Wyatts Towing hauled away thousands of vehicles without proper authorization, illegally kept consumer funds and engaged in “deceptive and unfair business practices” to discourage drivers from exercising their rights, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office announced Thursday.
Under a settlement agreement with Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office, the towing giant agreed to pay $1 million in restitution and outstanding debt it holds from consumers who used the state’s 2022 Towing Bill of Rights law to retrieve their vehicles.
Wyatts also agreed to change numerous business practices to comply with Colorado’s consumer protection laws and recent legislation.
“This is a new chapter in how we regulate and oversee the towing industry,” Weiser said in an interview Thursday.
Wyatts denied any wrongdoing. In a statement through its attorney, the company classified the attorney general’s primary findings as “administrative errors and issues that had already been addressed by the company’s regulators at the PUC.”
“We look forward to continuing to help property owners manage their properties and to working with the AG and the legislature on ensuring the industry remains professional and well-regulated, with clear rules for everyone to follow,” the company said.
The agreement caps the AG’s yearlong investigation into Colorado’s largest towing carrier, which has come under intense scrutiny from consumer advocates, lawmakers and state investigators. The company faces a proposed class-action lawsuit over its practices, and legislators this session will consider another bill — in direct response to Wyatts — that would drastically change the way towing is done in the state.
The attorney general’s findings mirror reporting by The Denver Post over the past two years, detailing “numerous violations of state laws.”
Between 2020 and 2023, Wyatts and its sister companies repeatedly towed vehicles when they had no valid permits, state investigators found. During one five-day period in September 2022, Wyatts towed hundreds of cars and collected more than $100,000 from towing fees and auction sales of these vehicles.
The company only issued refunds when consumers complained, the AG’s office said. When some consumers couldn’t afford the fees to retrieve their vehicles from the tow yard, Wyatts sold their vehicles at auction and kept the money, the investigation found. The company’s failure to refund money from an unlawful tow violated the Colorado Consumer Protection Act, the attorney general stated.
Wyatts also instituted practices — such as driving up storage fees on more expensive cars — to keep more funds from vehicle sales and lower the amount it returned to consumers or the state, investigators found. In fact, Wyatts did not pay overage funds to the Department of Revenue from 2017 through 2022, the AG’s probe found. This meant the state could not distribute overage money to vehicle owners.
The Division of Motor Vehicles told The Post in October that the state hardly sees any money from the sales of auctioned vehicles, even though state law says extra money from these transactions should be going to the government. The state received three checks in March from Wyatts’ companies amounting to just over $62,000 for sales of these abandoned vehicles from the final quarter of 2022.
The probe also found that Wyatts allowed tow drivers to authorize tows on residential properties — despite a new law that outlawed the practice. HB22-1314 specified that only property managers and other third parties could authorize tows from private lots.
The attorney general’s investigation outlined other prohibited practices, including charging 2,000 vehicle owners a $75 notification fee despite no documentation that the company actually sent consumers notices. Wyatts made more than $200,000 from these transactions, investigators found. None of the consumers received refunds.
One of the biggest changes in the 2022 Towing Bill of Rights law allowed vehicle owners to retrieve their vehicles if they paid 15% of the towing fees upfront, up to a maximum of $60. Drivers would still owe the balance, but could pay it off over time.
“Wyatts executives were worried about this retrieval statute because they thought that consumers would pay a reduced rate and it would be difficult to collect the remaining debt,” the AG’s office said.
Trevor Forbes, the company’s CEO, stated in public hearings that few people ever paid the remaining balance.
State investigators found that after the new law went into effect in August 2022, the company deterred consumers from using this 15% or $60 option. Wyatts employees were instructed to tell individuals that the required Public Utilities Commission form was available online but they would not provide the document.
The AG’s office also found that the company required people to enter into a loan agreement, charging the highest allowable interest rate. Lawmakers expressed outrage over the summer after learning of this practice, saying it expressly went against the bill’s language. Forbes, at the time, said the company was confused about the new law, and that it stopped the loan program after the attorney general’s office said it went against state statute.
Wyatts never collected or attempted to collect any fees or interest in connection with the loans, the state investigation found.
Of the $1 million settlement, $764,000 will be returned to consumers and be used in future attorney general fraud investigations. The company also agreed not to collect $236,000 in outstanding debt it holds from consumers who utilized the 15% or $60 provision.
In addition, Wyatts also agreed to several changes to its business practices, including:
Refund all fees and costs charged to consumers for future improper tows
Not charge a notification fee until the company comes into compliance with state statute
Provide vehicle owners with the PUC form to retrieve their cars
Not impose additional obligations on the consumer aside from the PUC form
Establish and implement policies for clear documentation on every vehicle sold or auctioned for overage payment purposes
Conduct at least three audits per year to “monitor erroneous towing trends”
“Wyatts Towing used deceptive practices and broke the law to make a quick buck,” Weiser said. “They are now taking responsibility and cooperating to resolve this case.”
Weiser called the agreement a “significant settlement.”
“Consumers should not have to act as their own lawyers,” he said. “Companies should be acting lawfully and have a business model to treat customers fairly.”
The towing industry has become increasingly frustrated with Wyatts and Colorado’s nonconsensual towing model.
The Towing & Recovery Professionals of Colorado, an industry group representing towers, is working with Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, a Fort Collins Democrat, to completely reimagine towing from private properties.
Under the proposal, private property owners — such as apartment complexes — would pay for towing services, as opposed to consumers giving money directly to tow carriers. The idea, lawmakers and industry professionals say, is to remove the tow carrier’s incentive to haul off as many cars as possible.
The industry group’s president, John Connolly, told The Post in September that Wyatts is “at odds with the official position of the towing industry.”
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