Volkswagen representatives demanded a $150 fee before using GPS to locate the vehicle and child.


A family is suing VW after the company refused to help them locate their carjacked vehicle with their toddler son inside unless the parents or police paid a $150 subscription fee.

Everything started if February of this year when Taylor Shepherd, after pulling into her driveway in her 2021 VW Atlas, was carjacked by two masked men. Worse yet, her two-year-old son was in the backseat when it happened. She tried stopping them but they literally ran over her with the Atlas; breaking her pelvis and putting her six month pregnancy at risk. “They ran over the entire left side of my body. There were tire tracks all over the left side of my stomach,” Shepherd told Fox32.

Shepherd called 911 thinking that she would be able to get GPS info through VW’s vehicle control and tracking Car-Net app. The app turned out to be useless though unless you paid, which is a wild thing to ask in an emergency like this. However that’s exactly what VW did when Lake County Sheriff’s contacted the company for the GPS Data.

read more: https://jalopnik.com/parents-of-baby-in-carjacked-vehicle-are-suing-vw-for-r-1851025357

  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    “I hate companies that freely use my private data, especially the ones that share it with the police!”

    VW refuses to use your data unless you comply to the requirements allowing them to lawfully use your data

    “Fuck you VW!”

    Edit: Turns out it’s a third party they deal with that made the mistake, they might not even have a way to bypass the payment!

    • Gyoza Power@discuss.tchncs.de
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      8 months ago

      What kind of a braindead comment is this? The only reason they refused is because they wanted to get paid even though it was an emergency.

      • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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        8 months ago

        Right? This wasn’t “No don’t take my data but also find my car” it was “Please for the love of god find my car my child is in there” followed with “Right for a modest fee of $150 ma’am we sure can”.

        Has nothing to do with privacy. Maybe they ask a boilerplate “We have to ask but you do give us consent right” followed by a “What the fuck do you think fucking yes!”, but not asking for money. That’s not the time.

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It was the victims asking. VW doesn’t need a fee to process a liability waiver, and VW was fine with the police paying the fee to gain access.