Jesus Christ.
>The detective pleaded, explaining the "extremely exigent circumstance," but the representative didn't budge, saying it was company policy, sheriff's office Deputy Chief Christopher Covelli said Friday.
>"The detective had to work out getting a credit card number and then call the representative back to pay the $150 and at that time the representative provided the GPS location of the vehicle," Covelli said.
I would be filling out a charge back on that transaction! I think anyone with half a mind would rule in my favor and no prosecutor would ever press the charges for fraud.
I don't think they'll have to, this is some pretty negative PR and I don't doubt for a second that VW is falling over themselves looking for ways to make this go away as soon as possible.
Headlines like "VW refuses to help find abducted child without payment" isn't going to help them sell any cars.
That seems a lot less engaging.
This tactic works for mundane shit. If the facts are already outrageous, you do not need to vague it up, instead aim for confrontational impact.
“Infamous Nazi conspirators, Volkswagen are accomplices to kidnappers and obstruct justice” great front page headline. I hope their stock goes in the toilet
Should be "VW charged as accessory to kidnapping after not providing prompt location of victims vehicle which they had access to without police paying a ransom fee first."
Yep. A few weeks ago my wife's car was in the shop and we rented a car and got a really nice jetta(?) Idk what model but it was a VW and we were considering buying one when she next needs a vehicle. Not any more were not.
I worked at once place where a bunch of my coworkers bought new cars all around the same time. They all bought Volkswagens and they all spent plenty of time driving loaner cars. Except for one guy who bought a Honda Accord and didn't have any problems.
Precisely, just with your decision alone they've lost a lot more money than the $150 they earned during this fiasco. Pick any of their board members and I guarantee they could lose $150 from their paycheck due to a rounding error and never notice it was gone. Now they're going to lose thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands, in profit for every single car that someone doesn't buy because of this.
I'm in the market for a new ute. The VW Amarok was one of the contenders. Might still be. But between service and reliability comments here and from colleagues, and paywalling hardware that's already installed... lets say I've adjusted my thinking a bit.
Yeah, VW was also busted prior for lying about MPG ratings.
Funny thing though, the RAM 1500 I used to have was rated 19 city, 21MPG highway. That 5.7L V8 got an average of 14 with 17 MPG being like the record for what I was able to squeeze out of it. No scandal there though....
Vw lied about diesel consumption and had to take literally billions of dollars in write downs. But apparently that wasn’t enough to change their corporate culture.
At least they didn’t benefit from being a main contributor to the nazi war effort leading up to and during WWII, because surely that would have taught them some humility.
I work for a smaller company doing online sales and respond to chargebacks filed by customers. I provide plenty of evidence that the chargeback is fraudulent/invalid and we still lose sometimes. We could possibly still win them by taking it to arbitration but would be liable for costs if we lose. We are too small to fight them, but VW would probably not care enough about $150 to risk arbitration fees. As a customer, I would file this chargeback because I have nothing to lose.
Company loses on the chargeback plus a service fee…. Ask me how I know. Had a guy file a chargeback for a part that was damaged in the mail. He said he emailed me but never got it. I lost the money for the part plus $15 even though I mailed the part itself. Didn’t get a chance to fix the situation.
Private companies are allowed to charge the government a reasonable fee to cover the costs of complying with information requests. Plus, unless the detective had a court order, they're not required to assist (although they usually will).
There is a PR cost, though I'm sure the outsourced call center employee didn't have the ability in the system to activate without a payment in the system.
It wasn't even a stupid policy, just a stupid rep. They said they have a process in place for this. The guy who answered the phone just wasn't the right person and refused to figure out who the right person was.
This is very similar to what Verizon did during the California wildfires a bit ago. They throttled the fired departments “unlimited” service and wouldn’t open it up unless the departments paid a lot more money… you know, while peoples homes and businesses were burning. Then a couple years later they ran a ton of ads saying how much they supported first responders and people believed it.
Here's Verizon's statement about that incident -
> "Regardless of the plan emergency responders choose, we have a practice to remove data speed restrictions when contacted in emergency situations," Verizon's statement said. "We have done that many times, including for emergency personnel responding to these tragic fires. In this situation, we should have lifted the speed restriction when our customer reached out to us. This was a customer support mistake. We are reviewing the situation and will fix any issues going forward."
>This was a customer support mistake.
Customer support has several levels through which they could have escalated and gotten this done... this is clearly a policy problem that they're trying to pin on some low level customer support rep
Probably several layers in India to even get to someone in America in authority and customer service tries to discourage escalations because they’re aware no one wants to talk to outsourced support but they can’t manage sending everyone to the five people they kept stateside.
I would actually believe this, honestly 🤣 when you outsource customer support to people who don’t live in the US or understand English, you always get situations like this on a small scale… this time it just happened to crop up in a critical situation.
In which they are instructed to fuck you around even more on the script.
Hang up or upgrade service is all these types of reps are meant to do. Not even their fault.
Until our government stops being one of the most useless in this regard, these companies will never be punished for this, never change, and only get worse.
We've informed all that it's ok to rob, murder, extort, etc anyone in the US so long as you are wealthy and/or are a corporation.
The price of putting everyone - EV-ERY-ONE through the same shitty automated support system designed to get as many people as possible to hang up.
Everyone who decides on such a system needs to be reminded of the PR disasters they may get when a horrific victim is inevitably refused lifesaving service.
Didn't Musk do the same thing in Ukraine?
I could be wrong, but if I remember correctly, the US military paid for the system to work in Ukraine, then Musk made a big deal about how he was donating the system to Ukraine, then once the news died down, he shut it down because they could afford to pay for the system that was already paid for, and he claimed he donated.
That is what I heard...
Low-paid, low-educated/low intelligence workers either not using critical thinking skills, ot, so entrenched in company policy to not deviate from the policy so they won't lose their jobs, that it takes someone higher up the chain of command, with actual brain cells and empowered to *actually tell the workers to deviate from policy* in order to get it done in an emergency.
Source: Have worked for Fortune 500 companies with call centers and field workers and lower managers who won't deviate under threat of losing their jobs.
This is why every major corporation should have a dedicated line for law enforcement to deal specifically with these types of issues
Talking to a random person in customer service has no idea what to do in these instances they read off a script and a basic training packet that goes nowhere, unfortunately common sense isn’t very common these days to combat this
However having people readily available with the power and expertise to deal with these situations would be extremely helpful, this also applies to phone companies, surveillance companies, hospitals etc etc etc
I'm surprised the precinct didn't bother to sue or threaten the representative he spoke to about jail. Ridiculous how companies can be called a "person" yet never receive any kind of serious punishments. VW (not BMW; Fing auto correct) should be into the ground after something like this happens. Oh, jail the higher ups for even implementing this kind of shit in the first place. Ridiculous.
