This Tow Truck Driver Keeps Helping Stranded Drivers for Free. Then a Fake Breakdown Turned the Tables

When your car dies on the side of a Texas highway, the sight of a tow truck in the mirror usually comes with a second worry: how much is this going to cost me?

For a lot of drivers around San Antonio, the answer from one tow truck driver has been the same, over and over again. Nothing.

“I’m Not Gonna Charge You”

Saul Caballero owns A&S Towing in Converse, a small city on the northeast edge of San Antonio. Like any tow operator, he hauls cars for a living. But some of his calls look nothing like business.

Caballero films some of his roadside stops and posts them on TikTok. In the videos he pulls over for people with a flat tire, a car that won’t start, or a vehicle that needs to get to a repair shop. And again and again, he tells them not to worry about the bill.

“I’m not a hero, but I can help you,” he tells one driver in a clip. “If you want, I’m not gonna charge you.”

When another driver tries to hand him money anyway, he refuses. “If I say it’s gonna be free, it’s gonna be free,” he says.

Why He Started Pulling Over

Caballero told FOX San Antonio that his habit comes from two moments he never forgot.

The first was his own. He once had a problem with a tire, waited hours for help, and was then charged $1,000 to get it fixed.

The second hurt more. His son was stranded on the highway, and nobody stopped for him.

“And one day he was stranded on the highway and nobody stopped,” Caballero said. “You know, so I said, you know what? I had to do this.”

Helping for free is not actually free for him. It costs him time, and diesel isn’t cheap. He doesn’t seem to mind.

“Even if I spend like maybe like $40 on gas to help one, I don’t care,” he said. He says he believes God will take care of him.

Strangers Who Had Never Met Him

His videos started reaching people far beyond the drivers he had actually rescued. When FOX San Antonio opened nominations for its Cash for Kindness segment, viewers who had only ever seen him on their phones started recommending him.

The Breakdown That Wasn’t

So the station decided to set up a roadside call of its own.

Caballero got word that a news unit needed a tow near the station. When he arrived, reporter Ryan Wolf was sitting inside the vehicle with a hidden camera rolling, while another crew member filmed from a car nearby.

Wolf asked if he was the “TikTok tow driver,” then revealed the camera and walked him back to the trunk. Caballero, who had no idea the call was a setup, found no spare tire and no jumper cables in there.

Instead, FOX San Antonio and DJC Law handed him a $1,000 Cash for Kindness prize.

“This is your $1,000 Cash for Kindness prize on behalf of Fox SA and DJC Law for what you’re doing for this community and to show you that it pays to be kind,” Wolf told him.

What He’s Doing With the Money

Caballero didn’t talk about a vacation or a new truck. He said right away that he planned to use the money to keep helping people.

The prize didn’t change why he pulls over. It just gave him a little more diesel to do it.

Somewhere near San Antonio tonight, somebody is probably standing next to a car with the hazard lights blinking, hoping someone will stop. If they’re lucky, the truck that pulls up will belong to a man who remembers exactly how it felt when nobody did.