Manda Isbell was stuck without a vehicle at 11 p.m. after Atlas Towing took her car. The owner of the lot she parked in said the tow wasn’t authorized.
SAN ANTONIO — Manda Isbell’s family got their daughter tickets to Post Malone’s Big Ass Stadium Tour at the Alamodome in San Antonio on May 7.
Parking at the Alamodome was full but Isbell said they found a lot nearby where they could park for just $40. It seemed like they were going to have a great night.
“The first part of the night was great. We celebrated her birthday, the concert was phenomenal,” Isbell said. “After the concert everything went downhill.”
The family then returned to the lot to find out the parking attendants had actually been scammers and their car had actually been towed and it wasn’t clear where to go get the car back. The family, who lives north of Austin, had a 100-mile trip to get home.
“It was terrifying. We are not from San Antonio,” Isbell said.
The scammers had been thorough. Isbell said they had reflective vests and were directing traffic. She said more than 20 cars were already on the lot when she got there.
Now there were almost none.
The family found a sign that had a number for Atlas Towing and Storage. They were eventually allowed to pay nearly $260 to bail out their car from a storage facility nearby. The family said they told the towing company they had been scammed but the company didn’t seem to care.
“The tow truck driver was laughing about it,” Isbell said.
Isbell contacted KENS 5.
KENS 5 started investigating the situation and tracked down the company that owned the lot to find out what was going on. That owner asked not to be on camera but he told KENS 5 that he had never worked with Atlas Towing and that Atlas Towing did not have permission to tow from any of his properties.
When the owner found out that Atlas Towing had signs on the property, he immediately sent a work crew to tear those signs out of the ground. When he did so, he found the signs weren’t even secured by concrete.
The property owner also told KENS 5 that the authorization information that the tow company used to justify the towing was false.
KENS 5 contacted Atlas Towing and Storage multiple times about this issue but they did not respond by the time this story aired.
If you have been towed from this lot, which is listed as 418 Florida Street on the tow company’s impound invoice, you need to immediately request a tow hearing from a Bexar County justice of the peace. A person must request a tow hearing within 14 days of the towing incident.
A person requesting a tow hearing in this case can inform the judge that Atlas Towing and Storage did not have authorization to tow from this location.
KENS 5 also provided this information to SAPD and will continue to follow the story.
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