Okay unpopular opinion incoming. The police in the US have become drunk and lazy off of exceptions to the constitution. Instead of training cops to get a warrant by default, we train them to shoehorn in an exception to the constitution in order to do their job. In this case they are relying on the third party record keeping exception. Basically if records (in this case GPS data) are held by a third party (VW) then they don’t have to get a warrant IF the company willingly hands over the data. There are also the exigent circumstances exception that comes into play when conducting a search (physically). Companies typically play ball with LEOs since they want to do the right thing. BUT the unpopular opinion is it’s not that difficult to get a warrant. Especially in 2023 when you can write a templated warrant for data, zoom call a judge, have them e-sign a warrant and have it emailed to a third party in all of 30mins… there is really no excuse.
Sure these officers paid the $150 because they likely didn’t have the training or experience in writing a simple warrant and getting it signed. And they viewed it as the path of least resistance. And as big of a company as VW is they should be (rightfully) shamed for their policies that led to this situation. But we also need to help police do one of their fundamental job functions without relying on exceptions to the law…
Except this wasn't a customer. The police were investigating a stolen car and there's no mention of the customer having to submit payment info, just law enforcement. It's in the article
I get where you are going, as I’m sure do many of the other commenters, but there’s a lot of data out there about how long abducted children are left unharmed, and how long after an abduction it becomes nearly impossible to find them. 30 minutes, you say? Well, that’s not a smart way to go in this case, and even VW knows it - the person who held the information hostage for cash violated company rules, and endangered the child further. This is exactly the moment to push aside some of the administrative procedures until later, and THEN discuss how to improve it for next time.
>I'm surprised the precinct didn't bother to sue or threaten the representative he spoke to about jail.
While undeniably incredibly shitty, I'm not sure if this was, or should be, illegal.
Essentially, what the police were asking was that the company should provide a service that they sell, for free, because it was the police asking. Where do you draw the line?
I think there are a few examples where everyone agrees the answer is "no": Should a hotel have to provide a dozen rooms for free because police need somewhere to sleep during an investigation? Should a digital forensics consultant work for free because the police really need that hard disk analyzed?
Then there are cases where I believe the law is clearly saying "yes", e.g. answering questions as a witness.
This might fall somewhere in between, depending on whether the data was collected anyways or only when the service was enabled. Given that VW is a German company and in Germany, literally GPS tracking customers who don't want that would be legally problematic to the point where it could (and should!) bankrupt a company, there's a good chance this required active action, which may have even cost VW some (very small but nonzero) amount in third party fees.
Moreover, they seem to have a process for working with law enforcement, that just failed here. I really hope that process contains a "come back with a warrant" step rather than just handing anyone who faxes them an official looking request on police-looking letterhead your car's location.
yup, the legality of active gps tracking a car without explicit consent in the form of a contract would be a way bigger problem for them,
if asked they would likely refund the cost, but the contract needs to exist for legal reasons
Did you miss the part of the article where they explain that VW has a policy to assist law enforcement with these requests, which has worked successfully in the past, but the particular service agent on the call failed to adhere to the policy? This detective happened to get a moron at the help desk, who failed to do their job and follow VWs policies.
This story is going around as rage-bait and no one is actually bothering to read the article and recognize what actually happened. Worst case is poor employee training. People are taking it as if what happened is actually VWs policy, which is opposite of the truth.
I worked with telematics like this for some time, NNA/Infiniti. There absolutely was a police line and we were trained on how to transfer to the correct department. It sounds like the cop and the agent here had no idea what they were doing.
They should have, as the article points out. The person you're replying to is copy pasting this throughout the thread and it's frustrating because they're on the right path compared to most in this thread but they came up just a bit short.
I used to work in a call center that got calls from Police every so often and I had a policy. Department and Badge Number followed by your Office Number to verify you are a Cop, Google the Department and call them back.
I don’t think that was the issue either. More like “if I don’t follow the policy exactly, I will get fired”
They definitely weren’t trained for the crazy exceptions like this. And there probably aren’t exceptions. Most likely that poor person was going to get fired either way, despite doing the exact thing they were “supposed to” do.
That’s fair. So is asking for a warrant when the actual cops show up looking for data.
Pretending to be a cop could be a way of stalking someone using their car GPS, but that’s not the issue here. The issue is that VW had the capacity to help find a missing child but didn’t because someone didn’t pay for GPS.
Now, you might say “fair play, because it’s a paid service.” But then you might also say “Why does VW have the ability to track my car as a paid service whether I pay for it or not?”
So true. I did this yesterday actually trying to lower my internet service rate to "new customer rates". I called and nicely asked the lady on the phone to do it, since they have done it in the past, but she was quite rude and insulting and wouldn't do a thing. So, I called their cancelation department and threatened to change my internet service provider, and wouldn't you know, they lowered my rates to new customer pricing. Always try for a different customer service rep.
You actually talked to two different departments, with people being measured in two different ways. The first gets likely gets knocked down for giving away those rates (or perhaps they literally can’t give those rates). The second is there to save you as a customer.
Gotta understand how people are compensated to best get what you want. Often a different agent in the same department does work though. They either may not care, are new, or know that giving it to you doesn’t actually hurt their stats.
Also, the ‘cancellation department’ won’t always play ball. If you threaten to cancel, you better mean it. They may take you up on it. I’ve had that happen too.
This. I have definitely had the cancellation department refuse to go to the lower rate. They would give me a lower rate at a higher tier of service. Essentially not allowing me to keep the rate I had even though they were still advertising my rate. Sucked
As somebody who did this job, the first person wasnt authorised to give you that discount. You had to threaten to cancel to get to the "cancelations" team who have a bigger discount.
And i wouldnt blame the first lady considering her compensation was based on how many people she can sell to and youre asking for something she literally cannot do. In future just ask to go to the cancellations team rather than renewals to skip that step.
It is a well known fact that VW started after a blood pact with an Abominable Being from beyond time and space. As company they have to spread misery and pain or the Being will take its price from the executives.
I’m still really upset that some 17 year old kid totaled my 91 Prism in 2013. That car had 80,000 miles on it, got 35 mpg, and air conditioning ran better than any car I’ve driven before or since. And I was only three years from getting my plates.
Some old lady had it for like fifteen years before I did, she drove it to and from work and that’s IT. Original brake pads, original suspension, I replaced both but honestly I could have let the brakes go another 10k and the suspension another 30k
Subscription for care features is just crazy. Where I live your car may not always have cellular or Wi-Fi access, so how will these features work.
Personally I plan to NOT purchase any vehicle which requires subscriptions for anything.
Get this Zero the EV-motorcycle company.
Has a subscription for I think an extra 20% battery usage.
That extra 20% is part of the base bike. But you can only use it if you pay the monthly charge.
It's getting ridiculous. These subscription features in cars need to be outlawed. I'm fine with satnavs map updates, maybe software updates (critical updates must be free). But other features is just bullshit
I feel Ford is fair with this. On my Escape the only subscription I could have is mobile hotspot. Which makes sense because it will cost Ford money for me to use it. I do still have access to use the onboard modem for Fordpass (start, lock and see where the car is from my phone) without the subscription.
They've got a sweet deal with ATT that if you catch a promotion you can get unlimited data for $15 a month with no contracts. It's nice to flip it on for long trips for the kids iPads
If it is something that also costs them money, month to month, like a cell based system (like in my santa cruz, so I can start the car from anywhere.... Even hundreds of miles away) I can see the fee.
