McGann & Chester LLC

Extremely rude to customers, office smells like stale lucky strikes, and pricy

They showed up to impound my car and never asked me for my keys they dragged my 04 ford expoler two car lengths and onto a flat bed truck. They ruin brand new tires, pull transmission while it was not in gear, imposed frame damage to front suspension and bent muffler. These guys should not be city impound, they are going to cost us alot of money. Either way I have lawyer lining up to take this case. To top it off PennDOT, said I never should of been stopped. They claim the officer was incompetent in his procedures.

I had an experience identical to TK. Note to Unilocalers — the 5 star reviews are clearly fake — do a bit of research (look at the user profiles) and it becomes clear. Note that TK refers to «Nicole’s» experience, identical to his, which can not be found in the reviews, not sure how hers was deleted.
McGann & Chester is a borderline-​criminal enterprise. These guys are «authorized by the city» to tow after parking violations, but they actively seek violations, have an arrangement with the city to flag improperly parked cars, then tow the cars, primarily for rush-​hour parking violations downtown.
I have a Mercedes which is «my baby», which was towed by McGann and Chester and heavily damaged after the tow — basically identical circumstances to TK where there is an ambiguous sign. There are deep scratches on the hood and bumper (I keep my car in showroom condition, so I do know all of these). The receptionist was one of the worst people I have ever seen, and incompetent, making me wait for almost 2 hours to claim my car.
I got my car back, and immediately showed the operator the deep, fresh scratches, and they said «oh it was like that.» It was not like that, and I have pictures of the scratch-​free car from a few days prior. The company denied all responsibility and the city directs you to deal with the company. I had to have a panel repainted and blended afterward.
If you have a similar interaction to mine, Nicole, or TK, please complain to the city. They obviously have somehow lobbied Unilocal to remove previous negative reviews (in past there were many more like mine, Nicole, and TK’s experiences). I am in talks to have their city contract revoked (their lot was previously the Pittsburgh impound lot run by the city, before it was farmed out to the private enterprise).
However, these people are rude, damage cars, and seemingly do it without recourse because there is no incentive to behave.
AVOID McGANN AT ALL COSTS UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR CAR DAMAGED.

Wow… De ja vu Nicole! We experienced the same arrogance from McGann and Chester Towing. Horrible experience full of incompetence from start to end. They did not even know if they towed our car. We had to leave and come back because they could not radio their drivers or tell us if they had the car or not. Our car was towed due to conflicting signs when we parked downtown near the stadium. The sign that we parked in front of stated that we were good until 4pm. Unfortunately, there were signs on the other posts that stated we were only good until Noon. I believe the police may have changed their minds as to how early they wanted to prevent parking in that area, but failed to remove all of the old signs – there were at least 3 – 4 of them on other posts. When we returned to our car at 2pm, the car was gone. We took a picture of both signs to prove that we had not negligently ignored a sign, but it fell on deaf ears at McGann and Chester. They were so rude and arrogant that they only replied with, «We work for the police, take it up with them. The only way you get your car now is if you pay us.» The woman behind the counter was the worst person I have ever dealt with. The manager is not much better. I cannot believe the police deal with these people. We are currently taking the issue up with the courts because it will be at least $ 250 or more, but that requires missing a day of work now as well. :-| That is one expensive bike ride along the water – I doubt we will be doing that again.
The only upside is that we also called Roy Dean at the Municipal Investigations department. He was the nicest guy EVER! So understanding. A stand-​up guy for sure. Here was the advice that we received:
He cannot help us too much because we did not have any interactions with the police officer in which he could investigate. However, he did provide the following advice:
— Chief of Police can release cars (but we already paid to have it released)
— We should work with traffic court to find a day that we can go in (phone # on citation)
— Bring ALL documentation — including photographs
— They will either reduce or refund the citation — which we can then get a refund for the impound
— If we have any problems we can call Roy back at: 412−255−2804
I wish everyone had been as kind and understanding as Roy. Roy for Mayor!