A truck stop owner in Tennessee is regretting his decision of hiring a parking company to secure a lot at his business. CBS’ Memphis affiliate WREG reports the truck stop owner has discovered that parking company has allegedly been illegally towing big rigs from his truck stop.
The unidentified owner of a Shell gas station and attached truck stop off of Interstate-40 says he entered into a contract with parking company S-Line Truck Parking. But a day after signing the contract, he went to cancel it because he discovered the parking company was working with another company— A1’s Towing and Hauling —to boot and tow big rigs parked at his truck stop lot. He claims that both companies have been doing this illegally:
They put a banner at the entrance of the truck stop to pay for parking over there. People were there before the sign was up, they didn’t know anything about it. When they came Friday, the towing company started towing trucks out of the parking lot.
The owner says that the companies have been charging the owners of the towed trucks high fees, between $3,300 and $3,600 a day. The only thing that the companies were hired to do was to collect parking fees from truck drivers and to provide security for the parking lot. Worse yet, the owner says that some trucks are being towed or booted within minutes of them parking, such as when the drivers go into the station or when they’re sleeping.
“Let me tell you what happened. They waited about five minutes. They let a truck on the lot and followed the truck. The driver went to the bathroom, and he came out, and they were towing the truck,” the truck stop owner said. “One driver, they towed the truck while they were sleeping, and they made him pay $300 just to unhook the truck.”
Now the owner says he wants out of the contract. Except he says that it won’t cancel the contract. He’s now filed an injunction to keep the companies from coming onto his property.
Both S-Line and A1’s Towing seem to have a history; WREG says that seven complaints against the companies have been sent to the Tennessee Attorney General’s Division of Consumer Affairs since 2022. Memphis city officials are investigating the companies as well. Employees from both companies have been arrested over illegal towing: five from A1’s and one from S-Line. A1’s employees hav the most accusations, though. One incident involving one of its drivers ended when the driver was charged with robbery; another incident involved three of its drivers being charged with carjacking when they tried to take someone’s truck by force.
For now, the truck stop owner has put signs up warning drivers away from dealing with S-Line and A1. He says that it’s sad, especially for drivers who can’t afford to pay the fees: “It’s all the same story, and it’s sad, and some of them have loads, and I feel so bad for them, and I’m really under a lot of pressure because I feel like I caused this problem.”