Corruption or Conspiracy? 

Since starting this petition, I have heard numerous rumors and outlandish stories about Crow Tow, the Des Moines City Council and the Des Moines Police Department. Many of the stories are  outrageous and may qualify as conspiracy theories, some claiming knowledge of criminal activity-  committed by  Crow Tow, or by the DMPD using Crow Tow, etc.. I don’t buy into most of them but  there is one thing that all of these rumors have in common- that Crow Tow has been awarded the contract not by merit but because of some shady under the table dealings. I have been told over and over that this petition will not make a difference and the City Council will award the contract to them again when the contract expires on December 31st, 2022.

Almost 7000 people have signed our petition asking to end the contract with Crow Tow and I am going to keep my hopes up that all the stories I have been told are only stories.  In case I am proven wrong though, I am going to share some interesting facts or tidbits I’ve picked up along the way. 

A few things don’t quite add up so I’m going to break it all down and give you the facts so you can decide whether its corruption or conspiracy-

The city pays the following to Crow Tow for every police impounded vehicle and storage price:

$18.93 for impound tow

$4.91 storage fee up to 24 hours

$1.00 daily storage fee for long term vehicles

I don’t know the average wage of a tow truck driver, or the cost of insurance, fuel, vehicle upkeep, but there is no way that a company can tow and store vehicles at those prices and stay in business, The tow price for the city is so low that Crow Tow loses money every time they impound a vehicle under this contract.

So if they have contracted a rate with the city that costs them money out of pocket, why would they bid on the contract at all?  Paying the wage of the tow driver and fuel in the tow truck has to cost  more than the $19 the city pays for them to go tow and impound the vehicle.  Think about that for a minute.  

One way that Crow Tow makes up those losses is by charging all of their “private tows” or all other tows other than police impounds exorbitant towing and storage charges . Because Iowa and Des Moines specifically doesn’t have any anti predatory towing laws to protect consumers, Crow Tow can charge and do whatever they want to people they tow.

The second way that Crow Tow covers some of those losses is through the Des Moines Police Department. DMPD officers send all of the non-impound tows to Crow Tow. One example of this is when someone gets in an accident.  You should know that you can refuse Crow Tow service and make your own arrangements for towing as long as the police aren’t impounding your vehicle. Most DMPD officers will push you to Crow Tow and make you feel like you don’t have any options. This is simply not true unless the officer is impounding your vehicle for legal reasons (suspended drivers licenses, expired tags, or titling reasons). So I would strongly recommend contacting any other towing company in Des Moines if you’re able to.

Interesting Facts

** “Last year, DMPD Chief Dana Wingert recommended that City Council approve Crow Tows bid saying his agency had received minimal complaints”.

** You all remember my FOIA requests to DMPD? By Iowa law, agencies are supposed to respond to Freedom of Information Requests within 20 working days. I submitted the request asking for the total number of calls for service for Crow Tow for 2018, 2019, and 2020 on January 5th, 2021.  After multiple attempts to get the public records, I finally received a response on April 7th. There was more than 370 calls for service to Crow Tows business for those 3 years. 136 calls for service was received in 2019 alone. That means police were called to Crow Tow an average of more than 2 1/2 times every week in 2019.  Sure, not all of the calls were from auto owners reporting Crow Tow, some are probably from unruly and upset people. You can view each call for service and the “type” or reason for the call here:  https://cdn.muckrock.com/foia_files/2021/04/07/Crow_Tow_CFS_-_2018-20.pdf After scanning through those reasons for the call, do you agree that the police chief was correct in backing Crow Tow’s bid up by stating complaints against Crow Tow were minimal?

** Thats just perspective but here’s another fact:  Reporter Linh Ta wrote an excellent article about Crow Tow https://news.yahoo.com/scoop-crow-tows-contract-controversy-112031641.html and in it she reported that “even Des Moines police officers raised concerns internally about Crow Tow’s practices at accident scenes.” This is referencing a retired officer who said that he would “never call Crow Tow.” The officer had witnessed them refusing to bring a 97 year old man’s car to a dealership and in another email found it odd that Crow Tow was demanding motorist pay on the spot before delivering a car to a body shop, circumventing the insurance process. I have seen many comments on the petition and also on the BBB website where people have reported similar shady or questionable circumstances regarding insurance and demanding cash unnecessarily or vice versa, refusing cash when a motorist had preferred to pay and not go through his insurance.

** Crow Tow policy forces auto owners to sign a release of certification BEFORE they release the vehicle or allow a person to even see their car that says: “Certification: I the undersigned do hereby certify that I am legally authorized and entitled to take possession and have received the above described vehicle and its contents in good condition and hold all parties harmless.”  This is illegal at worst and unethical at best. The fact that they include the phrase “and its contents” is obvious proof Crow Tow employees regularly steal items from the inside of the vehicle, why else would you need to include that before releasing a car?
** A comment on the petition claims that DMPD officers had Crow Tow illegally tow cars that were legally parked simply because they were Black Lives Matter protesters, protesting downtown last summer. I have not been able to prove or disprove this comment.

Food for thought:

To determine the extent of shadiness at Crow Tow, I contacted a few other towing companies to find out how tow companies operate and how the bidding process works with the city contract and I found a huge difference between everyone else that I talked to and Crow Tow.  Most bid the contract at a “reasonable” rate to the city that doesn’t require them to rape the other tow owners they come into contact with. In fact, a few of them charge a flat rate - the same rate for every tow regardless if its one of the city tows or private tows. One of the flat rates was $65. Compare that to the $204 bill I had to pay Crow Tow when the city would pay $19.  I also heard that hiring and employee policies are different at Crow Tow- specifically that Crow Tow regularly hires ex felons and doesn’t require any drug testing.  I am a big believer in second chances especially when I am aware of just how hard it is for ex-felons to get hired in good jobs but not requiring any type of drug testing (regardless of someones background) is not responsible and quite possibly could be endangering people on the roads.  But the biggest difference I learned was that Crow Tow employees are paid a BONUS for every car they pull in off one of their private contracts. This policy is absolutely related to predatory towing and I was glad to learn that other tow companies do not do this.

I heard many many more rumors but I am not going to share them all here. A good amount are probably not true but I thought it was time for an update with what I knew to be true. I did just enter FOIA requests to the city, wanting to find out how many vehicles have been auctioned off that the city would have received the profit of and will update next when I get those responses.

Thank you all for signing, please continue to share and get the word out there!