History: Checking a Towing Company's Track Record

A track record is only worth trusting when a reader can check it. This page sets out what a company's own work, its state paperwork and public reviews can show, what each one leaves out, and the figures to hold a bill against.

Start with the record a reader can verify

We check a towing company the way we check anything in this guide: against a record a reader can verify without taking anyone's word for it. A company's own website, the registration or licence it holds with the state, and reviews left by the public each show something, and each leaves something out. None of them settles alone whether a company is any good. Read together and over time, they show whether what a company says it does matches the rules and the public record.

This page does not tell the story of this site, its owner or any company. It gives the questions to ask, the figures to check a bill against, and the limits of each kind of record, so a reader can do the checking for themselves.

Four figures to check a bill against

Each figure is a state rule with its source beside it. Where a figure may have changed, the page says so.

$132: The maximum a Massachusetts tow company may charge for a police-ordered or involuntary tow of a passenger vehicle, as City of Boston's towing page states it. That page carries no date, so confirm the current figure with the Department of Public Utilities before you rely on it. City of Boston, what you need to know about towing
$35: The storage cap per 24-hour period for a passenger vehicle towed involuntarily in Massachusetts. The cap applies only to lighted outside storage enclosed by a secure fence or barrier at least six feet high. G.L. c. 159B, section 6B
$1,000,000: The minimum liability cover a New Hampshire tow business must carry to be on the State Police tow list, garage-keeper's cover included. A company without it is not on that list. RSA 106-B:30
One half: In Massachusetts, when an owner arrives before a private-property tow is finished, the tower may charge only half the fee usually charged for that tow. G.L. c. 266, section 120D

An AI-generated picture of a mechanic kneeling at a car wheel with a lug wrench

What a company's own published work can and cannot show

A company's website and published material tell you what it says it does: the services it lists, the areas it covers and the hours it gives. They are useful for that and for nothing more. A page describing roadside service does not show how a company treats a car at the roadside, how often it arrives when it promises, or whether its bills follow the rates the state publishes. Use a company's own material to find out what it offers, then test what it claims against the rules and the public record.

Three people gathered around a table with printed road maps in a bright room — This picture is AI-generated and is not a photograph of anyone who runs this site. It stands for a plain habit: a route, a rule or a rate can be checked on paper, against a published source.

The habits we keep when a record looks thin

We hold to four habits when we check a company, and each is one a reader could slip on without noticing. First, a review is a view, not a verdict, so one good or bad review decides nothing. Second, a figure on a bill is checked against the state's own published figure, and where that figure is not current, we say so rather than guess. Third, we never judge a company by its name or by the words people search for, because neither says anything about its record. Fourth, we do not rank companies or name one as the best, since nothing on this site gives us a basis for that.