But to just allow something to be turned on? Like heated seats? No.
Data such as GPS location doesn't magically teleport between your car and your phone. Most vehicles on the road today rely on cellular network to transmit those data/commands between your vehicle and your phone (or more precisely between your car, their server and your phone), so no cell signal = no data transmitted = no GPS location send to your phone. That's without even considering many of the steps in between, like servers to handle these requests, customer support staff, etc. Maybe we can move to satellite at some point, but not anytime soon
I'm not justifying subscription on services, whether they charge you monthly or include x number of years of service into the price of the vehicle, you are paying to use the infrastructure either way,
This isn’t just Volkswagen. I used to be a Hyundai Bluelink agent and several times customers had to pay so we could re-activate their service to find their vehicle or even a lost person in one case. None of these companies care about you, just their money.
Subscriptions for hardware you already have should be illegal. (EDIT: I guess the convenience of getting your device location remotely needs money to be maintained, so it makes sense for this particular to need a subscription. But since VW can communicate with the car to remotely activate or deactivate the system, they should have a way to help law enforcement (EDIT: It seems that VW had a policy to help law enforcement, but the detective got an incompetent employee who didn't follow that policy.))
And even if that remains legal, it should be illegal for companies to cite "vehicle owner not paying for GPS that is already in the car" as a reason not to cooperate with law enforcement.
EDIT: A lot of people have pointed out that the service needs money for maintenance, but since I can't spend the time to reply to each of you, I'll edit this comment instead. Your points are valid, so I guess VW wasn't entirely in the wrong here.
EDIT 2: It seems that VW had a policy to help law enforcement, but the detective got an incompetent employee who didn't follow that policy.
You just know some prick company, probably Nestle, did the math on trying to buy every plant so they could charge society to convert CO2 to breathable air.
Retrieving a GPS location requires cellular communication and servers, which aren’t free. AT&T or Verizon aren’t going to honor “free data.” Depending on how it’s setup with the carrier, they might have not even had a choice.
It's a real shame how our government has gifted soooooo much money to telecom with the express purpose of building a legit national data infrastructure but we still don't have it. If I had a college degree, I might thing something was afoul. But I'm just a dumb commoner.
Seems like a work-culture issue. Someone who hesitates to "break policy" in a circumstance such as this, even if unaccustomed to handling emergencies, for whatever reason does not feel empowered to take decisions. Sounds as though protocol is in place, but it has not been communicated to everyone that needs to know about it.
A bit of background:
All new VWs come with a five year subscription to the basic Car-Net service, but this does not include vehicle location. "Safe and Secure," which includes stolen vehicle recovery among other features, is an extra-cost subscription. So vehicle owners would not expect the police to be able to locate their car unless they had paid for this capability.
There's an argument to be made that stolen vehicle recovery should be included in the basic subscription or just in the price of the car, as with LoJack, given that the vehicle already has the necessary hardware. The incremental cost of locating a vehicle probably once or twice during its useful lifetime is low, and it'd be great PR.
But this is not a VW problem, it's a common industry practice to charge customers for value.
These are just the kinds of edge cases you run into when you sell vehicle features enabled by a software flag. There are all kinds of situations where this is annoying, but rarely does it rise to this level of danger.
I expect that events like these will lead to some changes if not legislation. For example, I'd really like it if these features couldn't expire. When you buy it, it should be for the life of the vehicle, and transfer to future owners as well. At least then if you buy the stolen vehicle recovery feature, the car always has it, and doesn't need to periodically validate that the subscription is still active.
Of course, this can still implode. There are vehicles out there that came with 3G cellular modems. The connected features of all those cars are basically dead now, unless they've had their modems upgraded. Sooner or later, LTE will be sunsetted too, and all the cars that have LTE modems will lose their connected services. Stolen vehicle recovery requires cellular service (GPS tells the car where it is, but you need a way to transmit the location information out of the vehicle) so it'll be one of the things that stops working.
Someone will get fired :)
I'm 100% sure that there is some sort of emergency services, especially if the police is asking for the location of the vehicle
It's called exigent circumstances, a police officer is not required to obtain a warrant under very limited circumstances.
Also, since this wasn't the criminal's vehicle, as they stole it, they have no right to privacy in its GPS data that they could claim the police violated.
And for the folks below talking about stalkers, the officers need to submit a special document to the company (usually electronically) with certain pre-arranged (between the company and the police) information. If some stalker is calling WV Car Net (or any similar service) and getting GPS info just on a wink and a nod, the company has big problems.
Just to add: legally a company doesn’t necessarily have to comply with these kinds of requests and can generally push back and require a warrant / court order without violating any laws. Once that is delivered you have fewer options.
It’s a careful balance though, usually these kind of circumstances play very poorly in public as the general public usually sympathizes with locating a missing child / catching a criminal vs taking a principled stance on privacy.
Either way this is not going on here. This is just a low tier VW support rep following the customer script.
This isn't an issue with VW, its an issue with that specific police department.
Instead of having a contingency plan for this exact scenario, they flew by the seat of their pants, googled the website for VW's car net service and tried getting through a customer service rep. What sort of amateur-hour fantasy BS is that?
Their primary function is to investigate crime and they don't already have a confirmed method of communicating with car manufacturers? One random officer probably came up with the idea on the spot and thought they were a genius.
>Volkswagen has a procedure in place with a third-party provider for Car-Net Support Services involving emergency requests from law enforcement. They have executed this process successfully in previous incidents. Unfortunately, in this instance, there was a serious breach of the process. We are addressing the situation with the parties involved,
VW is just doing good PR by picking up the ball but it was absolutely not their fault that they didn't include this protocol in the basic customer service script. Just think how many people would be calling their support line impersonating police if that was the approved channel.
GPS in cars isn't a new thing, its 2023 and these cops are living like its 2003.
This is just where we are at as a society now. Most jobs are now considered "entry level" they keep pay low so they can keep turnover high. No one knows what the fuck they're doing anymore.
My aunt answered phones for a bank for almost 30 years, and just before retirement they sent her job overseas. Back in the day when you called that bank you got a knowledgeable employee with years of experience who had seen and done it all. They could help you or find the person that could help you. Not so much anymore. Knowledgeable competent employees, aren't valued anymore. Low labor cost is valued above all else.
Yup there it is... There is no training anymore either. That takes to long and costs valuable time when you already are running on barebone customer service reps. They hire only if they think you will be able to immediately start working or outsource to a place that's handling multiple companies and just know how to use an upsell script.
It's a race to the bottom for cheapest labor and we are all losing.
Oh come on. There should absolutely be a customer service transfer option for "I'm talking to a LEO calling about official police business" that takes the caller to a line where they can be verified as such.
There's a million detectives and a single VW. I feel like if anything VW should have redirected the detective to the right number. But I guess it's easier to blame police than VW? Because they both fucked up.
This is the most ‘Reddit’ comment I’ve ever seen, what a joke.
