VICTORIA -- A Vancouver Island man is warning others after his car was towed and then went missing, costing him more than $700 to get it back.

Kyle Noddin is in the process of moving from Nanaimo to Victoria. He lent his car to his girlfriend, Lyndsay Bannon, who is staying with her mother in an apartment building in the Fernwood neighbourhood.

Bannon admits she parked the car in an illegal spot, surrounded by no-parking signs posted by All-Ways Towing.

When she returned, it was gone.

“I came back out four hours later and the car was gone so I called All-Ways Towing because the signs are right there and I thought maybe it was towed,” said Bannon. “I called them and they said that they didn’t have my vehicle.”

That’s when she called Kyle and he called All-Ways Towing.

“I gave them my information and they said the car was not there but to call back in a few hours,” said Noddin. “The man I spoke to on the phone thought maybe it just hadn’t got brought in yet.

He subsequently called back two more times that day and on the last call All-Ways Towing suggested that the car had probably been stolen because it was not on the lot and to make a police report.

That’s exactly what Noddin did and then waited for 26 days before he heard anything.

“I get a letter in the mail for a $700 storage fee for a car that I was told multiple times was not in the storage lot,” said Noddin.

“They had my contact information the whole time, there was a police report, and I get a $700 bill to get my car released and they wouldn’t release it without me paying it.”

His attempt to fight the charge failed and he paid the bill because he needed his car back.

CTV News contacted the towing company on May 29.

Co-owner Cheryl Parker said this was the first time she had heard of the case and wanted time to verify the facts.

On Monday, Noddin got the break he was waiting for.

“I went back and listened to the phone recordings and found out that it was our mistake that he was told that we didn’t have the car and we did,” said Parker. “We had to make things right."

Noddin was given a refund for the full amount of $721.35, including tax.

“I’m happy with that,” he said.

Parker said the person who was dispatching calls when Noddin phoned is not with the company anymore. “They are now gone because of mistakes that were being made that shouldn’t have been made,” she said.

“That’s the only thing that I could think of, that caused this situation in the first place.”

Going forward, additional training will be given to all All-Ways Towing employees, Parker said.

“I feel terrible about the whole situation,” she added. “The only thing to do was to make it right.”