KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Kansas City man is fuming after he says two, money-hungry strangers had his car towed and then stripped it of parts.
Now police want to know if the pair is behind a possible car towing scam.
As of Tuesday night the two people police arrested in connection with the possible tow car scam haven’t been charged. One driver named Swayze McCray, hopes that will soon change.
“It’s kind of a setback you know,” said McCray.
On June 5 McCray says he was driving down Interstate 70 near Sterling in Kansas City when his car suddenly broke down.
The 20-year-old restaurant server says the next day he and his mom met a tow truck driver at the scene, but McCray says his 2001 neon was gone.
“We called the Kansas City local tow lots, the police tow lots. They say they didn’t have it,” he said.
About a week later, McCray says he got a phone call from a woman claiming she worked at a private tow company for the Missouri Department of Transportation and that she had his vehicle, which had been towed to an auto mechanic shop on Hickman Mills Drive.
McCray says the woman told him that in order to get his car back he’d have to pay her $300.
“She actually texted me; It’s $275 for the hook up and it’s $25 for the storage,” he recalled. “I became very suspicious.”
So McCray called Kansas City police.
Monday detectives went to the auto mechanic shop where the woman wanted to meet McCray, and that’s when police say they learned that the woman and her boyfriend allegedly used a tow truck and illegally towed McCray’s car.
“The police actually met me down there and said it’s actually a scam,” said McCray.
What’s more, McCray says cops recovered his stolen car and also saw several parts on his neon had been removed and placed on a similar car parked outside the suspects’ house. So police arrested the pair on a suspicion of auto theft.
“I’m basically starting over again. I don’t think it’s right. I think they should be charged,” said McCray.
Police say they hope prosecutors will charge the suspects by the end of the week.