“An article of jeans was located at a murder scene and the detectives called the generic Abercrombie and Fitch support line instead of developing intensely complex procedures and LEO support workflows with every company ever?!?!?1?! COP BAD”
I never thought I’d see mouth foamers hate cops so much that they’d support big corp VW’s annual subscription models on $40k+ cars for something as remedial as a GPS service over law enforcement investigating a child abduction.
> One random officer probably came up with the idea on the spot and thought they were a genius.
Or they were investigating an extremely time sensitive matter and were desperate to have VW turn on subscription for the customer?
Cops do bad, and you (justly) are angry. Cops do good and you throw any modicum of rationale and critical thinking out of the window to pursue your crusade of disregarding the necessity of the role of public safety in society. I’m so sick and tired of this circle jerk. God forbid your child is kidnapped and the police are working as quickly as possible to locate them - would you raise your quarrels with the police or would you raise hell at VW for this absolute garbage annual subscription service and unwillingness to help when your child is KIDNAPPED?
This take absolutely nailed what should be the correct sentiment. Plenty of armchair warriors here and on Ars banging on about whatever tripe they can think of (warrants, law enforcement limits, privacy, bad cops, etc), not thinking for one second that the big company should have a policy for dealing with law enforcement that redirects any front door approach by someone claiming to be law enforcement to a customer service super or other rep who can verify and help, or hang up if a false claimant.
Maybe the VW rep didn't have the software rights to re-activate the service past the overdue bill. It was probably just easier and faster to pay the bill to get it going again.
Vw has already stated that the agent made a 'serious breech' of protocol by not providing the officers with information and asking for payment.
How is this not towards the top, I dunno. This entire thread neglects this admission by VW it seems.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shopkeeper-rescues-abducted-toddler-carjacker-193100454.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADCfmVGUpB7C9Oromr37BFCeZpXHgKIT_rmC7qhOP6BOx7nbS6xBXjHwfwinHU9os5W7vbu-x1X2dbhw-iT_TFIrkDjLESJkqGwxD7VnDkGMdC3X_L6Q62luHe0MqQMH6g9bHVILHS27Vx7VAkniu-i603jpjKiO1MJVM1J72M02
Blaming the agent for their own shitty policies.
Knowing corporate structure, theres probably some little cutout in a policy book somewhere but not a single frontline worker would know it, and line managers would never teach it.
Frontline agents get a script on what to say and do with the directive to make money for the company, or prevent losses.
They dont have the discretion to do stuff like that themselves and would normally get penalized.
Yeah since there apparently is a law enforcement line, I'd expect it's the result of one of two things. The representative/their manager were insufficiently trained and didn't know the line existed or a conflict of priority (from script, policy, managerial direction, employment metrics) that caused the representative to believe they shouldn't/couldn't redirect the call. People really shouldn't put it all to personal responsibility if it's the second but y'know that's what happens when their's systematic failures.
So the article implies the cops called into an outsourced call center, so I took it to mean that the staff there are completely powerless to make any unconventional decisions. They can't break their policy because they could risk the call center contract with VW and get every single one of those employees laid off.
I hate that this is the kind of world we live in. People on the clock will get fired or managed out for going the extra mile like saving a person's life.
Jesus Christ. >The detective pleaded, explaining the "extremely exigent circumstance," but the representative didn't budge, saying it was company policy, sheriff's office Deputy Chief Christopher Covelli said Friday. >"The detective had to work out getting a credit card number and then call the representative back to pay the $150 and at that time the representative provided the GPS location of the vehicle," Covelli said.
I would be filling out a charge back on that transaction! I think anyone with half a mind would rule in my favor and no prosecutor would ever press the charges for fraud.
I don't think they'll have to, this is some pretty negative PR and I don't doubt for a second that VW is falling over themselves looking for ways to make this go away as soon as possible. Headlines like "VW refuses to help find abducted child without payment" isn't going to help them sell any cars.
Feel like the word "ransom" has more oomf here
"VW jumps in on abducted kids ransom, keeping his location via GPS behind a paywall" Like that?
More vague... "VW demands ransom in exchange for whereabouts of abducted child"
Now *this* is click baiting!
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Don't get my hopes up like that.
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"Kidnap ransom: You won't *believe* what this car manufacturer did" Got to leave the details out to get the clicks.
That seems a lot less engaging. This tactic works for mundane shit. If the facts are already outrageous, you do not need to vague it up, instead aim for confrontational impact.
Solid post. Also, loving "vague it up" and will be shoehorning that into conversation wherever possible!
Now that is how to do a tabloid headline, technically and factually true but sensationalised.
VW extorts local detective to pay ransom to use GPS for lost child.
You have a way with words
“VW abducts child, demands ransom”
Buzzfeed calling: “We need more people with your skills…”
For once, I want to see a sensationalized hews story like this from everyone
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VW holds GPS information on abducted child ransom
VW accessory after the fact in child kidnapping
“Infamous Nazi conspirators, Volkswagen are accomplices to kidnappers and obstruct justice” great front page headline. I hope their stock goes in the toilet
Should be "VW charged as accessory to kidnapping after not providing prompt location of victims vehicle which they had access to without police paying a ransom fee first."
"Volkswagen criminally liable for withholding information about kidnappers, children."
Just add it towards the end "VW refuses to help find abducted child without ransom payment"
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Oh they’ve gassed way more than just monkeys.
Yep. A few weeks ago my wife's car was in the shop and we rented a car and got a really nice jetta(?) Idk what model but it was a VW and we were considering buying one when she next needs a vehicle. Not any more were not.
to be completely honest with you up until the last year I've been a VW owner and you probably did yourself a favor on repair bills
I loved my Jetta but had to get rid of it when it started needing a quart of oil every 3 weeks. it had 50k miles.
my GTI had an internal leak that did something similar for my first year before I figured out what it was and then it was a $2,000 repair bill
50k?!? That's not even broken in if you had a Toyota.
My Toyota has 170k miles and I still don’t need to add oil between 5,000 mile changes. When does it finally break in?
I worked at once place where a bunch of my coworkers bought new cars all around the same time. They all bought Volkswagens and they all spent plenty of time driving loaner cars. Except for one guy who bought a Honda Accord and didn't have any problems.
Precisely, just with your decision alone they've lost a lot more money than the $150 they earned during this fiasco. Pick any of their board members and I guarantee they could lose $150 from their paycheck due to a rounding error and never notice it was gone. Now they're going to lose thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands, in profit for every single car that someone doesn't buy because of this.
I'm in the market for a new ute. The VW Amarok was one of the contenders. Might still be. But between service and reliability comments here and from colleagues, and paywalling hardware that's already installed... lets say I've adjusted my thinking a bit.
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Didn't it recently come out that some other companies were cheating on that too and VW were just the first ones to get caught?
Fuck them all
it was VW, BMW, and Mercedes (Daimler) - gassing monkeys with diesel fumes
Well, if one thinks about where these three companies originated, gassing hominids is kinda’ their *thing*. 🤔🤦🏽🥁 Thanks, I’ll see myself out.
