It’s not uncommon for a used company car to wind up – at one point – in some obscure location, but when it gets transformed in a war-machine for Syrian extremists, it does raises some questions.

CNN reports that Mark Oberholtzer’s reputation quickly went down the drain when his former company truck – still bearing the decals and telephone number of his plumbing business – appeared in a widely shared picture of Islamist militants firing an anti-aircraft gun from the back of it. That’s a huge leap from plumbing supplies it used to carry.

The black Ford F-250 was apparently traded in to the AutoNation Ford Gulf Freeway dealership in Houston three years ago, as Oberholtzer left the car with the expectation that the dealer would remove the decals. But, unfortunately for him and his business, that never happened and now, Oberholtzer’s plumbing company is suing the dealership for more than $1 million in financial losses and damages to his business’ reputation.

After the photo went viral with the decal still attached, the man received thousand of phone calls, many of which harassing and threatening, as Oberholzer’s lawyer wrote in the lawsuit filed on December 9 in Harris County, Texas:

“By the end of the day, Mark-1’s office, Mark-1’s business phone, and Mark’s personal cell had received over 1,000 phone calls from around the nation. These phone calls were in large part harassing and contained countless threats of violence, property harm, injury and even death.”

As you’d expect, Oberholzer said all this could have been avoided if the dealership had just remove the decals. On the other hand, a spokeperson for Auto Nation told the Huffington Post last December that the company has no involvement with the whereabouts of the vehicle:

“If the vehicle had been intended to be part of AutoNation’s inventory, the company would have stripped any decals or signs off it. But when a vehicle is passed on to a wholesaler it is their responsibility — or the future buyer — to clean the vehicle of signs.”

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