Storage and their insurance I got out of it by asking for a waiver. Since then I've had success telling them that I have home owners or renters insurance, both of which normally cover household items in storage.
Your explanation of the state law they referenced was interesting, they way it was brought up to imply that you were mandated to pay this fee, and that the law did not say anything of the sort, and they were not following what was in the law!
I'd be happy never having to deal with Public Storage again.
While they do earn revenue for selling insurance, they need you to have it to protect themselves. Arson, theft, and storm damage is very common and the last thing they want is to get hit with a bunch of costly
lawsuits from people who refused to insure themselves. Basically the same concept as renters insurance.
You usually don't have to buy theirs though, you can buy more comprehensive policies online for less and just provide proof of insurance.
> they need you to have it to protect themselves. Arson, theft, and storm damage is very common and the last thing they want is to get hit with a bunch of costly lawsuits from people who refused to insure themselves.
Then they should be the ones paying for the insurance, because they're the ones who need it. And given the small number of people who will file a lawsuit, versus the number who will make an insurance claim, that seems likely to be cheaper.
Some people may store items worth $500 while another stores items worth $25k in the same size unit. A one sized fits all policy isn't competitive on the low end, and many people already have coverage through homeowners/rental insurance they can use instead.
Exactly. If people want insurance they can get insurance. If the storage space wants to get liability insurance, they can get that insurance themselves (and if they choose to pass through the fee, they can bundle it into the advertised price and not try to pretend like it's for the benefit of the customer).
I'm sure that's what the industry would argue. However, the insurance offered does not cover theft, damage due to rodents, mold, or water damage. I imagine these are the cause of the vast majority of losses to self-storage tenants, so I'm skeptical.
I'm fairly sure the one I had covered many of those as well... for the building, not just my stuff. IMO, the issue isn't that insurance is required or not but that they are using it to outright lie about prices in published advertisments. If a minimum level of insurance is required, that needs to be included in advertised price (and not just small print).
For the one I used they let you check a box that said you have external insurance that provides sufficient coverage, at least for a while until maybe 6 or 7 years ago when they stopped allowing that. It is possible that others are making that kind of transition and are violating existing laws or possibly existing laws aren't covering this type of case sufficiently. Centurylink lost a lawsuit a few years ago for similarly outright lying about prices (to the point of saying "this is your final cost" with a tiny asterisk leading to a long page that described additional fees).
It seems like it can be hard to tell when this type of common unethical buisness practices crosses the line into the deadly form described in the posted article. It also depends on where you are and in some places it is not that unusual for large international corporations to kill union organizers, for example.
Wow. I feel like I dodged a bullet. I found a storage unit company 5 blocks from my place. It's the cheapest in the bay area. Run by some very nice folks. No shady anything, so far as I can tell.
Public Storage will also silently nearly double prices on you, and force you to physically move stuff out and back in to the unit to get the current list price back.
I always file complaints against police officers; they hinder their promotion options and in aggregate may help other citizens dispute their reports and accusations.
> 1) Hopefully whoever "played" will learn a lesson not to again.
In the case of police misconduct, the only person learning a lesson is typically the person filing the complaint.
People only tend to act so brazenly when they know that there will be no consequences, and their department will have their back. At best, your complaints will be ignored, at worst, you may face further retaliation.
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.
I’d argue there’s a difference between “predatory” and “corrupt”. These sound like the types of actions predatory tow truck companies take around lots of universities. I saw stuff like this at UMass Amherst and that’s in the middle of nowhere. My guess is they know kids make dumb decisions so there’s lots opportunity. Plus they won’t have the will/meansand to fight back when they tow them after 10 mns or whatever.
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.
I'm curious how this works. As far as I know in the UK if you damage street furniture (signs, street-lights etc) with your vehicle then you're responsible (or your insurance is) for paying for it. Surely it shouldn't matter what state your vehicle was in at the end of it, just the damage that you've caused?
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.
"What this illustrates is that the tow operator had a genuine TPS radio in his possession, while our officers were using a cloned version," Sinipoli said.
How the tow truck industry is now, firefighting used to be before it was turned into a public service. I have a billion orders of magnitude more faith in firefighters than in tow truck companies. Why should we not do the same process to tow trucks?
> Firefighting used to be a private for-profit industry. In the 1800’s, the early days of urbanization, in cities like New York and Baltimore, there were private “clubs” or “gangs” who were in charge of putting out fires. The infamous Boss Tweed started his illustrious political career at a volunteer fire company. The way it functioned was the first club at the scene got money from the insurance company. So, they had an incentive to get there fast. They also had an incentive to sabotage competition. They also often ended up getting in fights over territory and many times buildings would burn down before the issue was resolved. They were glorified looters. It was corrupt, bloated and expensive
One of the richest men in rome built a large part of his fortune through firefighting. He would send a slave brigade to any building on fire and offer to buy the property from the owner, refusing to put the fire out unless they sold it to him for cheap.
If memory serves, firefighting technology at the time often consisted of tearing down the building to prevent the conflagration spreading. Saving the building was generally not considered an option, and the way Roman society accounted for value was that such that the building was valuable but the land wasn't.
I'm not sure if Rome of the time actually had the ability to field what we would think of as useful firefighters.
It removes a large part of the incentive for corruption (since no one directly receives the profits from towing), and allows for better oversight and much tighter rules.
Civil asset forfeiture is another great example (analogous to these towing companies) of how a profit motive should not be associated with critical societal services. When there is a large incentive to steal or defraud (whether police or tow trucks) it's likely to happen.
This comment just further supports that there should not be such a profit motive.
"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.
A single car breaking down on a Bay Area toll bridge can bring the entire region to a stand-still. So the region's transportation authority runs a free tow service to keep bridges clear. It works very well.
I don't think anyone even read what I actually wrote.
As to your example I literally pointed out 'single points of access' (i.e. the GG bridge) as an cute concern wherein regulation, special interventions need to be made.
That there are some places wherein intervention needs to be made, doesn't in any way help the argument that the broader case holds - your example does not help support the notion that 'tow trucks' in general should be socialized.