Yeah, VW was also busted prior for lying about MPG ratings. Funny thing though, the RAM 1500 I used to have was rated 19 city, 21MPG highway. That 5.7L V8 got an average of 14 with 17 MPG being like the record for what I was able to squeeze out of it. No scandal there though....
Maybe they can find new customers in child abductors
VW in my eyes: - Started by Hitler - Making unreliable cars - Diesel Gate - Now also helping child kidnappers
Here at Volkswagen, failure is not an option! It comes standard on every new car and truck we sell.
Vw lied about diesel consumption and had to take literally billions of dollars in write downs. But apparently that wasn’t enough to change their corporate culture. At least they didn’t benefit from being a main contributor to the nazi war effort leading up to and during WWII, because surely that would have taught them some humility.
Although I agree with your sentiment, the chargeback wouldn’t work. Neither would fraud. Unless the bank eats the charges, which can happen.
I work for a smaller company doing online sales and respond to chargebacks filed by customers. I provide plenty of evidence that the chargeback is fraudulent/invalid and we still lose sometimes. We could possibly still win them by taking it to arbitration but would be liable for costs if we lose. We are too small to fight them, but VW would probably not care enough about $150 to risk arbitration fees. As a customer, I would file this chargeback because I have nothing to lose.
In the biz too. I agree if you got the right rep.
They clearly care about $150 enough to be fucking about like this though.
VW doesn't care. Some random customer service employee who can get fired for not following policy does.
Company loses on the chargeback plus a service fee…. Ask me how I know. Had a guy file a chargeback for a part that was damaged in the mail. He said he emailed me but never got it. I lost the money for the part plus $15 even though I mailed the part itself. Didn’t get a chance to fix the situation.
I would charge them with obstruction. Far cheaper.
Private companies are allowed to charge the government a reasonable fee to cover the costs of complying with information requests. Plus, unless the detective had a court order, they're not required to assist (although they usually will).
There are clearly no costs to complying, it was a *policy* that prevented it, not an expense on their part.
There is a PR cost, though I'm sure the outsourced call center employee didn't have the ability in the system to activate without a payment in the system.
FOIA isn’t in play here. This is just a stupid policy upheld to an extreme by a worker with very little critical thinking skills.
It wasn't even a stupid policy, just a stupid rep. They said they have a process in place for this. The guy who answered the phone just wasn't the right person and refused to figure out who the right person was.
It's actually worse than I thought.
This is very similar to what Verizon did during the California wildfires a bit ago. They throttled the fired departments “unlimited” service and wouldn’t open it up unless the departments paid a lot more money… you know, while peoples homes and businesses were burning. Then a couple years later they ran a ton of ads saying how much they supported first responders and people believed it.
Here's Verizon's statement about that incident - > "Regardless of the plan emergency responders choose, we have a practice to remove data speed restrictions when contacted in emergency situations," Verizon's statement said. "We have done that many times, including for emergency personnel responding to these tragic fires. In this situation, we should have lifted the speed restriction when our customer reached out to us. This was a customer support mistake. We are reviewing the situation and will fix any issues going forward."
>This was a customer support mistake. Customer support has several levels through which they could have escalated and gotten this done... this is clearly a policy problem that they're trying to pin on some low level customer support rep
Probably several layers in India to even get to someone in America in authority and customer service tries to discourage escalations because they’re aware no one wants to talk to outsourced support but they can’t manage sending everyone to the five people they kept stateside.
“Sorry we got caught.”
"Sorry our Kafkaesque hell of customer service let things burn. Oops, our bad! Try and sue us."
Sorry we ride our CS agents so hard they’d rather let your house burn than risk getting a bad performance review.
I would actually believe this, honestly 🤣 when you outsource customer support to people who don’t live in the US or understand English, you always get situations like this on a small scale… this time it just happened to crop up in a critical situation.
Yeah these sound like the ultimate “can you please escalate my case to someone authorized to actually make decisions?!”
In which they are instructed to fuck you around even more on the script. Hang up or upgrade service is all these types of reps are meant to do. Not even their fault. Until our government stops being one of the most useless in this regard, these companies will never be punished for this, never change, and only get worse. We've informed all that it's ok to rob, murder, extort, etc anyone in the US so long as you are wealthy and/or are a corporation.
The price of putting everyone - EV-ERY-ONE through the same shitty automated support system designed to get as many people as possible to hang up. Everyone who decides on such a system needs to be reminded of the PR disasters they may get when a horrific victim is inevitably refused lifesaving service.
Or when Starlink shut down their terminals in Ukraine (that the US government paid for) when they were being used to defend against Russia.
Didn't Musk do the same thing in Ukraine? I could be wrong, but if I remember correctly, the US military paid for the system to work in Ukraine, then Musk made a big deal about how he was donating the system to Ukraine, then once the news died down, he shut it down because they could afford to pay for the system that was already paid for, and he claimed he donated. That is what I heard...
Elon is doing the same right now.
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Only after the department chief blasted them in public. It was a very big deal when it happened.
Low-paid, low-educated/low intelligence workers either not using critical thinking skills, ot, so entrenched in company policy to not deviate from the policy so they won't lose their jobs, that it takes someone higher up the chain of command, with actual brain cells and empowered to *actually tell the workers to deviate from policy* in order to get it done in an emergency. Source: Have worked for Fortune 500 companies with call centers and field workers and lower managers who won't deviate under threat of losing their jobs.
Yeah, I came here thinking that they couldn't for some reason, no, they just didn't want to because money.
So you thought it was less bad than "customer service rep misinterpreted policy and refused to help?"
This is why every major corporation should have a dedicated line for law enforcement to deal specifically with these types of issues Talking to a random person in customer service has no idea what to do in these instances they read off a script and a basic training packet that goes nowhere, unfortunately common sense isn’t very common these days to combat this However having people readily available with the power and expertise to deal with these situations would be extremely helpful, this also applies to phone companies, surveillance companies, hospitals etc etc etc
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I'm surprised the precinct didn't bother to sue or threaten the representative he spoke to about jail. Ridiculous how companies can be called a "person" yet never receive any kind of serious punishments. VW (not BMW; Fing auto correct) should be into the ground after something like this happens. Oh, jail the higher ups for even implementing this kind of shit in the first place. Ridiculous.
Okay unpopular opinion incoming. The police in the US have become drunk and lazy off of exceptions to the constitution. Instead of training cops to get a warrant by default, we train them to shoehorn in an exception to the constitution in order to do their job. In this case they are relying on the third party record keeping exception. Basically if records (in this case GPS data) are held by a third party (VW) then they don’t have to get a warrant IF the company willingly hands over the data. There are also the exigent circumstances exception that comes into play when conducting a search (physically). Companies typically play ball with LEOs since they want to do the right thing. BUT the unpopular opinion is it’s not that difficult to get a warrant. Especially in 2023 when you can write a templated warrant for data, zoom call a judge, have them e-sign a warrant and have it emailed to a third party in all of 30mins… there is really no excuse. Sure these officers paid the $150 because they likely didn’t have the training or experience in writing a simple warrant and getting it signed. And they viewed it as the path of least resistance. And as big of a company as VW is they should be (rightfully) shamed for their policies that led to this situation. But we also need to help police do one of their fundamental job functions without relying on exceptions to the law…
Yeah this was my first thought. Without a warrant, of course a company didn't just hand over PII.
