By Juan Montoya
We all know now that there are vulture tow truck services cutting deals with downtown Brownsville businesses that allow them to post signs in parking lots and then swoop down on the cars of unsuspecting motorists and gouge them $300 or more to return them.
Well, it seems that these vultures, specifically a company known as El Rancho Towing, that has moved on to better and bigger things.
It seems that the company has negotiated deals with businesses located across from two popular night spots on Springmart Blvd. to extort the $300-plus towing charges from unsuspecting patrons of the Mynt and Doghouse bar and grills.
The signs warning against parking in the parking lots are barely distinguishable at night and patrons of the nightspots become vulnerable to the fees when the parking lot of the clubs are filled and they park across the street in businesses like the Sofa Mart, Bedroom Express, Furniture Row, Oak Express, etc.
All these businesses have cut deals with the tow truck company and – for a cut of the action, we're told – allow the vulture tow truck company to prey ion the customers of the clubs even after their businesses are closed.
At $300-plus a pop, with only 10 victims the company stands to make $3,000 a night. With three weekend days to work the scam, that rounds out to a nice $9,000 profit.
The district manager for Furniture Row was asked whether he approved of the local store manager's arrangement with the tow truck company and replied that he really didn't care what happened in little Brownsville. Besides, he said, the drivers left litter on the premises.
But club owners said they had offered to clean up the parking lots at no cost to the owner if they would just stop towing their customers' cars away. Furniture Row declined the offer, they said.
How different that response was from that of the managers of the Sunset Memorial Funeral Home and Crematory across the street from the Mynt. They said that the tow truck company had approached them and offered them a cut from the towing fee if they allowed them to haul off the cars of the people who were in the clubs and they had refused.
"We don't want to hurt those people," they said they told the driver.
Furniture Row – and all other businesses in town that sign on to the tow truck trap scam – apparently don't share the same feelings toward their potential customers or fellow Brownsville residents. Beware of this tow truck trap and think twice when you have the potential need to buy your next piece of furniture.