(And FYI I think the 'market oriented solution' to bridge clearing probably won't work - but there may be other, smarter solutions such as 'more bridges' etc.)
The notion of 'tow truck socialization' - while interesting fodder for reddit-ish discussion (ideas are always good) - is in practice, completely ridiculous. It's probably one a good example of things that should be the furthest from socialization.
The 'pro socialization' knee-jerk responders chose a really ugly argument to die on, notably there's an absence of any reasonable arguments for how that would even make sense, other than in the OP 'if the government did it, it would be better!' - which is not an argument.
As a matter of pragmatism, you say of the GG-clearing 'it works well' - but does it really though?
Imagine the costs of such an operation: special vehicles, drivers, surveillance, alarms, having to 'move on a dime' means probably 95% 'downtime' where that special truck driver sits there idle, in wait, and likely a lot of special labour conditions because 'someone must be on duty' can't have everyone calling in sick.
By 'it works' you mean to say 'the cars get moved quickly' - and yes, having been a daily Golden Gate commuter myself I'm witness to that, but it doesn't mean that it's in any way 'efficient'. It could be dreadfully expensive, to the point that alternatives should be explored (like more bridges). I don't know - but it could be.
Again the example of 'government liquor stores' is a good corollary. 'They work', superficially. The definitely do - you can buy beer and liquor. To an individual buyer without reference it all seems fine.
But absolutely nowhere outside of Ontario/Quebec/Sweden were alcohol distribution is socialized are people pushing for it - and there's considerably more diversity in choice and better price (and frankly this argument over 'corruption' is moot as I don't see a difference between public/private there).
If government controlled liquor distribution were dismantled in On/Qu/Sk within 10 years it would be absolutely impossible to re-enact because there simply are no benefits to it.
The only people who defend are those 'living within the system', like E. Germans believing they have 'great groceries' only to come to tears when the 'Wall Came Down' and they were exposed to the prodigious bounty of regular supermarkets in the West... and those naive, ideological 'chat board' warriors who support socialized systems even when the own experience speaks directly against it.
Nobody on HN who ca buy a decent bottle of wine for $10 is would support their local government 'taking over the system' so that they can literally have 1/4 the selection, and 2x the prices. Nobody. It's a really weird intellectual asymmetry that needs to be studied frankly.
You can buy better wine in a German supermarket, California kiosk than almost anywhere in Ontario. The French 'Walmart' (Carrefour) has literally 10x the selection of anywhere in Ontario, again, for 1/2 the cost.
A colleague of mine grew up in Poland said that before the fall of the regime, they only had '3 kinds of ice cream': Chocolate, Vanilla and 'Pink' because anything else was 'bourgeois'. That we still have people defending this thinking is pretty crazy. These system exist because of incumbency, the power of local guilds and the people most benefiting from scheme (i.e. execs, staff), just like mercantilist royal suitors acquiring market monopolies from a bygone era before Adam Smith.
The "3 kinds of ice cream in Poland" example runs counter to your argument, because it's actually a case where consumers benefit from choice. Consumers do not generally have choice of who tows them, and the OP article hints at the huge inefficiencies that come with private towing, and extent to which consumers aren't benefitting from "free market" competition in this case.
A gang war between two truck companies is obviously very inefficient, but so too is the extreme day-to-day competition for tows. You're right that the government-run scenario would involve idle capacity, but the OP article describes a situation where there is already an especially wasteful and ridiculous form of over-capacity (multiple drivers racing to the scene of a crash, a waste of fuel and labor capacity). The "surveillance system" you mention is already in place in the private towing example, it's just a wildly inefficient version that lacks centralized dispatch.
Government-run liquor stores are also a perfect counter-example to your point--their whole purpose is to not provide the most convenient consumer-friendly option possible, and instead to reduce easy access to liquor and attempt to rein in some of the negative externalities that come with it. For the record, I'm not a fan of that approach, but in many cases it's an example of government succeeding in what it set out to do, not the reverse.
"The "3 kinds of ice cream in Poland" example runs counter to your argument, because it's actually a case where consumers benefit from choice."
Are you seriously saying that '3 kinds of ice cream' represents 'choice' vis-a-vis the the literally hundreds of kinds of ice-cream that people would otherwise be able to choose? Of different flavours, textures, ingredients, sources?
You're taking a very obvious example of 'lack of choice' and trying to spin it as an example of choice?
The government says 'we can only have 1 type of SUV, 1 type of Truck and 1 type of Sedan' - and this would be 'choice'?
No, that's absurd, I can't really think you meant to actually write that.
As for 'towing' - you're mixing my metaphors here.
The 'Golden Gate' towing situation is an example of 'single point of failure' where there probably needs to be intervention, I was merely explaining how that 'special towing service' they have might very well be extremely inefficient. None of that example really folds over into the 'regular market' for towing'.
So yes - you have indicated that 'towing will be competitive' - but that's literally the artifact of the industry that keeps it efficient. When there is 'overcapacity' it adjusts, likewise 'underapacity' - it adjusts.
Those artifacts of the 'invisible hand of the market' are the literal functions that help us do price discovery and understand 'how much people are willing to pay' for stuff.
Any industry can be taken over by the mafia - more likely than not, it depends on the kinds of people involved in the work. You local drug R&D company is probably not going to be related to the Mafia. The 'Auto Shop' is full of the kinds of people who may 'know someone who knows someone' and since it's small business, local, it's more amenable to problems - but so are many industries.
Fighting the Mafia is no excuse to socialize.
At no point has the OP or yourself really given a good reason for why, systematically, towing should be socialized - again - the GG example is a very special case, not a general one.
Finally, yes, 'Government run liquor stores' were enabled in to help control the distribution of alcohol, so there is a historical social externalization there, but that's a very long gone artifact of history. It hasn't been relevant for 50 years.
In reality, there is no difference between distributional impact of social behaviour in Alberta / BC / California (open sales) or Quebec / Ontario / Sweden (Government sales). So it's not an argument, just a historical artefact.
The government is materially 'not succeeding' in 2020 to do anything with respect to social policy whereas the other social cost: expensive alcohol and lack of choice, is a material cost.
