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Paper Trail

How to Lose a Car in 15 Days

5/21/202642 min

Local reporters at The Connecticut Mirror heard story after story of drivers having their cars towed and then sold out from underneath them, sometimes in just 15 days. They teamed up with ProPublica to investigate why, how often this was happening and who was profiting from it.

This episode traces the history of the 100-year-old law that made all of it legal and follows the reporters as they try to track down drivers’ cars and confront the bureaucrats allowing a flawed system to take advantage of vulnerable people.

Reporters: Ginny Monk and Dave Altimari
Read More: https://www.propublica.org/series/on-the-hook
Support our journalism by donating at propublica.org/donate.

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Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Jessica Lussenhop· Host0:00

    [upbeat drum music] ProPublica, investigative journalism in the public interest. Getting your car towed is one of those life experiences that is so common, and yet can completely ruin your day. [tense music] That feeling of walking out to your car, and it's just gone. It's just vaporized. Whatever you wanted to do that day, it's over, and that's sort of on the low end of the consequences. But I wanna take you to a place where, for years, people have been having a fun house mirror version of this experience, where this annoying but pretty common thing becomes a life-altering experience. And this place is called Connecticut.

  2. Dave Altimari· Guest0:57

    Go, c- c- go through your case for me. So one- Um. Was, w- w- was your car a Dodge, was it a Dodge Neon?

  3. Melissa Anderson· Soundbite1:04

    Yes.

  4. Dave Altimari· Guest1:05

    Okay.

  5. Jessica Lussenhop· Host1:06

    Take the case of Melissa Anderson. She lives in Hamden, Connecticut.

  6. Dave Altimari· Guest1:10

    So, uh, you just bought the car?

  7. Melissa Anderson· Soundbite1:11

    Yeah.

  8. Jessica Lussenhop· Host1:11

    Reporters at The Connecticut Mirror interviewed her.

  9. Melissa Anderson· Soundbite1:14

    I literally had- I got that ... just got it.

  10. Jessica Lussenhop· Host1:17

    Melissa had just bought a used 1998 Dodge Neon.

  11. Melissa Anderson· Soundbite1:21

    We were saving up. Took us almost a year to save up.

  12. Jessica Lussenhop· Host1:24

    She said it had taken her about a year to save up the $1,200 to buy it.

  13. Dave Altimari· Guest1:29

    So you go out

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