Sonic Lock N Tow Michael Track Illegal hold of vehicle Fort Lauderdale FL

You seem to stil be totally missing the point

The issue is the tow company Made it extremely difficult for her to retrieve her car
- That is just it, there was no Government Issued document that stated it was her car. As such you have to satisfy the requirements to be able to prove that is is your car and she is authorized. The fact that you are 13 hours away doesn't negate this requirement. By the way the requirements for you aren't really any different than in every other State in the US.

As for her difficulties, again just why was she in a position that she chose to leave her car in a parking lot for over 8 hours? Just how did her being without a car leave her without lodging? Then again, where were all of her friends during this? These may not be things you don't want to hear, but her grades and ability to get into  certain colleges are irrelevant. There is very often a gap between "book smarts" and "life smarts" where some time you have to help guide the "life" part and perhaps letting her travel 13 hours on a "Spring Break" road trip wasn't the best idea.

Your honor student kid screwed up.  You're trying to minimize her screwup, but that doesn't wash here.  Honor students are real good in school and often do dumb things because they lack the common sense a lot of C students seem to possess.  That doesn't mean your kid is dumb.  This was just careless behavior.

Now, the problem is you are trying to minimize her careless actions of leaving a car to be towed.  I mean stuff happens; it probably isn't the first dumb thing she's done and it won't be the last.  The problem with your situation is that the title isn't in her name because in FL she needs to be 18 years of age - so yes I get it.  However, the general rule of thumb here is what you said:  They require the owners to either be there in person or have an original hold harmless form mailed, driven or flown to them.  It's a liability issue.

This is not the fault of the towing company.  This is the fault of your daughter - I mean that may be hard for you to hear, but there is a consequence to a 17 year old leaving a car in a public parking lot for more than 8 hours, and the car gets towed...it may seem wrong that she was stranded, but no towing company is going to let her take possession of the car.  Perhaps she should have called one of her friends to pick her up so she would not have been stranded....

Your 4.0 GPA daughter left her car in a parking lot of a grocery store!! They had every right to have her car towed because it is their parking lot! What does spring break have to do with anything??? They towed the car, she is not the owner of the car therefore they could not release the car back to her since she is not the OWNER. Pretty cut and dry.

Stop making excuses and tell your daughter to start taking responsibility for her own actions. Stop placing blame on a company that did their job and place blame where blame belongs - with your Princess daughter.

 Since you only really want to discuss my daughter, her actions and our parenting skills and not the real issue... well here goes. She is an honor student, has NEVER gotten in trouble with the law or her schools. My daughter is a freshman in college. A college that is fairly hard to get into. Her high test scores, 4.4 GPA, advanced placement classes and a year of college before she finished high school helped her to get in.

She is working towards a degree in the medical field currently taking chemistry, biostats and calculus. This above is what I think you really wanted to know. We bought her car when she was 17. At that age she could not finance, sign or pay for a car. If you are married or have kids - do you have the title of each of your cars in EVERY family members name?

The issue is not the fact that she got towed or that we feel like we shouldn’t pay the tow fee. We had no problem paying. The issue isn’t even that she made a mistake and got towed. The issue is the tow company Made it extremely difficult for her to retrieve her car. 24 hours after showing up did she get it back. They really didn’t care about their form as much as making more money.

They even ENCOURAGED her to go "to a warehouse and they will notarize it for you”. She explained that her parent was not here to sign how can they sign it. They again referenced her to a warehouse. She did not go as a 19 year old college student to a shady warehouse -thank goodness. The fact that the tow company spoke with the parents, had their (tow company) hold harmless form signed by the parent and notarized by a notary, was sent copies of the parents drivers license, insurance card and willing to send a copy of the title all to prove they were the parents is the issue. If you don’t want to wait 24 hours - go to "the warehouse”.

It’s a racket and they are preying on college kids on spring break. And Robert I hope you never leave your car at a lot that you are not actively shopping in. From your message above, I’m sure you never have or will. If you ever do even just once, maybe you will get yours towed and get first hand experience how some tow companies operate. Hope it isn’t your wife’s car in her name only. Sure hope if isn’t your teenager.

Nothing you posted here shows they did anything illegal.

You admit your daughter left her car in a PRIVATE parking lot. She obviously was not a patron of the business(unless it takes her 8 hours to go grocery shopping), so it was a valid tow.  What is interesting is that you said it was towed after 8 hours, we have no idea how long it was before your daughter actually returned to find it towed.

Because the car is not in her name they are required by law to release the vehicle to the registered owner, or authorized person. Since you are not there in person, the form they are having you to send is so you don't come back to them at a later time stating that you didn't actually authorize them to release it. The fact that you are 13 hours away while unfortunate is irrelevant.

Now, insteaed of looking toward the towing company, you should really be looking at your actions as well as your daughters.

You say that she is too young to own a car, this puts her at 16-17 years old. So one has to wonder why as parents you would allow a 17 year old to drive to another state over 13 hours away from home for a "vacation". If you say she is 18 then she isn't too young to own a car and there was NOTHING keeping you from transfering the title to her.

In fact if she is under 18 she is likely still under a Provisional license, which depending on how long she has had the license it sounds like she may actually be in violation of the restrictions.

But you really should be asking some serious questions as to now that she was there, how she got into this situation. Such as why would she leave her car in some random parking lot for more than 8 hours? How exactly did this cause her to be without a room? By the way if she went with friends, what exactly happened to them during this time?