An unfortunate “tow truck scam” incident is currently being widely shared on social media platforms. The story is as such: the victim lost control of his car, and thus required the vehicle to be towed. A tow truck then appeared at the scene, offering his services. The rest, you can pretty much guess at this point.
Having negotiated a fair sum to have the car towed to the police station, the victim was then asked to sign a document, which, in essence, gave the tow truck operators permission to move the vehicle in question. But, instead of doing what was asked of them, they then proceeded to demand a large amount of money from the victim; failing which they’d refuse to return the car.
The victim was left with no choice but to pay up, and instructed to have his vehicle dropped off at a pre-arranged car workshop. Not content with his ‘haul,’ however, the tow truck driver demanded for more payment, to which the victim refused. Angered, the perpetrator started physically abusing the victim with a rod, and only let up after the victim tried to call the police to the scene.
Unfortunately, as scary as this incident may sound, it’s not exactly an isolated case. More and more of such scams have been happening in Malaysia.
Dear readers, we should all take heed of such two truck scams and be more careful in such instances. For starters, you should never take up the offer of a “random” tow truck that “just so happened to be nearby” your car crash/breakdown location. There have been many cases where the tow truck operators themselves engineered the accidents, through the use of oil or nails on a targeted stretch of road.
What you should do, is to contact a trustworthy service operator to assist you in such situations.
For cars under warranty
The best option is to call your car’s official service centre or dealer for emergency roadside assistance. Certain models with electronic gear selectors and/or parking brakes may even need a special tool to engage a “tow mode.” Otherwise, the next best choice is to go with the tow truck service provided by your motor insurance company, or an association like AAM (Automobile Association of Malaysia) that offers breakdown services.
For older cars without warranty
Calling the car company’s official service centre is still a good option in this case, as it’s the most straightforward and worry-free choice (but not necessarily the most cost effective solution, naturally). Your motor insurance provider or AAM should be next on your list, followed by your regular workshop’s preferred tow truck driver/company.
If you’re interested in getting an AAM membership, you can click here to purchase one for RM60 a year, discounted from the usual RM75 a year price.
Put simply, you should never hand over your vehicle to someone that you do not know or trust, especially so if they appear even a tiny bit dodgy. Even if they appear to be nice, it’s always wise to err on the side of caution. Know that you have the rights to refuse their service and wait for your preferred tow truck to arrive.
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this webpage fails to mention one thing. the one and only thing – DO NOT MOVE THE CAR regardless of whatever the situation is, until the official insurance roadside service arrives.
nevermind the jam and traffic piles up – i am saying this honest and sarcasm free – you just dont panic and keep asking everyone to wait for the insurance roadside service arrives. even if you see people cursing or angry people all round you, in the above case including the pressuring police people.
that should be your first and foremost concern
if your car is causing a jam, then you should try move it!
You know drMpower does have a point. But I’m not saying leave your car in the middle of the road and cause a massive jam, just move it to the side. Don’t ever ever deal with some tow trucks on the road if you have to slightest doubt on them. I’ve cursed people blocking the road before, but when you are in that situation, everything’s changed.
Now you see why Toyota is so popular:
1. With Toyota, you hardly have break down on the roadside.
2. Toyota provide you 24/7 road assist service. http://www.toyota.com.my/purchase-additions/24seven-road-assists.html
With Toyota, you are hassle worry.
But your lousy toyota got no VSC and always crash. Every time I see accident on the road. 99/100 times its a toyota or perodua.
The car won’t crash to another car without a driver. You choke when you eat, then you blame your bowl?
However, the car will break down itself and stall the traffic. 100/100 times it is a Proton.
*the broken down Iswara/wira/waja have no vsc abd airbags too, so what say you?
“engineered” be carefull guys when u at r&r & highway
you should cursed ppl who slow down or stopped their vehicle and watch what is happening. Sometime slow down will cause more accident. Some ppl just never realized the danger of the situation. If you want to help park your vehicle properly without blocking the way.
you dont have to blame the bowl but you may think of eating with a plate instead.
You sure cause more trouble to others… Hope if the Ambulance won’t thanks you for causing to much jam !!!
Today, almost everybody carry a smartphone. Take a picture or a short clip of the incident and its surrounding and then move your car to the side of the road if possible.
I hate to see people with minor accident and a small dent on the bumper yet causing a massive traffic jam on the road simply because they insist to move and and arguing with the other party in the middle of road.
Never sign anything with these thugs. If they forcefully tow your car and ask for ransom, just make police report for theft.
And stay without car for months… Police will do nothing, will ask to go to court first, to get the confirmation to file the case and later bla bla follow up etc.
Many of these independent tow truck are heartless thugs who should be in jail or better still given the hudud punishment.
If they can engineer accidents that can kill you and your family, do you think they care about your wellbeing at all?
I personally experienced these thugs trying to engineer crash on the Plus Highway, both times just after Tapah going up the long uphill road towards Ipoh.
Sam Loo, relek la brader.
VW tengah promo murah2, nanti mesti sales naik, pi la baham diorang. Pompuan lagi suka pakai VW, kill 2 birds with 1 stone, jual undergarment skali pun bole kat diorang.