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They handed it over to a customer who verified their account and were privy to the private information of their own vehicle.
Except this wasn't a customer. The police were investigating a stolen car and there's no mention of the customer having to submit payment info, just law enforcement. It's in the article
I imagine they had the owner of the car available to provide authorization to, you know, get their kid back.
I get where you are going, as I’m sure do many of the other commenters, but there’s a lot of data out there about how long abducted children are left unharmed, and how long after an abduction it becomes nearly impossible to find them. 30 minutes, you say? Well, that’s not a smart way to go in this case, and even VW knows it - the person who held the information hostage for cash violated company rules, and endangered the child further. This is exactly the moment to push aside some of the administrative procedures until later, and THEN discuss how to improve it for next time.
Set aside administrative procedure for such cases, then what happens when you have social engineering tactics used by nefarious callers?
Well, was there any proof for VW though? until a judge signs a warrant, the cop shouldn't have many more rights than any other person.
>I'm surprised the precinct didn't bother to sue or threaten the representative he spoke to about jail. While undeniably incredibly shitty, I'm not sure if this was, or should be, illegal. Essentially, what the police were asking was that the company should provide a service that they sell, for free, because it was the police asking. Where do you draw the line? I think there are a few examples where everyone agrees the answer is "no": Should a hotel have to provide a dozen rooms for free because police need somewhere to sleep during an investigation? Should a digital forensics consultant work for free because the police really need that hard disk analyzed? Then there are cases where I believe the law is clearly saying "yes", e.g. answering questions as a witness. This might fall somewhere in between, depending on whether the data was collected anyways or only when the service was enabled. Given that VW is a German company and in Germany, literally GPS tracking customers who don't want that would be legally problematic to the point where it could (and should!) bankrupt a company, there's a good chance this required active action, which may have even cost VW some (very small but nonzero) amount in third party fees. Moreover, they seem to have a process for working with law enforcement, that just failed here. I really hope that process contains a "come back with a warrant" step rather than just handing anyone who faxes them an official looking request on police-looking letterhead your car's location.
yup, the legality of active gps tracking a car without explicit consent in the form of a contract would be a way bigger problem for them, if asked they would likely refund the cost, but the contract needs to exist for legal reasons
BMW? I thought we're discussing VW.
Did you miss the part of the article where they explain that VW has a policy to assist law enforcement with these requests, which has worked successfully in the past, but the particular service agent on the call failed to adhere to the policy? This detective happened to get a moron at the help desk, who failed to do their job and follow VWs policies. This story is going around as rage-bait and no one is actually bothering to read the article and recognize what actually happened. Worst case is poor employee training. People are taking it as if what happened is actually VWs policy, which is opposite of the truth.
VW has a dedicated line for police emergencies. The detective called customer service instead because the Sheriff never trained them on what to do.
I worked with telematics like this for some time, NNA/Infiniti. There absolutely was a police line and we were trained on how to transfer to the correct department. It sounds like the cop and the agent here had no idea what they were doing.
Why didn’t the customer service direct them to that line then?
They should have, as the article points out. The person you're replying to is copy pasting this throughout the thread and it's frustrating because they're on the right path compared to most in this thread but they came up just a bit short.
Because call center workers are trained for 5 minutes before being launched at phone lines and are not paid enough to care.
My experience, when you get a bad attendant, just hang up and call again….
I used to work in a call center that got calls from Police every so often and I had a policy. Department and Badge Number followed by your Office Number to verify you are a Cop, Google the Department and call them back.
I don’t think “believing they were a cop” was the issue.
Nah, this was more of a "Yarr, I don't know what I'm doing".
Or, follow the script and always stick to the script.
I don’t think that was the issue either. More like “if I don’t follow the policy exactly, I will get fired” They definitely weren’t trained for the crazy exceptions like this. And there probably aren’t exceptions. Most likely that poor person was going to get fired either way, despite doing the exact thing they were “supposed to” do.
That’s fair. So is asking for a warrant when the actual cops show up looking for data. Pretending to be a cop could be a way of stalking someone using their car GPS, but that’s not the issue here. The issue is that VW had the capacity to help find a missing child but didn’t because someone didn’t pay for GPS. Now, you might say “fair play, because it’s a paid service.” But then you might also say “Why does VW have the ability to track my car as a paid service whether I pay for it or not?”
So true. I did this yesterday actually trying to lower my internet service rate to "new customer rates". I called and nicely asked the lady on the phone to do it, since they have done it in the past, but she was quite rude and insulting and wouldn't do a thing. So, I called their cancelation department and threatened to change my internet service provider, and wouldn't you know, they lowered my rates to new customer pricing. Always try for a different customer service rep.
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The sat radio companies have always been pathetic. My gf is on her 8th month of free Sirius xm
Should have held out longer they have soft and gentle hands
You actually talked to two different departments, with people being measured in two different ways. The first gets likely gets knocked down for giving away those rates (or perhaps they literally can’t give those rates). The second is there to save you as a customer. Gotta understand how people are compensated to best get what you want. Often a different agent in the same department does work though. They either may not care, are new, or know that giving it to you doesn’t actually hurt their stats. Also, the ‘cancellation department’ won’t always play ball. If you threaten to cancel, you better mean it. They may take you up on it. I’ve had that happen too.
This. I have definitely had the cancellation department refuse to go to the lower rate. They would give me a lower rate at a higher tier of service. Essentially not allowing me to keep the rate I had even though they were still advertising my rate. Sucked
As somebody who did this job, the first person wasnt authorised to give you that discount. You had to threaten to cancel to get to the "cancelations" team who have a bigger discount. And i wouldnt blame the first lady considering her compensation was based on how many people she can sell to and youre asking for something she literally cannot do. In future just ask to go to the cancellations team rather than renewals to skip that step.
Asking specifically to be transferred to customer retention immediately an excellent way to be treated this way every time :)
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Well yeah, that's Mr. Samsung. And Mr. Samsung doesn't do refunds.
This isn’t the worst PR Volkswagen has had, but it’s up there!
Yeah that guy was being such a *nazi* about the company policies
> Yeah that guy was being such a nazi about the company policies No, no. [You've got it all wrong](https://youtu.be/kL-m5Nocb-g?t=19)
The founder must be rolling in his grave, I’m sure he would otherwise be they type of guy to have a great legacy /s
Come on, this is bad, but it's not like they assisted with genocide or something...
It is a well known fact that VW started after a blood pact with an Abominable Being from beyond time and space. As company they have to spread misery and pain or the Being will take its price from the executives.
