Learn What To Do If Your Car Gets Towed In Oklahoma

A Tulsa family said it took a month to find out deputies had found their stolen car; they said it was sitting in impound racking up storage fees.

A deputy said the tags weren't reported stolen when it was towed, which has raised several questions about whose job it is to let you know your car's been found.

Leigh Miller had her family home broken into and her car stolen back in August; records show her car was found abandoned in Wagoner County almost a month later, but she they didn't know about it until a month after that.

11/23/2015 Related Story: Tulsa Theft Victim Can’t Afford $1,000 Bill To Get Car

By then the costs were too much for her to get the car out of the tow lot and she was told it would be sold if she didn't pay by the end of November.

“Frustration, anger, you know. I never thought they'd find it, and I'm very grateful that they did, but then, I mean, what good does it do to just sit in somebody's parking lot/storage/wrecker place," she said.

What happens if your car gets towed? When do you need to be notified? How do you need to be notified? And who needs to do the notifications if your car gets towed?

These are questions Miller had, and to answer them, we found a couple of ways that you can be notified if your car ends up in a tow lot.

First, if it's an auto theft case, investigating law enforcement agencies will alert a national crime reporting system about it.

When an abandoned car is found on the side of the road and about to be towed, officers will check that database and state records, then, they'll enter the tow information in reports with the state.

The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety has a special part of its website setup where you can actually enter your vehicle identification number and find out where the car is located.

State law gives tow companies a 15 day window - when a car arrives at the tow lot, the company has three days to contact the state for the owner information, the state has five days to get back with them and then the tow company has seven days to contact the owner so they can get their car back.

When it comes to towing fees, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission regulates those and caps what they can charge depending on what the tow company does.

The OCC oversees a lot of the complaints that come into wrecker services about towing.

As far as Miller and her family, News On 6 learned an anonymous person plans to pay the storage fees for them to get the car released.

Miller said the tow company has also agreed to haul her car back and cut the bill in half.