QuestionMy vehicle recently broke down on I-69 between Auburn, Indiana and Ft. Wayne. An Indiana State Police officer stop to assist me by calling a tow truck for me. He called Jeff's Auto Repair and Towing out of Auburn. Now Jeff's is trying to charge me with a $75 dollar call in fee for the police calling them out to the scene. I was with my vehicle the entire time it was on the side of the road and it was not impounded either. Do they have the right to charge me with this ridiculous fee?
Answer"Call in fee" now that confuses me a bit..
First of all when a tow truck is called either by you the customer or a law enforcement officer as either a break down or an impound - accident tow, the tow company charges for the services...
Towing services are private business and not paid by law enforcement agencies...
But in lots of cases the tow service is "under contract" for response times and allowable charges for the services... This also at times does have provisions in it where the law enforcement charges the towing service a "dispatch fee" to cover the costs of administrating the rotation call list. That might be the "call in fee" you are talking about... But in all actuality it is a hidden tax which the ordering agency collects..
And of course the towing service passes the fee along to the customers...
I hope this answers the questions you have, but its kind of hard to answer. I did some research on the tow company and did not find anything about them either good or bad. I also did not find out if there is a "dispatch - call in fee" provision in any state laws, but that does not mean there is not one, Just means that I did not find it in the first 40 or so things I looked at online..
