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
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        1 year 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
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          14
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year 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
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year 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

            • asret@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              1 year ago

              Installing it on a virtual machine can be a good way to try it out to begin with. No need to restart whenever you’d like to use it, and you’ve still got access to everything you normally use.

              I remember using VirtualBox years ago to do this.

        • shiroininja@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          1 year ago

          There’s a good enough one that is free. I don’t see anything that the Microsoft office suite does any better than the free options.

      • grue@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Reminder: corporate claims of “licensed, not sold” are LIES. If you buy something, you own it regardless of what they say. Stop taking legal advice from the enemy!