'Predatory' San Francisco Towing Company Barred From City Business for 5 Years

A couple whose company was accused of illegally towing cars and scamming the owners out of money to get their vehicles back have been barred from doing business with San Francisco for five years, City Attorney David Chiu announced Tuesday.

Abigail Fuentes and Jose Badillo operate three tow companies: Auto Towing, Jose’s Towing and Specialty Towing and Recovery. The process to ban the companies from bidding on or receiving contracts with the city — known as debarment — was brought by Chiu in August after his office became aware of illegal tows by Auto Towing.

“As we dug into this, we discovered how Auto Towing was engaged in predatory behavior and unfair business practices, intentionally misleading and scamming people out of hundreds of dollars by illegally towing cars,” Chiu said. “It also turns out that their permitted operating location was in one place, but they were towing vehicles to another lot at a different location, making it difficult for owners to find their cars.”

Auto Towing illegally towed at least six vehicles from a bank parking lot in the Portola neighborhood between February and May 2023 without the bank’s permission. The law requires the property owner’s authorization to tow from private property.

On one occasion, employees of the company tried to tow a car while the bank’s manager argued with them and told them to stop, but they eventually left after the manager took photos and threatened to call the police, according to court documents.

In April, a video of a Specialty Towing driver attempting to tow a moving vehicle in San Francisco went viral. The company also pressured car owners to pay in cash to get their cars back, according to court documents.

Fuentes and Badillo did not attend the debarment hearing, allowing the city attorney to proceed with the case expeditiously.

“They just didn’t show up, which was pretty surprising,” Chiu said. “It made it a bit easier on us to prove our case as no one presented evidence on the other side.”

Fuentes and Bardillo are also named in multiple separate civil fraud cases and a criminal welfare fraud case. In an ongoing 2021 civil fraud case against Fuentes, court documents allege that Bardillo was banned by the California attorney general in 2017 from ever operating a towing business in the state, that he then transferred ownership of the business to Fuentes and continued to run it.

Separately, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office in October charged Fuentes with 12 felonies and Badillo with six felonies related to an alleged welfare fraud scheme.

The couple are alleged to have defrauded multiple benefits programs. In one instance described in court documents, Fuentes, working for the city’s Human Services Agency as a senior eligibility worker, approved Badillo’s application for benefits without disclosing their relationship. Badillo reported $1,000 in monthly income with no assets, property or vehicles, a Human Services Agency investigator wrote in an affidavit.

While receiving public benefits, Fuentes and Badillo’s three tow truck companies generated over $2 million in gross annual income, they own four properties in San Francisco, and last year they bought a Lamborghini valued at over $280,000, according to court documents.

The criminal case has not been resolved.

“It’s still pending. All the facts are still being ascertained. You know, there’s a lot of discovery, there’s a lot of dynamics at play here, and I think people need to keep an open mind,” said Allen Sawyer, an attorney representing Badillo in the case.

An attorney representing Fuentes did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

An employee for a phone dispatch service that takes calls for Auto Towing said Tuesday that the company had been dissolved.

Chiu said he had heard that the company had closed but added, “We don’t know anything for sure.”

Debarment proceedings have become more frequent, Chiu said, after legislation adopted in recent years has “made it easier for the city to suspend contractors accused of crimes relevant to their ability to receive city funding and gave us the power to move forward a bit more expeditiously.”

During the fiscal year that ended in June, the city attorney’s office issued suspension orders or submitted requests to debar 29 individuals or entities — compared with 11 suspensions or debarments in the prior three years, according to the office.