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.
A crowd made up of onlookers, and neighbors stood in front of a private tow truck, blocking it from moving forward in the middle of the road. Officers were there, trying to mediate and calm the nerves and tensions in the moment.
The group assembled to the defense of the woman whose car was hooked to the back of the truck, insisting she was not in the wrong and her car shouldn’t be towed.
The tow truck driver refused to listen to the woman and crowd’s demands, arguing he was in the right to tow her car from a shopping center parking lot after he claimed he saw her walk off the property.
The woman insisted that wasn’t true, and that she was shopping in one of the many businesses the parking lot belongs to.
In the end, the hour-long pleas and requests to compromise were not enough: The woman’s car was towed, and she was assessed more than $200 in fines to get it back.
NBC 5’s cameras were there, covering the entire drama as it unfolded, coincidentally there while researching another similar complaint against the tow company in question: Rokaitis Industries.
Drivers have raised allegations that the towing company was unfairly towing cars from authorized spots, and then gouging drivers with big fees.
In Illinois, private businesses can hire tow companies to monitor their parking lots and ensure only customers are parking there. Even if a driver shops at a business, and walks off the lot, their car can still be legally towed.
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But in these circumstances, the drivers insisted they never walked off the lot, yet a Rokaitis driver towed their car anyway.
In these circumstances, consumers have the right to file formal complaints with the state’s towing regulators, the Illinois Commerce Commission, but NBC 5 Responds found these investigations rarely end in the driver’s favor, and even if they’re vindicated, there are many hurdles to jump through before a refund is ever issued.
Even when, in one case, the driver had proof it was an illegal tow.
‘This place is notorious.’
Geanna Boykin said it was on April 15 when she had a noon appointment to get her taxes done at the H&R Block, located at 1410 E. 53rd Street.
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.
“I came out an hour and 15 minutes later, and I thought my car was stolen,” Boykin said.
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.
But Boykin said she had proof of her appointment at the H&R Block, an authorized business in that parking lot, and that she didn’t step foot off the lot for any other reason, knowing full well the consequences.
“This place is notorious,” Boykin said. “Every time I’ve told my story, I have a friend or relative who says this same thing happened to them.”
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.
In Boykin’s case, Rokaitis told her she was lying, and they had video to prove she had walked off the parking lot.
The company repeated that claim to NBC 5, a manager saying he personally watched a video clip showing Boykin walk off the lot immediately after parking. The Rokaitis manager declined our requests to see the video, saying he would only share the video with state regulators, if a formal complaint was filed.
So, Boykin filed a complaint with those state regulators, the Illinois Commerce Commission’s Police Department, hoping they would sort this out and help her get a refund.
It didn’t work that way.
According to the ICC Police investigation file, obtained by NBC 5, less than a month after she filed her complaint, investigators opened and closed her case. The investigator’s conclusion was in Rokaitis’ favor, ruling that Boykin “did leave the private property parking lot,” and that there was “insufficient evidence” that Rokaitis towed her car illegally.
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.
The grainy, low-resolution video from across the parking lot that Rokaitis provided appears to depict two people walking off the parking lot, but it is impossible to tell the gender or any other details about those people depicted. The ICC confirmed the quality of the video clip was not diminished via transfer, and that it was “the same quality video [the investigator] received during the investigation.”
Boykin saw the video and insisted she was alone that day, and that she couldn’t believe that was the evidence the state relied on when ruling against her.
“I don't know what that is. If they are using that as evidence, then that's just flagrant to me,” Boykin said.
Boykin shared with NBC 5 proof of her H&R Block appointment that day, as well as her time-stamped receipt proving she was in the store at the moment her car was towed.
An H&R Block representative also confirmed Boykin’s appointment with NBC 5 Responds.
After sharing this with the ICC, and asking what more a driver would need to prove they were properly parked, the agency told NBC 5 it would reopen its investigation of Boykin’s complaint.
Providing tentative hope in a process that rarely sides with drivers.
ICC Complaint Investigations Rarely Side With Drivers
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.
A spokesperson for the ICC said, “Without looking through every complaint, the numbers are not truly representative of why the investigations were founded or closed. No one is happy to get their car towed and they might contact the ICC to complain even when they are legitimately towed.”
Rokaitis Industries is among the top-three tow companies complained about, with the ICC receiving 94 complaints about Rokaitis tows since 2021. Only 11 of those complaint investigations resulted in a refund.
Rokaitis did not respond to NBC 5’s repeated requests for comment.
In its statement to NBC 5, the ICC came to Rokaitis’ defense, pointing out that it’s one of the largest towing companies in the state and that only 1% of the company’s reported tows resulted in a complaint filed.
“Relocation towers provide a service to private property owners to ensure paying customers have space to park,” a spokesperson for the ICC said. “We want to emphasize that the ICC takes all complaints very seriously, and if a motorist believes they have been unlawfully towed, our investigators want to talk to them.”
‘I see them do this all the time.’
In Boykin’s case, after insisting since day one she never walked off the lot that day, her persistence and pushback paid off.
After NBC 5’s involvement, and after her complaint investigation was reopened by the ICC, the investigator again sided with Rokaitis.
But the investigator’s supervisor arrived at a different conclusion, writing that there was “sufficient evidence and probable cause” to issue Rokaitis Industries a citation, in connection with Boykin’s April 15 tow.
The supervisor said the evidence shared by NBC 5, “raised a fair question as to whether the female… in the video was the complainant.”
The citation included a refund to Boykin: $218.50 for all of the fees she paid to get her car back.
But Boykin will likely never get her money back, as NBC 5 found towing companies have the ability to bypass the formal hearing process required for state regulators to impose a refund.
The ICC explains that a citation is only an allegation of a violation, and in order for a relocator, like Rokaitis, to be required to provide a refund, the violation must be proven at a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge.
But according to the commission’s rules, if the towing company chooses to pay a fine instead of contesting the citation, an ALJ hearing will not be held. Therefore, no refund can be imposed by state regulators.
In Boykin’s case, Rokaitis Industries chose to pay a $100 fine to state regulators, less than half of the amount of Boykin’s refund.
The ICC compared the process for private towing companies accused of violating state law to motorists receiving a traffic ticket.
“There is no hearing before an ALJ, because Rokaitis has paid the citation,” an ICC spokesperson said. “It [is] similar to getting a traffic ticket, a motorist can pay the fine and not go to court.”
Boykin, upset over how the system works, said she at least feels vindicated that the ICC investigators eventually found she was in the right. She hopes that sharing her story will help others out there like her.
“I've lived here for over 10 years, so I see them do this all the time,” Boykin said. “They need to be exposed.”
