BALLWIN, Mo. — A double dose of bad news for a Ballwin, Missouri, woman, whose car was stolen, then recovered, and then mistakenly sold by the tow lot.
Her car was stolen in St. Louis, where the city tow lot admitted its mistake. However, it won’t turn over profits on the sale.
“It’s pretty sad that I’m a victim twice,” Rachel Addison said.
Addison said her 2006 Pontiac G6 was stolen within a week of her buying it. She hadn’t yet secured insurance for the vehicle when a car thief struck in south St. Louis this past May. One month later, her car was recovered and taken to the city’s impound lot.
“Every day I hoped I’d get it back, but I never got that phone call,” she said.
Addison only learned it had been recovered when she took the initiative to keep calling, but the tow lot reported they’d sold it.
A city hall spokesperson confirmed this to FOX 2: “The tow lot staff acknowledges this mistake and has taken corrective action with the employee.”
Addison said she bought the car for $3,000 and that the tow lot sold it for $650. She said they wouldn’t try to get it back. In addition, she claims the tow lot informed her she did not deserve the profit from the sale.
“(The employee) said it was sold to a private owner… We can’t tell you who it is, and that basically there was a tab of, like, $1,200, and that I was lucky that I wasn’t getting charged for it sitting in their lot,” she said.
A city hall spokesman responded that Addison would have to file a complaint through the Citizen’s Service Bureau to ask for the $650 from the tow lot’s sale. She did that six days ago and is still waiting for an answer.
“I don’t understand why they would do this to me,” Addison said.
In a statement to FOX 2, a city spokesperson said, “The tow lot has a specific set of protocols that must be followed prior to the sale of any vehicle in its possession, including verification of ownership. Regarding this Pontiac G6, the double verification process was not properly followed. … To improve our internal processes, the division’s policies have been changed to ensure that every step in the double verification process will be taken to contact the current owners of stolen or towed vehicles.”
The city says the answer to Addison’s claim on her car should come in the form of a letter in the mail after the city’s legal department examines the matter.
