Towing Issues: Unlawful towing?? Damage to car too, tow yard, overnite

Question
We live in Phoenix Arizona. On Saturday, my fiance and I took a car he has for sell and parked it in a shopping center parking lot. The car looks good and we just had one "for sale" sign on passenger side and a piece of paper w/ details on the other. It was well after all stores were closed, about 10 pm. There are no signs posted saying "no overnite parking" or "unlawful to park" or even a "you will be towed" sign. However when Basim went to check on the car at 6am the next morning it was gone, towed. After tracking it down, we find it at a tow yard 40 miles away in Mesa. It would cost more to pick up on Sunday so Basim went Monday morning (today) to pick it up. He said there was significant damage to the front end. I am at work and haven't seen it yet.

What, if anything, looks unlawful and what course of action do you suggest

Answer
well as a general rule, shopping centers do not like vehicles parked on their property for sale...
Reason is that each tenant pays rent to the company to be able to sell things at that location and vehicles parked for sale do tend to cause problems as tenants complain about the "cheating of sale vehicles not paying rent"

Add in the fact that in a real world court the shopping center would be responsible for damages and such if it was really pushed.


But the signs for the shopping center are most likely at the entrance to the shopping center and as such they would say things like "customer parking" or "authorized parking"   Yes those work fine in notifying the people entering that vehicles are subject to towing...

If you parked the vehicle there as  you said at 10pm when all the stores are closed, how can you claim to the a customer ?  That is what they are basing one of the reasons for towing on.

Now as to towing it to Mesa from Phoenix, that might be a bit of a reach as to the legality of the tow... I can not find anything which specifies that the vehicle stay in the area it was towed from, but then there are lots of laws to search for information like that.

As to the actual signs, well this is what I show for Arizona sign laws..


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Arizona
Revised Code of Arizona  9-499.05.

(B) The owner or agent of the owner of the private property shall be deemed to have given consent to unrestricted parking by the general public in any parking area of the private property unless such parking area is posted with signs as prescribed by this subsection which are clearly visible and readable from any point within the parking area and at each entrance. Such signs shall contain, at a minimum, the following:

1. Restrictions on parking.

2. Disposition of vehicles found in violation of the parking restrictions.

3. Maximum cost to the violator, including storage fees and any other charges that could result from the disposition of a vehicle parked in violation of parking restrictions.

4. Telephone number and address where the violator can locate the violator's vehicle.