Volkswagen refused to search for a stolen car with a child due to unpaid GPS

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The offender attacked a 34-year-old pregnant woman and then stole her Volkswagen car along with a two-year-old boy who was stuck in the back seat. The hijacker moved the victim, but she was able to call the help desk. The Chicago Tribune writes about it.

With no clue where the robber might have gone, the police called Volkswagen Car-Net to trace the car. However, they refused to help them there. According to the source, the reason for the refusal was not doubts about the transfer of information to the police, but the fact that the owner of the car did not renew the subscription to the GPS and tracking function. The operator suggested that someone pay $150 for the service. No explanation of the seriousness of the situation helped.

In the end, one of the victim's relatives paid for the subscription, but at that time it turned out to be unnecessary – the child, alive and well, was left in the parking lot, where a passer-by found him and called the police. The stolen car was also found shortly after.

In response to the complaint, Volkswagen attempted to shift responsibility to a third-party Car-Net subcontractor responsible for operating the service.
“Volkswagen has a procedure with a third-party Car-Net support provider that includes emergency requests from law enforcement. They have successfully performed this procedure in previous incidents. Unfortunately, in this case there was a serious violation of the process”, – A VW spokesperson said in a statement.

Last year, some VW customers discovered that the Car-Net systems in their vehicles no longer worked because they were based on outdated 3G technology, although the automaker knew it was already being replaced with 4G LTE, lawsuit says. It also claims that VW never informed customers that Car-Net would be “obsolete” due to the transition from 3G to 4G technology.

Add to the list the nasty data breach that befell the company in 2021. Then, through a third party, the personal information of more than 3 million of the company's customers was compromised.

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