When David Miller’s pickup truck went missing in Ottawa last summer, he reported it as stolen and accepted it could be on a container ship sailing to parts unknown. He’d resigned himself to never seeing it again.
Then, early last week, he got an even bigger surprise in his mailbox, he says.
The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) sent him a notice saying his 2018 Dodge RAM had been found and it was sitting in a towing company’s south Ottawa storage yard. Miller could go to a police station, get the necessary release form, and it could be his again.
Great news, right?
Except the OPS notice was dated Nov. 26. It was only mailed out, according to the envelope, on Dec. 16 — at the tail end of the recent Canada Post strike — and the towing and storage bill awaiting Miller at the company’s yard amounted to nearly $4,000, before taxes.
If he’d been told in late November that his vehicle was found, Miller figures he could have had his truck back for a fraction of that cost.
Instead, he’s left feeling like his pocketbook is getting burned by bad bureaucracy.
“The towing yard didn’t call me. The police didn’t call me. Nothing,” he said.
Found in parking garage
Miller, 34, is a father and logistics worker living in Arnprior, Ont., located over 60 kilometres west of Ottawa.
He’d had the truck for about a year and a half before it went missing. Photos he shared with CBC show him using it to haul dirt bikes and take his family to their cottage.
Miller used it for work sometimes, too.
One night last summer, he went to a restaurant in Ottawa’s Byward Market for a beer after work and found his keys missing when he got back to his table after he’d gone to the bathroom, he said.
Miller filed a report with police in July but didn’t learn it had been recovered until getting the OPS notice last week. His truck, it turned out, had been found in an underground parking garage in Ottawa.
“Why did they send the letter in the middle of a postal strike instead of just call?” he said.
Police tried contact ‘through other means’
The towing company says it got the truck on Nov. 25.
It had charged Miller for the tow, an administrative fee, and the accumulated cost of storing the truck for a month and a half, for a grand total of $3,948 before tax, or about six weeks of his wages, according to Miller.
The company has since told CBC it has agreed, given Miller’s circumstances, to reduce the bill down to $2,508.90 before taxes.
But Miller hasn’t yet collected the truck or paid the bill because he doesn’t believe he’s at fault.
“I’m the victim in this,” he said.
OPS declined to be interviewed. But in an emailed statement to CBC, the police force said owners whose stolen vehicles have been recovered and towed are generally notified by mail.
While the OPS notice to Miller states that “this is the only notice you will receive from the Ottawa Police Service,” OPS told CBC that “efforts to contact the owner through other means were unsuccessful.”
Towing companies play a role in notifying vehicle owners too, according to OPS.
“The contracted tow operators also send a registered letter (not impacted by the postal strike) to the owner if a vehicle is not claimed within three business days,” according to OPS’s statement.
“Despite the postal strike, the OPS was assured by tow companies that they were sending registered mail as a precaution to ensure prompt notification.”
‘We sympathize with this customer’
Near the end of the strike, Canada Post warned that strike-related delays might persist into January.
“This is an unfortunate situation and we sympathize with this customer,” the Crown corporation said in its own emailed statement to CBC.
Miller said police have suggested he pay the bill up front and then apply through the City of Ottawa’s complaints process to seek compensation.
Additionally, when an owner has a concern regarding an invoice, “the OPS can audit it to confirm if the invoice is according to contracted rates,” OPS told CBC.
Miller said, so far, his former insurer won’t cover his bill — and he believes that OPS should.
“Why should the victim have to pay out of pocket when somebody else caused the issue?”
