Butkovitz said the violations were blatant and widespread, and a result of lax enforcement by the Department of Licenses and Inspections, which regulates the city's private towing industry.

"It seems like there's open contempt for what the rules are because L&I has left such a gap in enforcement that these companies actually believe that they're making the law," Butkovitz said at a morning news conference.

The controller's report includes photos of signs posted by private towing companies throughout the city warning motorists that a tow will cost them $175 - $25 more than the city-imposed cap of $150. Many of the signs also say the tow operators will accept only cash as payment, violating a city law approved last year that requires towing companies to accept credit and debit cards for payment.

Two towing operators named in the controller's report said Butkovitz's staff had merely snapped photographs of old signs. They said they charged $150 for a tow, not the $175 posted on the signs.

"Those signs were posted years ago. Nobody could produce a receipt showing we've charged them $175. We charge $150," said Mike Williams, owner of Tow Decision and partial owner of three other towing companies in the city.

But Williams said he would "never" accept credit cards, a position that seems to be strongly held among tow-truck operators despite city ordinances.

"We work in cash, and no one in the world can tell me I must take a credit card," said Bill Goodman, manager of A. Bob's Towing, which also was cited in Butkovitz's report.

The law applies only to "nonconsensual" tows, in which tow companies haul away vehicles parked illegally on private property. Credit cards are too risky to accept as payment in those cases, Goodman said, because vehicle owners are prone to disputing credit charges for towing fees.

When told of Goodman's and Williams' positions on credit cards, City Councilman James F. Kenney - who sponsored the bill requiring towing operators to accept credit and debit cards - said the city should "go down and take the stickers off their trucks tonight, because they're in violation."

How best to regulate private towing companies in Philadelphia is a long-standing problem. The job belongs to L&I, which has been hit particularly hard by recent budget cuts.

"Obviously you can lecture the private companies that they should do a better job, but the way we get compliance is by having teeth in the way of government enforcement," Butkovitz said. "L&I supposedly has the teeth, but in practice they don't."

L&I Commissioner Fran Burns did not return a call for comment yesterday. But in a written response to the controller's report, she noted that relatively few customers had complained to the city about private towing operators and contended that the department was improving its ability to track towing violations. She said in the report that the department would crack down on signs saying tows cost $175.

Kenney said he was close to introducing legislation that would give motorists who felt they had been wrongly towed the right to appeal to an administrative board.

If the board were to find against the towing company, the operator would be compelled both to return the towing fee and pay the motorist a fine. The legislation could be introduced as soon as Council's next session, Kenney said.