Tales from the Breakdown Desk: Towing Scam.

After I quit driving and had just graduated with my engineering degree, the economy took a dive and jobs in manufacturing locally were hard to come by, so for 2 years I worked as an overnight road breakdown agent for a nationwide company that was an odd amalgamation of 4 or 5 smaller companies trying to become a larger player in the market (and ultimately failing). I will call this company "Persnickety Transportation". We had maybe 800 power units and 2500 trailers, about 2/3 dry-van and 1/3 reefers.

I worked 6 p.m. EST to 6 a.m. for 4 days on and 4 days off, sharing the night desk with another agent who I almost never saw. I took care of units that had broken down or gotten stuck in the lower 48 states of the US, most border provinces of Canada, and even occasionally on some trailers across the border in Mexico. So, I have a LOT of stories. I will start with a short one, and if people like this, I'll share more.

It was about 3 a.m., and my phone rings. I answer the phone "Persnickety Transport Breakdown; How can I help you?"

"Yeah, this is Joe Blow towing in Mesquite Nevada. We have your truck # **** hooked up here at the casino where it's illegally parked. If you pay us $2500 by Comchek, we can tow it to our yard, but if you don't the Sherriff will have it at the impound lot where they will charge you {a number much greater}. What do you want to do?"

OK, this smelled bad from the beginning, so I make small talk with the driver, asking what the trailer number was, etc, while I check in our computer system. After a few seconds, with the info I have, I can see that driver was already in California after dropping that trailer at a drop lot in Las Vegas. From fueling receipts, I could see he went past this casino (I'd been there myself when I was a driver), so the guy must've spent his afternoon taking down truck and trailer numbers for his evening of scamming. I also sent the driver a message through our system asking if he was on the road and had actually dropped that trailer.

"So, whaddya gonna do; I ain't got all day!" Joe Blow finally said, just as the driver's return message confirmed that he was in fact 400 miles down the road.

"Well, Joe, since I can see that our driver is as of now in the LA area and that trailer is at a drop lot in Vegas, I think you can go f*** yourself" in my best New York accent. "We ain't stupid here, Joe", I continued, adding "but it seems YOU are. BTW, I'm gonna see if we can trace your scamming *** from this call!". He hung up.

I made a note of this call, and sent it to my manager.