A Philadelphia woman recently parked her car legally on the street in a spot she had used many times. This time, however, when she went back to it the next day, it had mysteriously vanished. Had it been stolen?
“The car was gone. Just missing,” Annie Taylor told ABC 6 News.
Taylor, who was pretty new to the city, said she had put an AirTag tracker in their vehicle. So, after checking the location of the AirTag, she discovered that her car was surprisingly now at an impound lot.
When her husband went to the impound lot to find out why the car had been towed from a perfectly legal parking spot, he was told their car had been parked illegally on the 1000 block of Clinton Street.
“They showed him a photo, and his car was actually parked on this side of the street instead of the correct side, which made no sense because we did not move it to this side of the street,” Taylor said.
That set off a two-week investigation to figure out just what the heck had happened. How did her car magically move from the parking spot she left it in to an illegal space?
They started checking neighborhood camera footage and making calls. What they learned was a tree service had been cutting down a tree on the block the day before her car was towed. The tree service claimed temporary no-parking signs had been posted 48 hours in advance. Taylor’s husband said he checked for signs the day before the work was done, and did not see any.
Neighborhood camera footage solved the mystery of the disappearing car
Workers are seen pushing the car across the street into a no-parking area using dollies in neighborhood camera footage. It turned out that, to avoid having cars towed out of the way, the company’s owner said they occasionally move cars themselves.
Now the couple is on the hook for a $175 impound fee. The couple also says their car was damaged and they plan to file a claim with the Philadelphia Parking Authority.
“The bottom of the car, like on the passenger side, the plastic piece that covers all the wires and near the tire cover was just ripped off and dragging on the ground,” Taylor said.
In the end, Taylor said the tree service offered to pay the impound fee. “So, honestly, all things considered… the company was actually the most helpful people of them all,” she said. Then again, they are the reason this whole mess got started in the first place.