When I bought my brand-new 2012 Ram truck the dealer had installed in all inventory on his lot a tracking/communication device that would alert the dealer if the vehicle moved more than 100 meters from his lot. This was done initially (I was told by the salesman) to obtain better insurance rates for the dealer against theft…but that the device also was offered as a ‘value added” feature to potential buyers/new-owners.
The device monitored GPS and Cell towers and a button on the dash (obviously an adhesive “stick-on”) could be pressed and a Triple-A type of road service would be automatically summoned. This feature was promoted as value-added…free for 1 year…but subscription after the one year.
After I bought the truck I realized it basically tracked my movements continuously and when I spoke to the actual Owner of the dealership (Grapevine Dodge) who introduced himself as “Mo” (his name was a very long middle-eastern name difficult to pronounce by Westerners)…. Mo and I were engaged in a dispute where the dealership had over-charged me for unwanted features which I had declined on the sales-contract.
As part and portion of his original settlement-offer…. he offered to provide me with a free Chrysler Lifetime vehicle warranty (normally sold for $1800)… as well as he offered to continue to pay the Tracking-Device Subscription for 5 years. One of his promotional statements to that offer was that he always wanted “to know where his wife and daughters were” and that tracking device would alert him to their travels…and he assumed that would appeal to me as well.
I looked over at his prayer-rug and complimented him on it’s beauty and asked him if he worried that it might ever be moved without his permission. He said, “No.…. I always have that with me because when I moved to America my mother was worried I might not continue my daily prayers and might fall away from the teachings I’d grown up with.”
I resisted the temptation to remark that dishonestly over-charging a customer probably proved his mother was prescient.
I said that I had three reasons for insisting on this meeting…. One, that I’d been overcharged by $1800 for PDR and other insurance which I’d refused In-Writing on the contract…., Two, I don’t expect my wife or my daughter to be driving my truck, and …. Three, if they did drive my truck….I trust them enough to not worry about where they might be …or where they might be going…. and Lastly, I do not beleve in extended warranties…especially one issued by Chrysler who had declared bankruptcy, changed national-ownerships and corporate names three times in the last decade. I doubted that such insurance would have any validity in such cases.
He gave up and had the Accounting Dept write me a refund check for the $1845 I had asked-for.
When I got home I began to think about the fact that ”Mo” could track me anywhere I drove the truck I’d purchased from him. I figured that was a convenient thing for a selling dealer who wanted to know the habits of his customers….OR who wanted to repossess an auto and needed to know exactly within 100 meters of where that vehicle might be.
I had paid in-full for the truck, so I asked the service dept to remove the device. They would not do that. I asked for instructions on how to do it myself…and they did not have that information, they said.
I contacted the subscription-service number and they told me that device was THEIR property and could not be removed. I told them I wanted it out/off my property or I’d sue for trespass and invasion of privacy... and they immediately emailed me the information. I removed it and threw it in the trash.
(It replaced the position of the OBDII scan-plug…which had the OEM scan-plug inserted into itself…and it had a “black-box” and a gps/cell-ph antenna velcroed to the top of the speedo-cluster beneath the padded dash.)
Soo…. tracking vehicles for repossession or other reasons potentially adverse to the interests of the owner is nothing new. It appears to me that Ford simply invented a new, additional capability and wanted to patent it.
I don't have Allstate but the app is free to anyone.