There's no reason for them to exist, they exist because of incumbency and the guild of people involve who benefit from it over others.
Alternatively, the bridge operator could offer a refund of the tolls if the transit of the bridge exceeds a contractually-guaranteed time. The profit motive would ensure adequate towing capabilities are allocated for the bridge.
If towing is controlled by the political apparatus, then perhaps they don't send the tow trucks if a vehicle is blocking the bridge to make a political statement.
> The profit motive would ensure adequate towing capabilities are allocated for the bridge.
You need to spell out exactly how you think that would work. Because the only "profit motive" I'm seeing is that the bridge operator would want to avoid losing money on refunding tolls, and would be incentivized to provide towing services. But isn't that bridge operator exactly the same government transportation authority that you are proposing doesn't need to be involved in providing towing services? Or are you proposing that the day to day maintenance and operations of a piece of critical infrastructure should be privatized, and then subject to provisions that ensure it's a risky/bad investment?
(spending more karma bringing libertarian ideas into a HN thread on infrastructure, but here goes)
The point is that the bridge makes sure it has towing capabilities on standby for the fastest turnaround possible, since the operators of the bridge only care about the bridge. If a city government has a standing contract with some towing company, they probably use it for all sorts of things, so you wouldn't have that immediate standby capacity.
I don't like the work "privatized." Instead, this would be a bridge built by entrepreneurs and operated as a business.
It's unrealistic to propose that a new bridge would be built by private money. There's plenty of private investment money floating around in the Bay Area, and it hasn't come close to happening yet. And you have completely failed to respond to the concern that your proposed toll-refunding mandate would make a privately-operated bridge an even less viable investment than the non-starter it evidently already is. You're just dogmatically asserting that the free market will always provide, when it looks pretty clear that the free market would just say "no thanks".
Sure, the bridge operator could do that, but why? Bridges don't operate as efficient markets with heavy competition, instead they tend to act as regional monopolies. If you don't cross this bridge, you usually have to drive an hour or more out of your way. This market position of the bridge operator gives them outsize leverage over their customers, and so there is no incentive for them to compete on things like price or low traffic congestion, because who are they competing with?
So, I'm not sure a "profit motive" is really the solution here. Yes, the bridge operator could make that contractual offer and add towing infrastructure out of the goodness of their heart, but there's no incentive to doing so. A decent local government does have that incentive (as they are responsible to the commuters as voters), so they offer that service. You could have regulation that forces the bridge operator to provide this service instead of the government, but is that really less government intervention?
"Alternatively, the bridge operator could be legally mandated to offer a refund of the tolls if the transit of the bridge exceeds a contractually-guaranteed time."
I know it offends the libertarian sensibilities, but there's no reason for the operator to voluntarily do that.
Things we wouldn't have without government intervention in the free market:
NHS, public libraries, Downton Abbey, the internet, neighborhood fire departments, public roads, national parks, trust busting, regulated utilities, Channel 4's Ali G, Social Security.
Government services are often excellent.
Edit: My Sound of Music parody wasn't appreciated, so I converted my post to prose.
This is a very reasonable position and it adds a lot to the discussion. It's a shame you are suffering reddit-style political downvoting in a community that's supposed to be above this sort of thing. It would be very sad to see a discussion thread about something with massive consequences like socializing an industry without any counterarguments.
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.
I love this related quote from The Wire:
"You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the f* it's gonna take you."
I'm not sure. I think your comparison with Toronto is probably fair, but I would say Montreal has a greater share of corruption than most major Canadian cities. Why? The presence of organized crime is probably a big factor. When you have crime families who have been established in Montreal for decades, I think that breeds more corruption than a city that has a less organized set of criminal elements.
There’s something especially dysfunctional about Montreal grift where it involves physically destroying the built environment every year and impeding traffic, creation pollution and making excess noise.
I’d prefer it if they could just take kickbacks on financial shenanigans.
The Canadian PM got caught red handed in a number of scandals, lining the pockets of his friends with tax payer money. Overpaid $100 million in COVID medical equipment; his former parties' MP setup a shell company 7 days prior to be the middleman between govt and equipment imports (pocketing a nice $10K per unit purchased). Add on that a huge no-bid contract awarded to his favourite buddies that run a for-profit charity that has promoted his brand for years, paid his family members, expensed lavish trips, etc. These guys had zero experience in these domains. Then he prorogued parliament to prevent investigations. He continued with filibustering tactics, threatened an election during the pandemic when further inquiry was pushed.
It is amazing how time and time again, his supporters entirely dismiss these things. Amazing that they are fine with a government with zero transparency and zero accountability, despite their platform clamouring for exactly that. Regardless of the party in power, I would be equally as disgusted. I wonder if people will wake up when they see the bleak financial situation that comes to light post-COVID.
I haven't even mentioned his other previous ethics violations but I'll spare you the details.
>The Post Millennial is a conservative Canadian online news magazine started in 2017. It publishes national and local news and has a large amount of opinion content. It has been criticized for releasing misinformation and articles written by fake personas, for past employment of an editor with ties to white supremacist-platforming and pro-Kremlin media outlets, and for opaque funding and political connections.
>The Post Millennial has been described by Buzzfeed News as an advocacy organization for the Conservative Party operating through opaque personal connections and undeclared social media ties.
>In July 2020, The Daily Beast exposed an online network pushing United Arab Emirates propaganda against Qatar, Turkey and Iran, using op-eds placed in news outlets using fictitious authors. The Post Millennial published some of these articles. After being contacted by the Beast, it took the articles down without comment.
If you don't trust Wikipedia on this, just have a look the topics and opinion pieces run by this "news" organization. Hardly a reputable source by any stretch.
> Given that much of what has been released on the WE contract has contradicted what the prime minister has told Canadians publicly, the opposition are well within their rights to probe it and other spending, including the sole-source $237-million contract for ventilators made by former Liberal MP Frank Baylis’s company Baylis Medical
Yes you said "I'm not saying your overall point is incorrect" and then questioned a source for a specific point. That created some ambiguity in my head. Perhaps you disagreed with that specific point? Perhaps you were calling into question that specific point because the source is bad? That's why I asked for clarification. No ill will.
