Oh my god, what is WRONG with people? A sheriff's office was delayed in tracking and finding a stolen car with a 2-year-old boy inside, when Volkswagen's Car-Net service demanded a credit card number to reactivate the expired subscription tracking device in the stolen VW. thank you Paige and Double Nickel !

Volkswagen uses a third-party vendor to provide the Car-Net service

"While searching for the stolen vehicle and endangered child, sheriff's detectives immediately called Volkswagen Car-Net, in an attempt to track the vehicle," the Lake County sheriff's office said in a statement posted on Facebook about the incident on February 23. "Unfortunately, there was a delay, as Volkswagen Car-Net would not track the vehicle with the abducted child until they received payment to reactivate the tracking device in the stolen Volkswagen."

Volkswagen Car-Net lets owners track and control their vehicles remotely. According to a Chicago Sun-Times article, "the Car-Net trial period had ended, and a representative wanted $150 to restart the service and locate the SUV." The article continued:

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.

By the time officers say they paid the $150 and got the location of the vehicle, it had already been located by other means. "About 30 minutes had passed, and 'we had already located the 2-year-old child and located the vehicle before they even provided us the information, so it was at that point worthless,' Covelli said

Shortly after the Volkswagen was stolen with the child inside, "a person working at a business in the 2200 block of Lakeside Drive, Waukegan, called 911 to report they just saw two vehicles enter the parking lot, and the driver of one of the cars abandoned a small child," the sheriff's office said. The perpetrators fled, and the person who called 911 "rescued the child from the parking lot" before the boy could wander onto the busy roadway.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/02/vw-wouldnt-help-locate-car-with-abducted-child-because-gps-subscription-expired/