On a crisp afternoon this past April in Hyde Park, the scene at East 53rd Street and Blackstone Avenue looked straight out of a Hollywood movie.
The woman insisted that wasn’t true, and that she was shopping in one of the many businesses the parking lot belongs to. Drivers have raised allegations that the towing company was unfairly towing cars from authorized spots, and then gouging drivers with big fees. She arrived on-time, finished her taxes, and was finished by 1:15 pm that day. But when she walked out of the H&R Block, she said her car was gone.Not stolen, precisely, but taken unfairly, Boykin said, by a Rokaitis tow truck. She was given a ticket requiring her to pay more than $200 to get her car back.
Case in point, it was only in researching Boykin’s case that six days later, NBC 5’s cameras captured the other Rokaitis towing incident, where a crowd tried to step in and stop a Rokaitis driver from towing another woman’s car. The ICC’s conclusion relied on the video provided by Rokaitis, and that video clip was shared with NBC 5 via a Freedom of Information request, which the company claimed shows Boykin walking off the lot.
Data obtained by NBC 5 Responds shows in 84% of more than 700 complaint investigations by the ICC since 2021, regulators either sided with the tow companies or ruled the nature of the complaint was outside of their legal jurisdiction. After NBC 5’s involvement, and after her complaint investigation was reopened by the ICC, the investigator again sided with Rokaitis.
They do!