I had experienced once on PLUS(before Nilai exit(3-5km) bcoz of water hose broke apart), within 30min of distant, driving slow bcos high temperature, at least 7-8 tow truck operator approached me wanted to tow my car. But i refused! even 2 PLUS highway patrol came and keep asking me to let tow truck operator tow. At the end i exit Nilai, park my car near some shop, remove that broken hose, ride a Taxi(to&fro, 20minutes, charged Rm35 without meter), went to nearest spare part shop buy(Rm15.00 a piece) and back to install myself, refill water from toll toilet, took me 3hours(difficult to find Taxi) and continued my journey. Taxi uncle said i’m lucky not to let them towed my car.
problem is…i do not know how to fix the hose. I am no Mr. MacGyver =(
LEARN!!
Youtube to the rescue. No excuse not to know anything with Google and the internet at your fingertips.
exactly same occurance on my fren, he is not aware of such case, he got everything in his engine compartment teared out, after got towed to the black shop.
paid 2k just to release his car, paid another 2k to tow and then fix his car to decent workshop.
our police busy harassing opposition and NGO’s!
BTW certain insurance also provide towing services.
policeman busy minum teh tarik, makan kuih lapis and raping indon girls in lockup. No time to answer your calls mate
you’ll receive no help from popo.. unless you’re a vvip that is.. yeah malaysia boleh..
Implement JPJ dress code requirements? That is utterly bull**** while we have things like this happening in Malaysia, I dare to assume it happen everyday without fail.
We have bigger problems, and this is only one of it.
This is what we should really rectify, as you would never want things like this happened to you or your beloved one.
hey KY jeli, stay on topik la. blame jpj because u got scam by tow truk? dafak la grow a brain plz
Nowdays, many insurers provide free towing service for certain distant. If out of boundary, the charges are reasonable. Always put the sticker with insurance company contact number on the windscreen. During emergency just call them.
Had experience car broken down before. Those thuggish tow truck swarm around me in no time. But I was really firm and steadfast and they finally left me alone. Even those highway operator tow trucks work in cohort with unscruplous workshop. Dont trust them.
Once a friend car involved in accident. He was being harassed by those tow truckers in agressive manner. He called some buddies to come over. We all went over in about 5 cars. There were about 10 of us now. And the tow truck fellas backed off just like pussies.
“Police Traffic” also work with them lerr….
if im not mistaken , now all insurance companies provide some sort of free towing service…
but on a general note , what the hell happened to msia ????!!
Since we have the photo why the police don’t want to take action and investigate the matters? I hate dealing with this kind of A$$hole.
in between tolls eg on plus highway, plus has to tow your car free of charge to the nearest exit.
No use la…I met 1 thug tow truck driver, he is so fierce that he told me no matter how I will tow ur car… that until a policeman come, the policeman told me he can’t do much help but to let the thug tow my car.
Police said no choice, the thud is in charge of this area… so what to do? Sometimes I feel so helpless… in this world, who fierce who win….sadly…
When its concerned the rakyat the authorities just kept their deaf ear doing nothing to implement a strick law because they only look after their political career.
I’m wondering if the above already happen, what should be ways to oppose this thugs. Bring them to court? But charged under what?
I had an experience where I believe I was set up by the tow truck syndicates.
The road was dark and quiet (bkt jalil highway towards puchong), and out of nowhere there was a pile of bricks, and i kid you not, the bricks are laid out nicely in the middle of the road, i had to swerve violently to avoid collision and my esc kicked in, despite the best effort of the car to control the sudden change in direction, my car (audi a4) brushed the divider and subsequently the tyres were damaged along with my skirting..
lo and behold, within 2 minutes a tow truck came and pretended to be a good samaritan.. i declined his offer (it was only 200 but i believe they will ask for a bigger ransom later) and slowly drove my car towards the petrol station, they followed and tailgated me, seemingly to intimidate me when they were shouting for me to get their service..
parked my car at the petrol station and return home with a taxi, before i reclaimed the car with a trusted tow truck company the next day…
-BigBalls-
So, after all the horrible stories and incidents happened to car owners, what have the authorities (police, RTD, consumers association etc) have DONE??
Are the authorities waiting for reports from victim, then take action ah?
You mean police will only take action when there was death after robbery?
You mean JPJ only take action only when scam happpened?
RTD only make studies, report and lastly take action when there were death involved at certain stretch of road??
The current govt sucks like Sh**…..Thanks to those voted the BN goons…
Fantastic Country…is there a better place?
where is policeman now? Hiding like chicken.
They all went Najib mode
-BigBalls-
peronda highway pon sama jugak..bukan polis je..
But for this guy’s case, tyre burst and blocking traffic. How to push?
I’d be honest, not even the insurance companies are good.
I had a car that broke down, under warranty. Called up the manufacturer, and they told me they would take 3 hours to get a tow for me. In the same time, was trying to get contact with my insurance company instead, they had no idea what time they could get theirs, so I waited. In the mean time, after an hour, the insurance company called to inform some guy is coming in an hour, while my manufacturer called back to say they have found a guy to come in 30 minutes, Tried to cancel the insurance company one, they could not and I had to deal with speaking to the tow guy directly over the phone.