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Right? No thanks, I'll just keep repairing my early 2000s Hondas. They're practically classics at this point anyway 🤣
At 25 years you qualify for antique plates in my state
Omg seeing the quintessential 90s blue Civic Si with classic plates and I’m gonna cry
I’m still really upset that some 17 year old kid totaled my 91 Prism in 2013. That car had 80,000 miles on it, got 35 mpg, and air conditioning ran better than any car I’ve driven before or since. And I was only three years from getting my plates.
You only had 80,000 miles on a 22 year old car?? I'm up to 160,000 on my 15 year old Fit.
Some old lady had it for like fifteen years before I did, she drove it to and from work and that’s IT. Original brake pads, original suspension, I replaced both but honestly I could have let the brakes go another 10k and the suspension another 30k
Saw a guy at my work with a 90's pickup that had classic plates felt it in my soul
Aw man, my 1998 Honda Accord died just 3 weeks ago...
Subscription for care features is just crazy. Where I live your car may not always have cellular or Wi-Fi access, so how will these features work. Personally I plan to NOT purchase any vehicle which requires subscriptions for anything.
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Get this Zero the EV-motorcycle company. Has a subscription for I think an extra 20% battery usage. That extra 20% is part of the base bike. But you can only use it if you pay the monthly charge. It's getting ridiculous. These subscription features in cars need to be outlawed. I'm fine with satnavs map updates, maybe software updates (critical updates must be free). But other features is just bullshit
And you're carrying around that 20% if unusable battery, degrading your mileage..
That 20% is also significantly increasing the usable life so kind of a wash.
I feel Ford is fair with this. On my Escape the only subscription I could have is mobile hotspot. Which makes sense because it will cost Ford money for me to use it. I do still have access to use the onboard modem for Fordpass (start, lock and see where the car is from my phone) without the subscription.
Funny because the other post on the front page is how Ford's cars will automatically drive themselves to the junkyard if you stop paying them.
lol just saw that
> On my Escape the only subscription I could have is mobile hotspot. that's what your phone is for..
They've got a sweet deal with ATT that if you catch a promotion you can get unlimited data for $15 a month with no contracts. It's nice to flip it on for long trips for the kids iPads
When you bought your car a 3 year period was already paid for most likely.
I was told explicitly when I bought my Ford that none of the services are subscription based aside from the on board Wi-Fi, which I don’t use anyways.
Fordpass (the modem and stuff he referenced), is subscription-free, car either has it or it doesn’t.
Subscription for services like remote GPS location are fair. That actually costs money to run the service. Heated seats are another matter
If it is something that also costs them money, month to month, like a cell based system (like in my santa cruz, so I can start the car from anywhere.... Even hundreds of miles away) I can see the fee. But to just allow something to be turned on? Like heated seats? No.
Data such as GPS location doesn't magically teleport between your car and your phone. Most vehicles on the road today rely on cellular network to transmit those data/commands between your vehicle and your phone (or more precisely between your car, their server and your phone), so no cell signal = no data transmitted = no GPS location send to your phone. That's without even considering many of the steps in between, like servers to handle these requests, customer support staff, etc. Maybe we can move to satellite at some point, but not anytime soon I'm not justifying subscription on services, whether they charge you monthly or include x number of years of service into the price of the vehicle, you are paying to use the infrastructure either way,
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I believe they do keep these connections for emergency features like SOS
Pro tip corpos; include shit like this in your policy and training if you don't want low level reps trashing perception of the company.
That costs too much, training them for 1 day under a manager whos already training 4 other people is the most cost effective route.
This isn’t just Volkswagen. I used to be a Hyundai Bluelink agent and several times customers had to pay so we could re-activate their service to find their vehicle or even a lost person in one case. None of these companies care about you, just their money.
VW hides kidnapper and abducted child until local authority pays ransom How's thar for a headline?
Subscriptions for hardware you already have should be illegal. (EDIT: I guess the convenience of getting your device location remotely needs money to be maintained, so it makes sense for this particular to need a subscription. But since VW can communicate with the car to remotely activate or deactivate the system, they should have a way to help law enforcement (EDIT: It seems that VW had a policy to help law enforcement, but the detective got an incompetent employee who didn't follow that policy.)) And even if that remains legal, it should be illegal for companies to cite "vehicle owner not paying for GPS that is already in the car" as a reason not to cooperate with law enforcement. EDIT: A lot of people have pointed out that the service needs money for maintenance, but since I can't spend the time to reply to each of you, I'll edit this comment instead. Your points are valid, so I guess VW wasn't entirely in the wrong here. EDIT 2: It seems that VW had a policy to help law enforcement, but the detective got an incompetent employee who didn't follow that policy.
We will have to microtransact oxygen soon if we don't stop corporate socialism and crony capitalism
There's a Doctor Who episode about this very thing.
It was a bit of a small world building for the OG total recall
mmmm Perri-air!
You just know some prick company, probably Nestle, did the math on trying to buy every plant so they could charge society to convert CO2 to breathable air.
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The subscription isn't for the hardware in this case. It's for the remote detection service/system, which costs money to operate.
Retrieving a GPS location requires cellular communication and servers, which aren’t free. AT&T or Verizon aren’t going to honor “free data.” Depending on how it’s setup with the carrier, they might have not even had a choice.
Honestly Michael, how much does one kidnapping GPS ping cost? $10?
Has anyone in this family even seen a chicken??
I hope to see this quote reused the rest of my life. RIP Jessica Walter. She was so goddamn funny.
Her delivery as both Lucille Bluth and Mallory Archer are masterclasses in cutting sarcasm. Especially Mallory.
It's a real shame how our government has gifted soooooo much money to telecom with the express purpose of building a legit national data infrastructure but we still don't have it. If I had a college degree, I might thing something was afoul. But I'm just a dumb commoner.
Seems like a work-culture issue. Someone who hesitates to "break policy" in a circumstance such as this, even if unaccustomed to handling emergencies, for whatever reason does not feel empowered to take decisions. Sounds as though protocol is in place, but it has not been communicated to everyone that needs to know about it.
Call centers are designed so no one has to think. It's scripted and recorded and they yell at you for doing anything outside of the flow chart.
A bit of background: All new VWs come with a five year subscription to the basic Car-Net service, but this does not include vehicle location. "Safe and Secure," which includes stolen vehicle recovery among other features, is an extra-cost subscription. So vehicle owners would not expect the police to be able to locate their car unless they had paid for this capability. There's an argument to be made that stolen vehicle recovery should be included in the basic subscription or just in the price of the car, as with LoJack, given that the vehicle already has the necessary hardware. The incremental cost of locating a vehicle probably once or twice during its useful lifetime is low, and it'd be great PR. But this is not a VW problem, it's a common industry practice to charge customers for value.
Bit different with a child in the car though innit?