Could be my interpretation. My apologies. No need to be snarky about it eh.
I chose that wording because the gist of your comment was correct (there is indeed corruption) but the devil is in the details. For instance, WE Charity is NOT a "for-profit" charity[0] as you claim. I could go on, but I have no desire to engage on specifics when the overall assertion is mostly true.
I only want the reader to be wary of claims (and the claimant) citing an obviously partisan source. A source that has been caught red-handed publishing disinformation provided by foreign state actors[1].
Although you sound well-intentioned, I'm just not interested in engaging when someone plays fast and loose with facts and sources. I'm just so incredibly tired of it.
> For instance, WE Charity is NOT a "for-profit" charity[0] as you claim. I could go on, but I have no desire to engage on specifics when the overall assertion is mostly true.
Actually your own cited source challenges this. You didn't dig far enough.[0,1] WE Charity transferred 7% of its revenue to Me to We, a for profit company that did the payouts to Trudeau's family. Charity Intelligence themselves found this very unusual. Unlike every other charity that they monitor, in fact. I guess it's okay for a not for profit to operate a for profit company to get around the rules then?
This isn't even a partisan thing, this is on WE Charity's wikipedia page.
No, my link does not challenge this. WE is a registered charity (as designated by CRA). It's public information, you can look it up.
I initially chose not to bring this up precisely because it detracts from the fact that there is likely corruption (as you point out). I only brought it up when pressed for why I endorsed the gist of the parents comments, but not the stated details.
You know, it is possible for someone to believe that corruption occurred but also believe that getting the surrounding facts correct is important. That's all I was advocating for.
My favorite part about his family being paid speaking fees was all of the other celebrities that the same charity told that they don't pay speaking fees.
it's a matter of degree - Trudeaus scandals aren't in the same league as Trump. The fact that these violations were investigated (and has had a real, damaging effect on the PM's approval ratings when they came to light) shows that Canadian politics is doing much better than the US, where the president literally fired the FBI director for investigating him.
> It is amazing how time and time again, his supporters entirely dismiss these things. Amazing that they are fine with a government with zero transparency and zero accountability, despite their platform clamouring for exactly that. Regardless of the party in power, I would be equally as disgusted. I wonder if people will wake up when they see the bleak financial situation that comes to light post-COVID.
It is, but then also it isn't really all that amazing if you sit down an examine the entire system. People being "fine with a government with zero transparency and zero accountability" isn't surprising, because these problem derive from the structure of the system itself, not any one individual politician operating in it. One could Google up plentiful examples from history of all politicians leveraging the opaqueness of the particular political system they operate in (all systems on Earth are flawed in this manner, to varying degrees) - but at the individual level (politicians and voters), they all realize that "these things are inevitable", and that even though technical wrongdoing has occurred, from the aggregate perspective, the ends justifies the means (which is a perfectly reasonable position to hold in my opinion, if we assume that the individuals in question are not aware that their perception of reality does not match objective reality, which is ~always the case).
I believe that to fix the problem, these systems must be completely redesigned to accommodate the obvious shortcomings. But then to do that, it would require buy-in from both politicians and the media, who both likely enjoy the amount of power in their possession and wouldn't be too keen on giving it up, so I wouldn't hold my breath on anything improving, ever.
He's being compared to Justin Treadeau, who basically owes his entire political career to being Pierre Treadeau's son. Nepotism encourages such underworld connections.
His first and greatest success was actually the Grand Hyatt New York @ Grand Central Station in 1980.
That area of NYC had been completely derelict and run down at the time. Midtown East was NYC's red light district up until the 1950s when it moved across town to Times Square. It still is the area to this day where most of the asian brothels in the city are.
Anyway, the Grand Hyatt project completely revitalized that neighborhood.
Then Trump put his (rejected) bid in for the Javits Center project and was the project's biggest salesman to the public. His proposal for which streets to develop nearly exactly became the Hudson Yards project 30 years later...
Indeed. The former finance minister was just cleared of ethics violations because he firmly believed he had paid the $41,000 in travel expenses when in fact a charity funded by the Liberal gov't paid for it.
I mean, it's pretty typically for a gov't official to lose track of $41,000 in expenses right? Happens every day.
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).
Not sure how well that works in practice. Concrete has an amazingly short window of time that it's usable for, anywhere between 30 minutes and a couple of hours between the time it's mixed and the time it's set. To get a truck of concrete to a second site that is ready to go just doesn't seem like it work to mr.
I was going to say, it’s hard to sell wet concrete on a short window. Min back order window for concrete is 24 hours and the construction crew plans the pours ahead so they are not waiting around for black market concrete. It actually costs a lot more to idle the crew than the price difference of black market
It wouldn't surprise me if what really happened was the concrete forms would bill for a crew and a "truck", send a truck of concrete 20% full, bill the whole thing, fill with whatever instead, and pocket the savings.
There was one instance I remember hearing about. A concrete truck driver was stopping on the way to the site and then adding water to his load to keep it at the right consistency. The result was weaker concrete that lead to some kind of collapse.
> Then covered with concrete using less than 10% what was ordered.
I'm curious about the logistics of this scam. Does this mean the concrete delivery would show up on the books of the concrete company as two orders, one for the 10%, and one (or more orders) for the remaining 90%? Or was the concrete company in on the scam for a kickback so nothing would show up on their books nor the contractors' books?
With so much being automated and tracked these days, is it squeezing out these scams?
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 lived in Montreal a couple of years 10 years ago and I visit it quite regularly. I actually enjoy that city and don't find it depressing. It is a big city but it does not feel oppressive.
A lot of new modern buildings have been erected downtown and the city is quite clean.
As for the corruption, it is very visible on the roads. They are constantly redoing the roads and yet there are still a lot of potholes. The weather is not an excuse, roads are much better in Ontario.
Also I don't know if it is still the case but you could read occasionally in the news some housing construction buildings being burnt.
