HOUSTON -- Note: The following story is a verbatim transcript of a Troubleshooters story that aired on Tuesday, July 11, 2006, on KPRC Local 2 at 10 p.m.

Tonight, the Local 2 Troubleshooters are revealing some towing trouble. Just imagine, you walk out of a store and head to your car and then realize it's gone. No, it wasn't stolen. It was towed. Still some drivers say they feel ripped off nonetheless.

KPRC Local 2 Troubleshooter Amy Davis investigates some local wreckers and the law that lets them take your car and your money.

From a parking lot to a justice of the peace, it's the route dozens of drivers take when they believe wreckers wrongfully tow their cars.

"How many of you went to a tow hearing with the impression that if you won, you'd get your money back?" Davis asked.

"Absolutely. I think we all did," a group of drivers said.

Since September, Justice of the Peace Richard Vara has presided over nearly 200 tow hearings where both sides -- wrecker and consumer -- present their case.

"It gives you an avenue, you know, to have a fair hearing and to have your side heard as to what occurred," Vara said.

The judge decides if the tow was legal. If he sides with the consumer, he orders the tow company to refund the money they paid to get their car out of storage, usually about $200.

Art McCloy won his hearing.

"And to this day, how much money have you been paid back?" Davis said.

"None," McCloy said.

In fact, no one in the group got anything but a pile of court documents and a judge's order that the tow company refund their money.

But when they tried to collect ...

"He said, 'Well they're not going to pay you. You can call all you want, but I've talked to the owner and he says he's not going to pay,'" driver Leland Redmond said.

"I got cursed out. I got called all kinds of names. You're this. You're that. Don't call me anymore," driver Josie Latimer said.

"Essentially, he told me that I probably wouldn't see my money," driver Josh Falkner said.

The Troubleshooters discovered nearly half of all drivers illegally towed in Harris County are never reimbursed.

Through courthouse records, we obtained the list of 124 consumers owed money.

We called them all and learned only 42 were actually paid.

We couldn't locate 25.

But the majority, 57 drivers, who took time off work and paid the court costs for a hearing, didn't get a dime.

"If I'd have known it was going to be useless, I wouldn't have wasted my time," McCloy said.

"The law -- the way it is written that we will do these hearings is simply that they have the right to this money. But there's no manner in which we can make sure they get that," Vara said.

From September of 2005 to May of this year, Houston-area drivers are due more than $13,000 from local tow companies.

And get this -- two-thirds of money is from just two businesses -- Raitano's Wrecker Service and Jet Wrecker.

Both companies are the subjects of Local 2 investigations in recent months.

Michael Raitano wouldn't answer our questions last summer and he didn't return our phone calls for this story.

Neither would the owner of Jet Wrecker, Karl Plehn.

So the Troubleshooters went to the one spot we knew we could find wrecker drivers on a Friday night.

In less than five minutes, this Jet Wrecker driver snagged a car and we snagged him.

"When a judge tells you that you owe people money, why aren't you paying people back?" Davis said.

"Well, we haven't gotten none that we have to pay people back," wrecker driver Alton Chambers said.

While Jet Wrecker and Raitano's have outstanding balances with Houston consumers, they can keep right on towing because they also have a license from the city of Houston.

"I think we have a reasonable expectation of our government that if they're going to license and do business with these people as vendors, then they should be held accountable for any wrongdoing," driver Victoria Sartwelle said.

"Frankly, this is something that I did not know was a problem," City Attorney Arturo Michel said.

When the Troubleshooters brought the problem to the mayor's attention, he put Michel on the case.

"The way that we're looking at it right now, I think it is something that the city can do. We'd have to change our ordinance to do that," Michel said.

Changing the ordinance could take some time. Until then, keep an eye on your car.

"Do you think it's fair that you tow a person's car? A judge says it's illegal and too bad, so sad, they lose their money?" Davis said.

"A lot of things in life are not fair. A lot of things in life are not fair," Chambers said.

Michel says it will take about two months to get the ordinance changed. It will first go to a council committee so that they can write a draft and get it passed.

The ordinance would basically say that if the tow companies don't reimburse the consumers when a judge orders them to, the city can revoke their licenses.