We tow cars. We also spend a fair amount of time on the phone with people in Allston who just walked out to an empty parking space behind a triple-decker on Gardner Street and assumed the car got stolen. It didn't. It got hooked by whoever holds the contract on that lot, and now there's a number on a faded sign by the dumpster and a guy who wants cash.
Most of what drivers believe about private-property towing in Boston is wrong, and the wrong parts are expensive. Here's what's actually true.
Myth: "They can charge whatever they want."
No. Involuntary tows off private property in Massachusetts are rate-capped by the Department of Public Utilities under 220 CMR 272.00. The tow itself maxes out at $132. Storage on a regular passenger car is capped at $35 per 24-hour period. Those are ceilings, not suggestions, and a lot that quotes you $300 for a five-mile hook is either confused or counting on you not knowing.
Note the difference from a city tow. If Boston Police or Transportation ordered it, you're going to 200 Frontage Road in the South End and the math is $90 plus $3 an hour capped at $15 a day. Different animal, different lot, different rules.
Myth: "Once the truck is hooked up, it's over."
This is the one that costs people the most money and it's flatly false. If you come back and the truck hasn't left the lot yet, the tower has to release your car for no more than half the tow cost. It's called a drop fee. It's the law, not a favor.
Say it out loud. "That's a drop, half rate." Operators who work in Allston and Brighton every night know exactly what you mean. If the response is that you have to go to the yard anyway, that's your first real signal something's off.
Myth: "Cash only is just how the industry works."
It isn't, and it's the flag we'd tell our own family to watch for. Cash-only means no receipt trail, no chargeback, no record of what you actually paid. A legitimate operation writes you a receipt with the rate broken out.
The pending reform bill on Beacon Hill, S.2235 — the one MASSPIRG and a handful of Boston city councilors have been pushing as a "towing bill of rights" — would close this off by requiring towers to accept card or debit. It would also make them photograph the vehicle before removal (so nobody can argue later about whether you were really over the line, or about that new scratch on the quarter panel), and let owners retrieve belongings even if they can't pay the bill in full. Car seats. Medication. Work tools. Right now that last one is a gray area some yards lean on hard.
It hasn't passed yet. Worth knowing where it stands before you argue it at a counter.
Myth: "My Boston sticker covers me."
Only in Boston. Brookline and Cambridge are separate municipalities with their own permit systems, their own posted rules, and their own tow contractors. Cross Commonwealth Ave in the wrong block and your resident sticker means nothing. That line runs right through the middle of daily life for anyone parking around Brighton and Brookline, and it's a quiet source of tows every single week.
What to actually do, in order
- Check whether the city took it first. Plate lookup at cityofboston.gov/towing/search, or call the BPD tow line at 617-343-4629. City lot is 617-635-3900.
- If BPD ordered the tow, clear it at the station before you go anywhere. The private company won't release the car until you have. People make that round trip twice a night in the South End and it's avoidable.
- Photograph the sign. Its wording, its height, whether it's readable at night. That's your record.
- Get an itemized receipt. Tow, storage, days counted. Storage runs per 24-hour period, not per calendar day someone decides to round up.
- Don't leave the car sitting. Storage compounds. A weekend of arguing costs more than the tow did.
Sept. 1 is the worst of it
Roughly two-thirds of leases in this city turn over on one day, the city hands out 3,000-plus moving-truck permits that weekend, and every apartment lot from Pratt Street to Chestnut Hill Ave gets treated like open parking by someone with a U-Haul. Blocked-driveway calls go through the roof. If you're moving into Allston that week, the cheapest thing you can do is pull the permit and put the cones out the night before.
We do the ordinary kind of towing — breakdowns, lockouts, flatbeds for the AWD Subarus that shouldn't go on a hook. If you're standing in a lot at 1 a.m. trying to figure out who has your car, call us and we'll at least tell you where to look. More on what we run and where, on the main page.