There is definitely alot of organized crime in Montreal, but a lot of money is invested into fixing the water distribution system, which is crumbling and was neglected for decades. They usually fix 1-2 blocks at the time, and it costs hundreds of millions.
Roads do get a beating because of snow. Montreal definitely get more than Toronto, and the road system is way over capacity, with the number of cars and trucks increasing 2% each year.
The costs estimates are interesting too, because the construction industry is/was colliding in order to hike prices. So now all projects are fixed-price, meaning that companies won't take risks and tripple their estimates.
Some say that these problems started in the 60s, but got worse during government downsizing attempts. Internal expertise was lost and they had to rely on (corrupt) private companies. Others say that the restructuring were required to get rid of inside corruption. Whenever two government entities get merged, it's pretty much always as an attempt to water down corruption.
All that said, these days the city is pretty lean. I know lots of folks working there. I also did my small part to help liberate the city from Oracle consultants (siphoning the city) and also ran for borough office some time ago.
Just don't get your car towed. They are as bad in Montreal as everywhere else. And the city needs more public transport.
Thanks for adding these details. Montreal's ancient water system is a big reason for a lot of the construction. Apparently more water leaks underground from broken pipes than is used. My street is slated for construction to remove lead pipes (interesting comparison to Flint; https://globalnews.ca/news/6113701/montreal-drinking-water-l...)
The other factor is repairs were neglected for much of the 2010s, which compounded damage, so they're playing catch-up. So yes, there is a lot of construction, and undoubtedly some corruption and incompetence mixed in, but it's not as bad as some people who like to complain say.
It will be interesting to see if they can "catch up" some year, and it's very important for informed people to remain critical and engaged.
Montreal has a public housing initiative, but so does Toronto. The public transit networks are municipal, so maybe those? We've also got a good library system...
So in other words, things that have nothing to do with the city of montreal, but are the domain of either the provincial or federal government (other than construction which i'll give you is not great... but not sure how you link it to socialism.)
I live in Montreal it is 1) expressly more socialist and 2) definitely more corrupt.
The government here pays huge subsidies for electricity, a lot of social housing and a generous $6/day child care regime, which is far more than anywhere else in the US.
Montreal is measurably 'more corrupt' [1], there's no doubt about it, there was a massive investigation into it, and some of it was addressed by having more intelligent/trained buyers for public sector goods etc., but much remains.
"At the Charbonneau inquiry, an "ex-construction boss said that for years, three per cent of the value of all contracts he received from the city of Montreal went to the mayor's party, and another one per cent, known as "la taxe à Surprenant," went to a city official"
I don't think the level of corruption has that much to do with the ideology of government though.
"The government here pays huge subsidies for electricity, a lot of social housing and a generous $6/day child care regime, which is far more than anywhere else in the US."
That commission didn't "measure" any other jurisdiction so what are you talking about? And because there was "a massive investigation into it" doesn't mean it's worse than elsewhere, if anything it implies the contrary.
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
> A number of states have towing laws that require reporting any towed vehicle to the state within an hour.
This is a start but not near enough. In many states the tow company isn't required to take photos or produce any kind of proof that the car deserved to be towed. In my experience they just lie to the police about why they stole your car, and the police will vehemently argue that car theft is a civil matter and not a crime.
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.
"recovering activist" ... I wish you peace, and healing.
Getting people to do something towards better governance requires they have some faith that such a thing is possible in the first place. Met a non-cynical Civics teacher lately?
I liked to read people the preamble to the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these Truths to be Self Evident..." but many disagreed with those words and never heard the rest.
>>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.
>That's a beautiful, committed, and complete fantasy.
Nice drive-by zinger. Care to, I don't know—cite evidence to the contrary?
Despite being Canada, the facts of the original article support my point of view:
"Three separate police services – YRP, Toronto Police Service and Ontario Provincial Police – joined forces to launch Project Platinum to investigate the violence associated with the tow truck industry.
They carried out a series of raids this past spring, which netted dozens of high-powered weapons and led to the arrests of 35 people who face almost 500 charges, including the attempted murder of Carr."
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.
You know that you cannot just "gift" a house or a car even to close family. There is amount for which above tax authorities have to be notified and there is a gift tax. So if investigation goes about searching for crime related gains it should go around connections of the crime boss. If they have house, they have to have at least contract to prove it is theirs. If you were not earning any money for entire life (because you were a mistress of a kinpin) and now you have a house that is at least suspicious. So if you don't disclose your income source then around 80% tax comes in for income without source.
In Poland government introduced extended seizure so, mothers, sisters, wife's are under scrutiny for any possessions that were acquired by those people in relation to crimes with a lot of money involved. Such crimes are above $50k and are taking into account all possessions that are within last 5 years before court verdict.
That means just as in tax case all those people have to prove they legally acquired their possessions. They probably have to have invoices, contracts and prove they had such amount of money. To remind as well, for tax purposes you have to prove you are not guilty, because you have house/car/money which makes you guilty until proven otherwise.
I recently started to think that inheritance should just be all together eliminated. It is still a root of inequality, and promotes all kind of bad behavior. Your accomplishments, your money, not your kids. When you die, the assets should go back to the people equally. That way all children, no matter their parents, citizen of a country, should have equality in opportunity.
In theory, children with rich parents will still have plenty of advantages, connections, know how, good education, etc. But they shouldn't inherit any assets or financials.
Now how would that be managed in practice, no idea, and I haven't fully thought through everything here, but I'm just surprised this isn't an idea I hear more about, as it seems to me this is a huge source of inequality remaining in our society.
If you look at Korea with its 60% inheritance tax rate, the result is that rich people inheriting large sums will have elaborate means at their disposal to transfer the wealth in subtle ways. Point in case: Samsung's heir. On the other hand, less well off people won't be able to afford these manoeuvres.
What about gifts? Can people gift other people things?
If we forbid gifts, because they're an obvious transfer of wealth, what about financial transactions that favour one party? Should it be legal for a rich parent to sell their car to their offspring for below market value? How much below market value?
As you can see, none of this makes any sense to me. I believe people would get around whatever restrictions you put in place rather easily.
