Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:06/06/2025

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  On Monday, June 3, 2025, TowBook experienced a major system outage lasting several hours. During this time, we could not access the dispatching system we rely on to run our towing business. The result was complete operational downtimeour drivers were unable to receive jobs and sat idle, while we lost business and revenue.TowBook charges us $429 per month. That day, our drivers were sitting and waiting without work because the system was completely *************** be clear, this is not the first time we've experienced issues. There have been multiple outages over time, which we tolerated without complaint. But this particular outage had a significant financial impact on us, and we feel it deserves to be addressed.Despite the situation, TowBook has refused to offer any credit or goodwill adjustment, citing a strict no-refund policy and attributing the outage to a third-party provider. While we understand that technical issues can happen, we believe its unreasonable for the company to take no responsibility while customers absorb 100% of the loss.We are requesting a reasonable credit or partial refund for the affected day(s) and hope TowBook will reconsider their position. Businesses that rely on this software deserve better accountability and support.

  Business Response

  Date: 06/30/2025

  Good afternoon,
  
  We are writing in response to Complaint ID: ********. Please accept our apologies for the delay in replying,as the letter was originally sent to our previous address and was only recently received at our new headquarters:
  
  Towbook
  *******************
  Floor 2
  ********************
  
  Before we provide a full response,we would like to clarify a few discrepancies related to the initial complaint.
  
  Clarification of Facts Regarding the Complaint:
  
  1. We do not currently have a user by the name of ****** ***** in our system. However, we believe this complaint may have originated from ********* *****, who contacted our support team multiple times on the day in question requesting a refund and whose conversations align with the complaint the Better Business Bureau has received.
  
  2. The outage referenced in the complaint occurred on Monday, June 2, 2025, not June 3, as stated.
  
  3. The outage began at approximately 11:17 AM EST on June 2, 2025, and our team successfully restored access through backup services by 12:11 PM EST that same day. This resulted in approximately 54 minutes of total downtime, during which the system was inaccessible, and drivers were unable to receive jobs. While any interruption is taken seriously, we would like to clarify that the downtime was limited to under an hour and not several hours as stated in the complaint; such long disruptions, even 54 minutes, remain highly uncommon for our service.
  
  
  Response to Complaint:
  
  On June 2, 2025, at approximately 11:17 AM EST, a system-wide outage occurred that rendered our software temporarily inoperable.
  
  Our team takes such incidents very seriously and acted swiftly to address the issue. We pride ourselves on being highly responsive to the needs of our clients and remain committed to restoring service as quickly as possible to minimize any disruption or inconvenience to our customers when issues like this arise.
  
  Shortly after the system outage began, it was determined that the issue stemmed from a nationwide disruption affecting ********* services. This was not isolated to Towbook; numerous organizations across various industries, including airlines, hospitals, and financial institutions, were similarly impacted by the national outage.
  
  After contacting our dedicated *** account team, we were informed that there was no estimated time for service restoration. In response, our development team was immediately directed to activate backup services in order to minimize any further downtime and disruption to our clients.
  
  At approximately 12:11 PM (54 minutes after the outage began), client access to the system was restored. During this time, we transitioned to alternate infrastructure,allowing our clients to resume normal operations while *** continued working to resolve the issue on their end. All additional services were then pointed to the new infrastructure to ensure the system became fully operational.
  
  **** systems were not fully restored until nearly 7:00 PM that evening. Thanks to our teams swift response and proactive strategy, we were able to prevent what could have been an additional six hours of downtime for our clients. This not only demonstrates our strong commitment to maintaining service continuity, but also highlights the effectiveness of our contingency planning and the reliability of our backup infrastructure in the face of unforeseen outages.
  
  Determination
  While we acknowledge that our software experienced an unexpected outage, we will not be issuing a refund to this client.
  
  Despite the brief interruption,the system remained available and fully operational for *****% of the month. A single hour of downtime does not warrant a refund of $429, particularly given the overall reliability of the service provided.
  
  We also ask that the client consider the inherent unpredictability of technology. As outlined in our Terms of Service (***************************************************), which all users agree to upon using our software, we make commercially reasonable efforts to ensure availability, but cannot guarantee uninterrupted service.
  
  Specifically, the Terms state:
  
  Availability of Services: Company will use commercially reasonable efforts to make the Services available pursuant to this Agreement except for (a) planned downtime; (b) emergency downtime; and (c) any unavailability caused by circumstances beyond our reasonable control. Company reserves the right to modify the Services from time to time and makes no guarantees as to the continuous availability of the Services or of any specific feature(s) or functionality(ies) of the Services.
  
  Additionally, our Refund Policy (************************************************),which was shared with the client upon their initial request, clearly states that refunds are not provided.
  
  We remain committed to delivering reliable service and appreciate our clients understanding when rare disruptions occur despite best efforts and contingency plans.