This SF Man Stood Up to the Viral Predatory Towing Company. His Fight Continues

It’s impossible to know how many San Franciscans were scammed over the years by Jose Badillo and Abigail Fuentes, but February 2019 might have been the beginning of the end for their towing when a black 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser was towed from a Foods Co. parking lot in the Bayview.

Sammy Hallaq lived across the street from the store and ran to stop his car from being towed.

“I told them to release it on the spot because the car was still in the parking lot,” Hallaq, 58, told KQED. “If you catch them in the act and you request that they release the car, by law, they have to release it and charge you just the hook-up fee. They refused, and they drove off.”

That marked the beginning of a yearslong legal battle with Badillo and Fuentes, who have operated three tow companies: Auto Towing, Jose’s Towing and Specialty Towing and Recovery. Earlier this week, the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office announced it had prevailed in a proceeding to block the predatory tow truck companies from doing business with the city for five years.

The process, called debarment, began last year after one of the companies bid for a city contract. While researching the company, the city found that it had been illegally towing cars and scamming people.

The research Hallaq did in his quest to recover damages from the illegal tow was shared with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. It eventually led to Badillo and Fuentes being charged with a combined 18 felonies.

Auto Towing was using predatory business practices, such as making it difficult for people to find and retrieve their cars, causing them to rack up daily storage fees. The company pressured people to pay in cash, according to a statement from the city attorney’s office. The predatory towing and scamming appears to go back years, possibly to 2016 when Badillo opened Jose’s Towing.

Badillo also operates Specialty Towing and Removal, which, in April, was caught in a video that went viral attempting to tow a car in the middle of traffic while the driver tried to maneuver away.

When Hallaq, who works as a linguist and translator, first called Auto Towing to retrieve his car, they sent him to the wrong location. Then, he was told he couldn’t get his car back because it was the weekend. After several hours of phone calls, he got to his car. He said an employee tried to pressure him to pay the $504 fee in cash, but he refused.

He got his car back and went home.

“I started researching the laws that have to do with towing, and I realized that there are violations all over the place,” Hallaq said.

On July 23, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said Auto Towing had been “intentionally misleading and scamming people out of hundreds of dollars by illegally towing cars.”

Hallaq said he noticed negative reviews on Yelp where people described similar experiences with the company. He called and asked for some of his money back. He said Auto Towing rightfully could have charged him for the hook-up fee, but he shouldn’t have had to pay the charges for towing and storage. He offered to split the cost, requesting a refund of $252. But the employee he spoke to declined.

Hallaq kept calling.

“I asked to speak to the owner or manager and they would not let me speak to him,” he said. “They kept brushing me off, hoping that I would just go away like so many other people.”

He didn’t. When his calls stopped being answered, he used *67 to block the caller ID. Then, he started using his friends’ phones and downloaded apps that allowed him to call from different numbers.

After two weeks of calling, Hallaq said he was invited to a meeting. When he arrived, Hallaq said the employee asked to see the receipt he had from retrieving his car. He claims the employee wouldn’t give it back. Hallaq called the police, who arrived and got the receipt back to him. Hallaq said he was told not to come back.

He had another option to try to recover some of the $504 — small claims court.

“No attorney would take a case like this,” Hallaq said. He filed the claim himself.

It wasn’t just about the money.

“They are a menace to society,” Hallaq said. “I like to stand my ground. But I also believe that I’m doing a community service.”

Hallaq was born in Jordan and moved to the U.S. 35 years ago. He came to California to take over an immigration consulting business for a family member who was moving back to the Middle East.

“I spent some time to learn the ins and outs, and I took over the business for three years,” he said. “Even though I’m not an attorney, I consider that I have a little bit of legal background.”

He investigated the couple and their businesses using publicly available records. He found that Badillo had his towing license revoked by the state in 2017 and that he transferred ownership of the business to Fuentes. The business changed its name from Jose’s Towing to Auto Towing.

The small claims case ended in a judgment of $4,016 for Hallaq. But when he tried to collect the money, Fuentes filed a request to make monthly $75 payments instead of a lump sum, saying she was unemployed and on public assistance.

That didn’t add up for Hallaq, so he contacted the consumer protection department in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. A spokesperson for the district attorney did not respond to questions inquiring about Hallaq’s involvement in the investigation into Badillo and Fuentes.

In October, three years after Hallaq contacted the district attorney, the office charged Fuentes with 12 felonies and Badillo with six for an alleged welfare fraud scheme. The charges include misappropriation of public funds, grand theft and perjury under oath. In February, they pleaded not guilty to all charges, and their next court date is in September, according to Randolph Quezada, a spokesperson for the district attorney.

The city’s investigation revealed that Fuentes and Badillo were receiving public assistance while “jointly operating three tow businesses in San Francisco, generating over $2 million in gross annual income” since 2018, according to an affidavit signed by Franklin Lowe, a special investigator in the Human Services Agency.

They allegedly bought two commercial buildings, two residential properties, boats and several cars, including a $290,000 Lamborghini, according to the affidavit. The investigation also uncovered that Fuentes worked at the Health Services Agency as a senior eligibility worker and had approved Badillo’s application for public benefits without disclosing that they were in a relationship.

“All the facts are still being ascertained,” said Allen Sawyer, an attorney representing Badillo. “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.”

An attorney representing Fuentes in the criminal case did not respond to a request for comment.

Fuentes and Badillo could not be reached by phone. An employee for a phone dispatch service that takes calls for Auto Towing said the company had been dissolved. Fuentes filed a certificate of termination with the state on June 18.

Hallaq is still in court to get Fuentes and Badillo to pay for the illegal tow. After receiving two of the court-ordered monthly payments from Fuentes, the payments stopped. In 2021, he sued Fuentes and Badillo for fraud. He is seeking $20,000.

“I really spend so much time, if you look at the paperwork — it’s hundreds of pages, and that takes time,” Hallaq said.

Fuentes and Badillo hired Xochitl Carrion, a former San Francisco assistant district attorney, to represent them in the fraud case. In a text message, Carrion, who no longer represents the couple, wrote that she could not comment, citing attorney-client privilege. As of July 26, no attorneys were registered with the San Francisco Superior Court on the case. Hallaq is still representing himself.

The next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 7. Hallaq hopes they’ll pay him.

“I’m willing to go another 20 years,” he said.