That's why I said: "Now how would that be managed in practice, no idea, and I haven't fully thought through everything here"
It's clear that finding mechanisms to implement this would be the next steps, but also not worth thinking about if people refute the premise itself. That said, I'm not going to accept refuting the premise based on the fact that we don't know how to implement it, that's circular to me.
Even before we get into practical concerns, I don’t believe that the state should (morally) have more claim to the residual of my estate than my family (or whomever else I choose to leave my items and money to).
If you want to tax large estates (as we do currently), I’m ok with that, but taxing any portion at 100% and taxing estates substantially lower than the current exemption at all I find an unseemly (and for small estates, unwieldy) picking the pocket of someone who worked hard and saved/invested diligently to give their family a better life.
Fair enough. My gut feeling says such mechanisms are impossible. If you do find any without obvious loopholes, many people will be quite excited. Keep us posted!
The people who won't will be the poor people. As it always is. The people with money can afford to get the expertise to avoid it. And the politicians writing the laws will be in that group.
> If we forbid gifts, because they're an obvious transfer of wealth, what about financial transactions that favour one party? Should it be legal for a rich parent to sell their car to their offspring for below market value? How much below market value?
In fact, this is already illegal, but there's no enforcement. (Enforcement would be challenging in any realistic scenario; it always is when every party to a transaction benefits from it.)
According to the law, whenever you obtain anything from anyone (not just relatives) at a price below market value, you have to pay taxes on the difference.
You’d have to be fairly wealthy and incredibly generous to actually trigger conditions needed to pay taxes on gifts. Aside from being able to give $15K per person per year (or twice that for married couples) you also get a lifetime gift-giving exemption of nearly $12 million for any gift giving over the annual amounts.
You’re also allowed to sell your kid your car for $1. It’ll probably be counted as a gift of market value - $1. Your kid will probably be required to pay taxes on it as if he purchased it for market value. But it’s not illegal.
Note that a married couple can give their married children 4x the individual exemption annually. (A gives C and D $15K each. B gives C and D $15K each.)
Nothing about this requires C and D to be married, of course, other than A and B’s willingness may be higher to give to a spouse than a boyfriend or girlfriend.
Or you can give them up to the estate tax lifetime exemption limit which is currently $22.36 million. Most people have a net worth well below this so there is no tax consequences.
> You’re also allowed to sell your kid your car for $1. It’ll probably be counted as a gift of market value - $1. Your kid will probably be required to pay taxes on it as if he purchased it for market value. But it’s not illegal.
Sure. But when I say "this is already illegal", I'm implicitly including the kid not paying the taxes after this happens.
They don’t have to pay income taxes on it in the US; it’s a gift. They may have to pay excise or property tax on it at the fair market value, but that’s about registering the car for road use, not about gifted property being taxable to the recipient as you claimed.
Not pay taxes is always illegal, but as the sibling poster said, taxes aren't required for the gift.
The state will still probably require the recipient to pay taxes to transfer the title as if you paid full market value. I say probably because it isn't always market value that's required and there is some discretion involved.
The gift exemption is one way in which the wealthy already avoid existing estate taxes.
However, one of life's strongest drives is to protect/provide for your children. Not just a human drive, and not even just an animal drive-- trees preferentially support their offspring...
You justify your proposal from a moral basis ("root of inequality, promotes bad behavior"). While there is much to commend a morals-based approach, it is hard for me to accept that one of life's most fundamental drives is immoral.
My parents are now old. I want to encourage them to spend their money enjoying their last few years. But I also know that the thing which would bring the most joy to my father would be to gift money to my siblings and myself, especially at his passing-- if he were to spend it all, he would feel like he had been a poor steward.
I have a very hard time with a legal structure which penalizes people for deciding to provide for their children rather than for themselves.
This is before we look at all of the edge cases (surviving spouse, early deaths, ...) and also the observations made by others that the rich will avoid the law anyway, thus defeating the purpose of reducing inequality at the high end of the spectrum.
You are talking about eliminating a system that has existed for several millennial , at least 4000 years . That is in other words let’s recreate human society.
Going down to particulars, strip individuals of rights to determine who gets their property and another group of people - through the elected or by mob action , should determine it. This creates more incentive to be part of the group that makes that determination than the group that actually creates wealth.
Secondly, the question of distribution comes up and the question of citizenry. If this is a high minded idea , not one based of millennial of social constructs of nationhood and citizenry , why not share the resources to everyone in the world, why only in a particular “country”.
Would you be happy if you have to make sacrifices to succeed , and I am very sure every success comes with a sacrifice just to give others who have not made such or similar sacrifices .
My assumption is that countries that have high inheritance tax create a disincentive to creators of wealth via aggregations / efficiency or disruption because such wealth would be stolen from them . You make enough just to be comfortable .
That might work, just until the supply of suckers dries up. There's one born every minute, which makes 1440*365 = 525,600 suckers per year. Hmm, that is quite a few suckers. Okay, tax away!
It sounds like a great idea until you realize a bunch of countries have abandoned their inheritance tax scheme. Countries like Sweden, Australia, Israel and New Zealand.
Usually when a country abandons a tax, I assume there’s some heavy lobbying by a few that would massively benefit from it and a complete disregard for anyone and everything else.
Why illegally? Assuming a 100% estate tax, you could likely avoid it through legal means.
I'm sure there are way more tricks for passing on your wealth and I'm sure it's much more complicated than this, but:
My first thought would to incorporate and have the corporation own all the wealth. You could hire family as employees and pay them in money and stock. Income taxes would have to be paid, but those are a lot lower than 100%. Any properties would be held by the corporation. Over time, you'd gift your shares to your children using the gift tax exemption. You'd secure contracts with your corporation for the exclusive use of your properties while you live, so even after you no longer have a controlling interest, you can't be removed from, say, your favorite mansion. These contracts would be expensive and payable on death, so when you died, your estate had to pay back the corporation. But the only thing you personally own is stock in the corporation. So the stock goes back to the corporation to pay your debts and the government gets nothing. So, rather than 100%, your effective tax rate would be some income taxes and whatever you couldn't manage to divest yourself of by the time you died.
