Nothing can ruin your day like finding that your car has been towed. You waste hours tracking it down to some remote, dingy lot, pay hundreds – cash only – to get the thing back.

But imagine coming home from your brother’s wedding in India only to find that your 2004 Honda Civic, safely parked in the lot at your apartment complex when you left, had been towed while you were away – and was for sale on Craigslist. And before you could claim it, it was sold – along with the badminton rackets and cricket bats you’d left inside.

That’s what happened to Vaibhav Chopda, a 26-year-old Cisco software engineer who lives in Mountain View with his wife, Madhura. Their six-week trip to India turned into the vacation from hell when they got home, all because Chopda stuck the Honda’s 2009 DMV sticker in the glove compartment instead of on the license plate where it belonged.

That made the car fair game for the tow truck.

Seeks punishment

Chopda is so furious with the towing company and his apartment manager, he’s considering filing lawsuits.

“More than compensation,” he insists, “I just want to see these guys get punished for what they’ve done.”

But, unfortunately, it may turn out that the only thing anyone is guilty of is failing to get all the facts before taking drastic action. Chopda seems to be a tough-luck victim of extremely bad timing.

The Chopdas live at the Park Plaza apartments near Rengstorff Park, midway between his office in Milpitas and hers in Cupertino. When they moved in last summer, they got a resident parking sticker, which they put in the windshield of the car.

When they left for India on April 17, they didn’t know that the apartment manager had hired Auto Ambulance, a Santa Clara towing firm, to remove abandoned cars from the lot. Because the Chopdas’ car didn’t have a current DMV sticker, the towing folks considered it abandoned and slapped a notice on it that it would be towed.

On May 1, when the car was still there, Auto Ambulance hauled it away. A week later, the company sent Chopda a bill for $515 and warned that the car would be sold if he didn’t claim it.

Of course, he was out of the country so he never knew any of this.

When the Chopdas came home June 9, they thought the car had been stolen. Then the apartment manager suggested they call the towing company. They did, and learned the car – Blue Book value of $10,000 – had been sold at auction that very day for $2,280, the total amount of accumulated towing and storage fees. It was too late to appeal.

That’s when Chopda looked on Craigslist. There was the car – with the Park Plaza sticker visible in the photo – for sale for $8,500.

He says when he called the seller to see the car, the address he was given sounded familiar: It was Auto Ambulance. He suspects an employee bought the car at a bargain rate and planned to flip it. When his wife went to see it, she was told the car had been sold.

Lloyd Augustine, a manager at Auto Ambulance, said the company has the right to auction unclaimed cars to recoup costs. He doesn’t know who bought the silver Honda.

Auction rules

“Anyone can buy a car at auction,” he said. “And they can turn around and do whatever they want with it.”

Marcus Ball, the apartment manager, said he hadn’t known whose cars were towed that day. He felt horrible when he heard Chopda’s story.

“I didn’t sleep for three days,” he said. “It’s really an unfortunate situation.”

So Chopda is out of luck. The car wasn’t stolen, so insurance won’t cover it. After bumming rides from co-workers for two weeks, he finally borrowed money from friends and bought a 2007 Toyota Corolla for $8,800.

This time, he’ll make sure the DMV sticker is stuck in the right place.