Towing Issues: car towed from private property, tow company, empty lot

Question
Please, I need help on any advise on this issue.

We went to a local fair (in california) very early in the morning and parked our car in an empty lot on a corner street.  The lot was not paved, fenced and did not have a single sign anywhere. We walked to the fair, which was a good walking distance from the empty lot.  Five hours later we came back and saw the lot filled with cars as we found out that the empty lot belongs to an individual who was charging people who were going to the fair to park in his lot.  We would have gladly paid him his three dollars for our parking spot, but our car was not there where we parked it and we immediately walked up to the owner and asked him if he knew what happed to our car.  He said he never saw the car and suggested that it might have been stolen or towed.  

We asked the guy if he knew anything about the car being towed and the guy said he did not have the car towed and knows nothing about it. We took his word and we really thought our car was stolen. We were able to flag down a police officer nearby who kindly made a couple of calls and found out that our car was at a towing yard.  The officer also told us that the private owner of the empty lot called the tow company to have our car towed.  We went back to the owner and kindly asked him why he lied and where is our car. He would not provide the name of the towing company nor give us his name.  

My question is does this person have legal grounds to remove our car without any signs, lie to us, make us think our car was stolen and not tell us where our car was towed after we found out that he had it towed?
Thanks.


Answer
Well to me it sounds a bit strange.  I think that a law or 2 might of been broken.  
The law says that signs must be posted to warn that violators will be towed, and how to contact either the police or the tow company by phone.

Given what you told me about this and if its all true, it might of been some kind of scam person also.

A vacant lot is always one where things can happen. Hard to prove who owns the property, and of course NO ONE CARRIES the title to the property with them.
Law says the owner or manager must be present to sign authorizing the tow.  That might be the way to determine who that person was.

Its going to be a civil matter, and small claims court would be the way to go. BUT I beleive since you do not know who the person was or if he is really the owner of the property you have a big problem.

You can hopefully get the name of the person who authorized the tow from the towing company, they might provide it. Then you would have to do some research to see who owns the property with the city, county or state to determine the owner.

Life has lessons but I think this one is going to be an expensive one. I think this might be more work than just learning the lesson.