Voila. Your children just inherited all your stuff legally.
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)
The video is from 2015. I googled the repair shop, Lyons Auto Body Ltd. It is alive and kicking. While it has many 1-star reviews, most are 5-star. Reviews, another unsolvable problem.
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.
These insurance companies are not stupid. The incentives don't align perfectly. They can also just hike the price of the insurance policy and pass along the cost to the consumer. Much less trouble than taking on the mob. If the problem truly is systemic, then your competitors are just as affected as you are, and it's a wash. If you solve the problem, then you also solve it for your competitor.
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.
Organized crime is just unofficial government, and "mafia" is just another word for municipal procurement. Anything that is legally mandatory is a target for corruption and extortion. If it's licensed, it's going to be corrupt because the license holders are protected from more honest competition. The more complex the rules, the more exploited they will be.
I don't see how the towing industry is any different from healthcare in the U.S. Same scam of driving you to an "out of network" hospital. There was even a story about how the healthcare bill collectors all went through the same legal guy in New York who rubber stamped their judgments against debtors.
In Canada, get a CAA membership for your vehicles. It's cheap, trustworthy, and you can tell those roadside pirates to GTFO.
> 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.
Once upon a time, something similar happened with an upholsterer in the SF Bay area. They had the contract to repair seats on the train system. Then someone figured out that more repairs meant more money, so they hired some people to go around slashing seats...
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?
I hate the tag line "There's a dark side to the on-demand industry." there definetely is, Uber is a completely unethical company, but if a drivers feeling like they need to light themselves on fire because of competition is more of an indictment on south Korea culture and governance than it is on ride sharing
> Despite repeated rulings against it and an October law that explicitly outlaws UberPop, its drivers continue to ply French roads and the American ride-hailing company is actively recruiting drivers and passengers alike. Uber claims to have a total of 400,000 customers a month in France.
I think France has a long history of violently taking back what’s their’s.
Uber and Lyft only really worked because they had billions in funding. They could pay lawyers and millions in fees outfighting the taxi industry. In some countries the Taxi mafia did succeed in outing Uber and Lyft, in some places Uber had such force that they eventually won once someone else got elected.
I didn’t quite realize why Uber needed gazillions of dollars, but once a friend told me a significant of their expenses were legal/permit related expenses, that made sense. They had so much money, they could keep on paying fines and keep on growing.
I’m glad the Silicon Valley complex is able to churn out Ubers and AirBnBs every now and then. Although they create other second order problems, it’s good to see customers have more choice.
This comes to a standstill when ridesharing companies can band together and spill coffers in massive manipulation campaigns.
Regardless of your views on Prop 22, for instance, the power imbalance is daunting. When you consider the average voter, it's not clear whether an individual can make an informed judgement.
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 ?
Construction in Europe is always somewhat mindblowing to me as an American. Seems like most EU countries have the work-safety comparable to a third world country.
I don't know anything about corruption, but man being a construction worker in say, Belgium, seems dangerous.
I have no number specifically for the constructions sector but in 2018, there were 5250[1] death attributed to work in the USA for 327,2 millions, which 16 deaths for 1 million inhabitants. This number was 136[1] deaths for 11.4 millions or 11.86 for 1 million. But the construction sector in the USA is so protected that if I was working in this sector I suppose I would still prefer to work in the states (higher pay for low qualified work). In western europe those jobs are mostly filled by eastern european or immigrants.
I'm from France, southern Italy is excluded :) I think I did not explain my point very well : I read of corruption around construction project in France, or Germany, etc.., but it seems to me it never impacted the safety of the building as most the auditing society are not part of the corruption networks and it would make the corruption easy detectable. It's simpler to make the state overpay a building than to steal raw material; and people would not try to do both at the same time. If anyway something is stolen on a project it's by the workers not the contracting society itself.
Incidentally I just watched a video on the infamous Brandenburg airport yesterday. The corruption was on multiple levels, both the politician and the construction companies. Yeah the materials went missing and you could argue whether it was the workers who did it or on a more organized level. But construction managers were caught receiving huge amounts of money for contracts and the politicians wanted the airport open in 2012 totally pretending that any safety concern could be ignored. It's not a good look at all. Maybe the level of corruption is lower, or maybe it just exists in a different form. Not sure.
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.
> I could've painted his entire SUV three times for that price!
I have no opinion on how much car paint materials cost but your logic that the $1800 is unreasonable because you can do the work three times for three times the bill of materials (~$600) illustrates a substancial misunderstanding of the cost structure of a business.
This idea that the selling price of a good or service should be some minimal amount above the bill of materials shows up quite a bit on HN and it is just wrong.
I’d like to know what sort of modern car you can paint for a mere 600 dollarydoos. With the modern paints being multiple layers of pigment/metallic flake/other layers of translucent colour I’d bet manufacturer correct paint is more than 600 dollarydoos just to buy for a small car.
Soul Red is 2 layers of colour/metallic flakes with clear on top. According to the shop where I got my car fixed you do 2 shots of each layer. For the new Renault red it’s 9 layers in total.
http://www.roadster.blog/2015/02/mx-5-roadster-nd-colours.ht...
i seem to recall that a tap under 5mph is not considered an accident in many (most?) jurisdictions. in any case, that's what bumpers quite literally are for (tested & certified for <5mph bumps), so the claim should be a warranty claim to their auto manufacturer, not an insurance claim.
moreover, most (all?) insurance creates perverse incentives (see: healthcare) unless strictly and carefully defined (which is likely never, since the incentive is to rope in as many policyholders as possible).
> moreover, most (all?) insurance creates perverse incentives (see: healthcare) unless strictly and carefully defined (which is likely never, since the incentive is to rope in as many policyholders as possible).
It can, but it really depends on how the system is structured. The problem today is more the financialization of insurance that is creating the perverse incentives. Since financiers can again use insurance pool deposits to fund other activities the incentive is to aggregate as much cash as possible (as you noted), rather than providing stable, reliable insurance.
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.