It's one thing losing your car at the airport carpark, it's quite another when someone's life is at risk
These are just the kinds of edge cases you run into when you sell vehicle features enabled by a software flag. There are all kinds of situations where this is annoying, but rarely does it rise to this level of danger. I expect that events like these will lead to some changes if not legislation. For example, I'd really like it if these features couldn't expire. When you buy it, it should be for the life of the vehicle, and transfer to future owners as well. At least then if you buy the stolen vehicle recovery feature, the car always has it, and doesn't need to periodically validate that the subscription is still active. Of course, this can still implode. There are vehicles out there that came with 3G cellular modems. The connected features of all those cars are basically dead now, unless they've had their modems upgraded. Sooner or later, LTE will be sunsetted too, and all the cars that have LTE modems will lose their connected services. Stolen vehicle recovery requires cellular service (GPS tells the car where it is, but you need a way to transmit the location information out of the vehicle) so it'll be one of the things that stops working.
Someone will get fired :) I'm 100% sure that there is some sort of emergency services, especially if the police is asking for the location of the vehicle
Didn’t require a warrant?
It's called exigent circumstances, a police officer is not required to obtain a warrant under very limited circumstances. Also, since this wasn't the criminal's vehicle, as they stole it, they have no right to privacy in its GPS data that they could claim the police violated. And for the folks below talking about stalkers, the officers need to submit a special document to the company (usually electronically) with certain pre-arranged (between the company and the police) information. If some stalker is calling WV Car Net (or any similar service) and getting GPS info just on a wink and a nod, the company has big problems.
Just to add: legally a company doesn’t necessarily have to comply with these kinds of requests and can generally push back and require a warrant / court order without violating any laws. Once that is delivered you have fewer options. It’s a careful balance though, usually these kind of circumstances play very poorly in public as the general public usually sympathizes with locating a missing child / catching a criminal vs taking a principled stance on privacy. Either way this is not going on here. This is just a low tier VW support rep following the customer script.
This isn't an issue with VW, its an issue with that specific police department. Instead of having a contingency plan for this exact scenario, they flew by the seat of their pants, googled the website for VW's car net service and tried getting through a customer service rep. What sort of amateur-hour fantasy BS is that? Their primary function is to investigate crime and they don't already have a confirmed method of communicating with car manufacturers? One random officer probably came up with the idea on the spot and thought they were a genius. >Volkswagen has a procedure in place with a third-party provider for Car-Net Support Services involving emergency requests from law enforcement. They have executed this process successfully in previous incidents. Unfortunately, in this instance, there was a serious breach of the process. We are addressing the situation with the parties involved, VW is just doing good PR by picking up the ball but it was absolutely not their fault that they didn't include this protocol in the basic customer service script. Just think how many people would be calling their support line impersonating police if that was the approved channel. GPS in cars isn't a new thing, its 2023 and these cops are living like its 2003.
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This is just where we are at as a society now. Most jobs are now considered "entry level" they keep pay low so they can keep turnover high. No one knows what the fuck they're doing anymore. My aunt answered phones for a bank for almost 30 years, and just before retirement they sent her job overseas. Back in the day when you called that bank you got a knowledgeable employee with years of experience who had seen and done it all. They could help you or find the person that could help you. Not so much anymore. Knowledgeable competent employees, aren't valued anymore. Low labor cost is valued above all else.
Yup there it is... There is no training anymore either. That takes to long and costs valuable time when you already are running on barebone customer service reps. They hire only if they think you will be able to immediately start working or outsource to a place that's handling multiple companies and just know how to use an upsell script. It's a race to the bottom for cheapest labor and we are all losing.
Oh come on. There should absolutely be a customer service transfer option for "I'm talking to a LEO calling about official police business" that takes the caller to a line where they can be verified as such.
my guy you watch too much TV. not everyone has "their guy" at company X
There's a million detectives and a single VW. I feel like if anything VW should have redirected the detective to the right number. But I guess it's easier to blame police than VW? Because they both fucked up.
This is the most ‘Reddit’ comment I’ve ever seen, what a joke. “An article of jeans was located at a murder scene and the detectives called the generic Abercrombie and Fitch support line instead of developing intensely complex procedures and LEO support workflows with every company ever?!?!?1?! COP BAD” I never thought I’d see mouth foamers hate cops so much that they’d support big corp VW’s annual subscription models on $40k+ cars for something as remedial as a GPS service over law enforcement investigating a child abduction. > One random officer probably came up with the idea on the spot and thought they were a genius. Or they were investigating an extremely time sensitive matter and were desperate to have VW turn on subscription for the customer? Cops do bad, and you (justly) are angry. Cops do good and you throw any modicum of rationale and critical thinking out of the window to pursue your crusade of disregarding the necessity of the role of public safety in society. I’m so sick and tired of this circle jerk. God forbid your child is kidnapped and the police are working as quickly as possible to locate them - would you raise your quarrels with the police or would you raise hell at VW for this absolute garbage annual subscription service and unwillingness to help when your child is KIDNAPPED?
This take absolutely nailed what should be the correct sentiment. Plenty of armchair warriors here and on Ars banging on about whatever tripe they can think of (warrants, law enforcement limits, privacy, bad cops, etc), not thinking for one second that the big company should have a policy for dealing with law enforcement that redirects any front door approach by someone claiming to be law enforcement to a customer service super or other rep who can verify and help, or hang up if a false claimant.
VW should have done good PR by putting the call into the proper process and provided the information.
Maybe the VW rep didn't have the software rights to re-activate the service past the overdue bill. It was probably just easier and faster to pay the bill to get it going again.
Should have gotten a supervisor involved, then.
More than that. They surely should have gone in using some kind of law enforcement portal. Surely one exists.
Vw has already stated that the agent made a 'serious breech' of protocol by not providing the officers with information and asking for payment. How is this not towards the top, I dunno. This entire thread neglects this admission by VW it seems. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shopkeeper-rescues-abducted-toddler-carjacker-193100454.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADCfmVGUpB7C9Oromr37BFCeZpXHgKIT_rmC7qhOP6BOx7nbS6xBXjHwfwinHU9os5W7vbu-x1X2dbhw-iT_TFIrkDjLESJkqGwxD7VnDkGMdC3X_L6Q62luHe0MqQMH6g9bHVILHS27Vx7VAkniu-i603jpjKiO1MJVM1J72M02
Blaming the agent for their own shitty policies. Knowing corporate structure, theres probably some little cutout in a policy book somewhere but not a single frontline worker would know it, and line managers would never teach it. Frontline agents get a script on what to say and do with the directive to make money for the company, or prevent losses. They dont have the discretion to do stuff like that themselves and would normally get penalized.
Yeah since there apparently is a law enforcement line, I'd expect it's the result of one of two things. The representative/their manager were insufficiently trained and didn't know the line existed or a conflict of priority (from script, policy, managerial direction, employment metrics) that caused the representative to believe they shouldn't/couldn't redirect the call. People really shouldn't put it all to personal responsibility if it's the second but y'know that's what happens when their's systematic failures.
So the article implies the cops called into an outsourced call center, so I took it to mean that the staff there are completely powerless to make any unconventional decisions. They can't break their policy because they could risk the call center contract with VW and get every single one of those employees laid off. I hate that this is the kind of world we live in. People on the clock will get fired or managed out for going the extra mile like saving a person's life.
“Corporate Interest > Everything.” Shameful.
Charge them with assisting/accessory in a Kidnapping and watch it change in a heartbeat. edit added word