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

        • Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone
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          11 months ago

          I’m very over this subscription/licensing culture corpos are forcing us into.

          I think there’s a gap in the market for a Microsoft office alternative you can just buy. And the next Windows is rumoured to be subscription based too.

          2025 might finally be the year of linux

          • be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            2025 might finally be the year of linux

            The year of the Linux desktop is right now, if you want it to be. For me it was 2007 - and watching the evolution of Windows since then has been a continuous validation of my choice.

            If you want to use Linux, use it! It’s ready, and IMO has been for some time.

            (And just to be clear - choosing otherwise is OK too! I don’t intend my enthusiasm as zealotry. Folks making an educated decision to stay is totally valid.)

            • Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone
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              11 months ago

              I just don’t have the time to learn something new at the moment, I’m working full time and studying ontop of that, not to mention I’m almost 30 and to old haha

              But in all seriousness the next pc i build will probably be linux

              • Facebones@reddthat.com
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                11 months ago

                Don’t overestimate the learning curve, your mainline distros like Ubuntu aren’t really much different anymore for most of your average consumer use cases.

  • hackris@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    The real problem here is the fact that the car has GPS and the owners can’t even control it. Welcome to the 21st century!

  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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    11 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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      11 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.