Thought of mine would be change the rules so you can specify a towing service for you car. Like say you have AAA on file. To tow your car cops _must_ call AAA and have them handle it. Advantage AAA will have the tow guy drop it off on some random street. Or maybe in front of your house.
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 think OP is advocating for a market where consumer gets to choose their towing truck evil.
I don’t think Uber would have ever been a thing if they played Fair. The taxi industry is full of mafias. They had to get at their level. Uber is a classic example of “grow at all costs” Silicon Valley culture. I don’t endorse it, but I acknowledge why it is the way it is.
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. For a daily driver, app can behave like an antivirus reminding driver if they have completed all requirements for carrying out a safe trip like installation of dashcam, regular maintenance at 6 months period (tracked by app), airbag checkups, availability of mobile data usage, emergency contact info etc.
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.)
The canadian government is run by a bunch of clowns. Law and order is a secondary thought, we’ve filed for ltb evictions 3 months ago with no hearing date even scheduled. Our tenants have been living rent free for 8 months, we can’t do anything. Now a lawyer doing her job can’t do it because the government has failed to clean up organized crime.
You are criticizing the "Canadian government" as being run by a bunch of clowns, then complaining about evictions, which is a provincial matter. The LTB reference leads me to think you are in Ontario.
I agree that there are problems, but at least be more precise in what you are complaining about.
You overestimate police possibilities just take into your mind that there is something around 100 000 police people to take care of 38 000 000 population of whole country.
So yes your best option for not getting robbed/mugged is not to walk in the dark alleys unless you really need to. There is not going to be a policeman in every dark alley.
Parent poster omitted important part, so before jumping to conclusions, read article first: "They carried out a series of raids this past spring, which netted dozens of high-powered weapons and led to the arrests of 35 people who face almost 500 charges, including the attempted murder of Carr."
What do you want them to do? Give her 24/7 security? They are telling her that if there are people against her she should be cautious. It's hard for police anywhere to prevent something that hasn't happened yet.
In what world are we living that protecting an innocent citizen is portrayed as a crazy idea? I don't mind if they give her 24/7 security, if they watch 24/7 people who they suspect want to harm her, whatever. IMHO police #1 role should be protecting the people.
I would also argue that in the long term this should pay off. Protect the lawyer, stop crime organizations, save much money later because less security needed. Don't protect the layer == more crime == more future expenses.
The problem is more where do you draw the line with that protection. What kind of risk warrants you getting special round the clock police presence? What if a criminal leader is having problems with another gang who keeps putting hits out on him? Maybe he had multiple attempts made on his life already. Should he also get protection? Or would he not count because of his criminal history?
If anything what should be happening here is the insurance company who is paying her should be helping protect her. Otherwise why wouldn't she just drop the client? If it is unsafe for her she may as well just cave in and drop that high risk client. I don't see how her career had to end because she couldn't drop a single client.
The insurance companies also could have put pressure on the prosecutors to go after these criminals. What I find interesting is that in the story we heard nothing from the insurance companies despite them being the main one going head-to-head against these guys.
In my city in Ontario our police department is already underfunded and has less officers per 100 000 people than most other departments in Ontario. And because of the BLM movement one of their proposed budgets would end up forcing them to cut 216 officers. Unfortunately people want to ask for things like these 24/7 protections but then they are unwilling to properly fund the police and instead look to defund them. A lot of police services in Ontario are understaffed and can barely keep up with 911 calls for service, how do you expect them to protect someone 24/7 for who knows how long when they can barely keep up with normal 911 calls?
"They carried out a series of raids this past spring, which netted dozens of high-powered weapons and led to the arrests of 35 people who face almost 500 charges, including the attempted murder of Carr."
They did what they could, you cannot keep someone safe for the rest of their life.
It means people want to kill her, and the police can't provide 24/7 protection to guarantee safety. It doesn't mean they won't answer 911 (or the equivalent) calls.
> It means people want to kill her, and the police can't provide 24/7 protection to guarantee safety.
But why shouldn't they protect her 24/7? It is sending organized crime a strong message that they can threaten anyone (perhaps with the exception of high politicians) to do anything. The chilling effect this must have on potential witnesses, whistle-blowers, and resistance must be worth something to the public. Now, no other attorney or insurance adjuster would dare raise a concern that might negatively influence the income stream for organized crime. The criminals will get richer and more powerful and more brazen.
EDIT: Imagine if we did that with politicians and judges too; not provide them with security when they need it [1]. What kind of world would we be living in? Organized crime could dictate every law and decide every case they want. I am sure that no cop would tell a supreme court judge, "Your honour, as long as you don't continue ruling against the mob, your life will not be in danger. But if you continue doing what you were previously doing, we cannot guarantee your safety." In the current climate, I guess we don't have to worry about this specific scenario. With no attorneys willing to take cases against the mob, it would never land on a judge's desk.
[1] I understand for Americans the when qualifier may sound weird. But here in Canada, we don't lock up high ranking officials 24/7 for the rest of their lives. A supreme court justice went missing for a short while last year and that triggered a police search.
I think organized gets the message, it is not like they left the case and told they cannot do anything:
"They carried out a series of raids this past spring, which netted dozens of high-powered weapons and led to the arrests of 35 people who face almost 500 charges, including the attempted murder of Carr."
This is a common misunderstanding in both Canada and the USA.
Police are not there to protect individuals whatsoever.
The best illustration is that in the US, dangerous police car chases are allowed even in downtown areas, and citizens get run over with impunity. Because the police are there to enforce laws, not "serve and protect."
The second-most frequent trope is that when you're in a foreign country, the US embassy will get you out of jail. That almost never happens, with them instead arranging phone calls and a local lawyer, if you can afford it.
(There's a small army of foreigners in Bali getting used to eating rice 3 times per day because of that misconception.)
One of the unintended consequences of cannabis legalisation is encouraging criminals moving on to a non-drug related enterprise and take their old methods with them. Not that I think progressive drug reform is a bad idea, but they clearly oversold the idea that legalising a few substances would reduce crime when it's the economic incentive that drives people to break the law.
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.