Napa resident’s car mistaken as rental through car-sharing app Turo, taken for joyride

Michelle Erbs left her car parked on Pearl Street while she volunteered at a downtown Napa event. When she went to drive home Aug. 27, it was nowhere to be found.

The car returned to the spot about 24 hours later, its battery depleted but otherwise in fine shape.

What initially was believed to be a criminal act was rather a case of mistaken identity. Erbs shares her story as a sort of cautionary tale amid the rise of car-sharing apps like Turo.

It turned out another resident believed Erbs’ white BMW i3 was the car he had reserved through the app, which allows customers to skip the rental counter and book cars directly from local hosts. (Think Airbnb but for cars.)

“He’s probably mortified. I mean, I’d love to know his side of the story because my side is hilarious,” she said. “Now that I got the car back, I mean — I was on the phone with BMW and with police officers in different counties.”

Erbs discovered her car was missing and called the police. Her car was spotted on surveillance footage, so she called BMW to see if they could track it.

She got a call the next morning with some hopeful news.

“They said it was on the move but didn’t want a high-speed chase so they were going to wait for it to stop,” she said. “So it stopped, they called the California Highway Patrol and CHP called me saying it was in Sebastopol.”

Then, a few hours later, the Napa Police Department called to tell her it was back on Pearl Street.

“I asked, ‘You mean where I parked it?’ And they said, ‘Yes.’”

She and her husband went to retrieve the vehicle and learned more about what happened. The man who took the vehicle told police he had rented the car on Turo, pinging it to that location.

He told police he had texted the owner of the car and they indicated the keys were inside. (Erbs happened to leave her keys inside her car.)

“So, he opened it, saw the keys and thought, well, this must be the car,” Erbs said. “So, he took off and he went to the beach, and came back and was surrounded by cop cars.”

The BMW that was intended for rent was around the corner, still plugged in at a charging station. It had received a ticket for being parked there overnight, in fact.

“In my mind, I’m sure he was formulating his one-star review as to how lousy his rental experience was and then he was surrounded by cops,” Erbs said.

“So it turns out that yes, he was to rent a car. He had rented that BMW once before, and had picked it up from the exact location where I parked my car.”

Erbs declined to press charges.

“I joked that he should charge my car for me and fill up the gas tank, but that was it,” she said.

Police said the man was a Napa resident but did not release his name.

“Officer (Steven) Rohrer located the vehicle traveling on Pearl Street and made an enforcement stop on the vehicle and contacted the solo occupant,” Napa police Sgt. Keri Sedgley told The Press Democrat.

Rohrer had just received his 10851 Pin, presented when officers meet certain criteria in combating automobile thefts. (10851 is the California vehicle code for a stolen vehicle.)

“This stolen vehicle recovery did not count toward his 10851 pin, but it will count toward a future one if he was to earn it again,” Sedgley said.

Rohrer earned his pin by having at least 12 stolen vehicle recoveries within a year, three of which ended with the arrest of a subject.

You can reach Intern Emma Molloy at emma.molloy@pressdemocrat.com.