Originally Posted by JudyKayTee
Okay - well, instead of doing the "speaker phone" thing I would just take a witness with me. But, yes, in NYS you can - in fact - tape record a conversation as long as one side of the conversation knows it's being recorded. For example, I could record a conversation between you and me but I couldn't legally record a conversation between you and your boyfriend.
My experience has been that people who tape record conversations - or have the conversation on speaker phone - tend to be very, very obvious, leading and suggesting and being anything but natural. Offends the other side very much and recording ends up being useless with a lot of, "Ah-ha! Gotcha!" kind of stuff going on. If your witness also had damage to her car by these people her testimony is going to be prejudicial because she has a previous problem with the tow truck company.
I'd take the car to a collision shop, get an estimate for the damage, explain that "someone" tried to hammer out the damage - but you still are going to have a problem getting around the release.
In fact, I'd skip the whole "go there and try to get them to admit something" angle and go right to Court. If you can get around the release, I think you're ok - better than ok if you have a witness that there was no damage before and there sure is now!
And then I'd never, ever park in a fire zone again.