Which is refused, although he was almost 20 km from where I was, while my manufacturer tow was 5 km away. He still got there after my manufacturer’s tow came and when I declined he called the “insurance company” (in actual fact the boss of the tow place) and made me speak to them.
Lets just say he got a piece of my mind before I paid him cash to shut up and get lost. A good thing I got the manufacturer to come in to tow it, cause my car has an electronic gear lever and handbrake, so you have to manually enable tow mode if the car can’t start – while the insurance guy wanted to dump it on a dolly – which when I checked my manual after that, the manufacturer doesn’t recommend cause you will fry the diff.
Let’s just say my next policy will not be from these morons ever. On the other hand, MSIG was pretty good though when they got there in the rain and traffic to have my battery sorted.
could you disclose the moron insurer?
would like to avoid it
tq
megane?
Seriously this BEQ1708 guy deserves a toast-slam!!
What the F^&* is going on with the Road Transport Department and the Police!!! This is broad daylight robbery and criminal intimidation!!!
No actions have been taken so far after deploying over 100k officers in policing twitter?Do we need to put a hashtag in every crime post to get your officers’ attention so that you can get notice?
DS Liow TL still busy with his official opening of JPJ by having the slogan “JPJ sedia memberi perkhidmatan yang berkualiti kepada rakyat” and no time to look into our road safety???
C’mon mann, bapak-bapak sekalian yang berada di atas. Your rakyat,voters and non-voters are being bullied in broad daylight and no stern action has been taken against these thugs.
You have the tow truck’s plate registration number and you still busy crashing into rakyats’ premises to arrest for not paying your RM300 summons. Hello, the victim has paid more than RM2000 just to get his car back from the vultures, more than 6 times the RM300 summon.
This is getting ridiculous particularly letting the thugs running the business. This is meritocracy at its rotten stage.
A similar incident happened to my close family member about 2 years ago. The accident happened in Klang. The so called “call-man” arrived instantly like as though they already knew it was a hot spot for accidents. Within 15 mins, there was a total of 8 cars, all of whom are his friends and they managed to double park the damaged car. They then insisted that we use their workshop for repairs but since the car was quite new, we called the “official service center”. This angered them and they started to threaten us. Claiming that they will be able to locate our home from the number plate. In addition, they also warned us that they will be looking out for our car on the street. When one of us tried to take photos of them, they immediately retaliated and threaten to beat us up and break our phones. The nearest police station was just 5 mins walking distance, one of us already went there. After a long agonizing 30 mins wait with all the threats of beating us up, a police officer came to the scene. To our dismay, they seem to know each other. When our tow truck from the official service center came, he was not allowed to tow our car unless we pay these gangsters. Even the police man instructed these people to move their cars too. However, they threaten again and again in front of the police man to watch our backs. They also told the tow truck driver that his truck will be in danger too if he tows our car. They claimed to be connected to the police station too and spoke quietly to the police. I was in shock because the police man just ignored their threats, even when it was spoken in national language.
As a commoner, a family with young kids, how could we take such risk to watch our back in the future? We had no choice but to pay these thugs off. If we did not, the official service center tow truck also dare not tow our car away. As long as these thugs are still in business and highly connected, there is no advice to give from this experience of mine. If your car can still move, drive it to the nearest police station. Otherwise, prepare for some handouts.
is it in pandamaran bro?
i heard that before..
the workshop name starts with the location name aite?
It’s in Pandamaran and I think you’re right but I cannot confirm the workshop name. Their gang consist of chinese and indians who speaks hokkien. All of them driving cheaply modified old locally made cars. Can’t speak english and very snobbish. They approach you looking like gangsters…be careful
now that we know the mother company for this tow truck, what then?
just google and see that the founder has some “connections” with the “authorities”
I had a similar story when I went to the police station kajang to get a report for my car accident so I can claim for insurance , then the police man fooled me by saying “we have to take your car to our recognized workshop to finalize your report” ! I belived him anyway and let him drive !! So you can guess what happens next . (Dirty cops) I still don’t believe how that happened
I got a hit and run and report polis in PJ where he told me your car is not upside down and it’s hard for them to catch the culprit and they might twist the story, …so I left with do not know when will I can claim my insurance but fixing it my self although small matters…
Crime does not pay but rewarded in this country because authority is part of the crime ring…
i would like to advise public whenever accident happened. Firstly, pls call your insurance company toll free number to help you to tow the vehicle and it is FREE and cap to RM300 for accident and cap to RM200 if breakdown. This is sufficient for you to tow the vehicle to your insurance panel workshop. Don’t need to listen the towing man say anything. Just be calm and call insurance company as well for further advise.
Calling the insurance company is always the first choice. Not really agree to call the official service centre, even TOYOTA. Especially Toyota Seksyen 15 Shah Alam. Not every service centre are good in service also. Waiting for the fixing will make us frustrated and the quality after fixed going to drive us more crazy. Sent in Toyota seksyen 15 shah alam and after that send in to Toyota shamelin cheras becoz the shah alam one did the shit job. screw also gone few pieces …. damned.