Activating a Tracker in a second hand car

magan

I hope someone with a tracker or maybe a second hand car would have a clue how this goes. We bought a second hand car with a tracker already installed by the previous owner. After checking their website we phoned the tracker company and we were advised that we should pay £30 to change the name of the owner and £400 for the subscription of the tracker for as long as we own the vehicle, so we agreed and they said we should phone their technical team to come and check that the tracker was working in an off the road place. However, when we phoned their technical team they told us that we should pay an extra £100 for them to come, it just sounds like taking the mikey as we have already paid for the whole lot and nobody mentioned any extra £100. I just had the idea that it would be a question of changing name, paying subscription and they would activate the device from their office. Has someone gone through this? Husband is about to cancel everything as it seems very sneaky the way the are asking for more money that was never talked about before. Any idea about the process of activating a tracker in a second hand car? and what do they usually charge for?

TrickyWicky

Why not just get a GPRS tracker from ebay?

They're not that expensive and can be tracked via the mobile phone GPRS network. You'll need credit OR a contract but its less to stump up in one go.

magan

Well, it was the thing that the car came already with the tracker and, at the moment we are just checking the option of just activating it. In the long run however, we would probably check other options, so thanks for the idea. As of now, we would like to know if just with the change of owner's name and payment of subscription it should be fine or not.

Strider590

No point in having a tracker, the Police don't bother going after them (forget the funky advertising with the Police helicopters etc).

The problem is that criminals now leave cars in a random street for a few weeks and watch to see if it has a tracker fitted.
The Police know this and because the chances of catching the criminal are are so small (they don't have the resources to setup a stake-out for one low value car), they don't bother going after the car and instead refer you to your insurance company.

On the other hand, if stolen for parts, all they'll find is a bare shell in a field somewhere, which they'd have found eventually anyway, without spending ££££££ on getting cars and helicopters out on the case.

If the Police go after your car and don't catch anyone, that gets logged as an unsolved crime, this looks bad on the Govt crime stats and the Police get it in the neck. Better for them to leave it to your insurance company..........

It's all about lies and statistics.

verityboo

Strider590 wrote: »

No point in having a tracker, the Police don't bother going after them (forget the funky advertising with the Police helicopters etc).

The problem is that criminals now leave cars in a random street for a few weeks and watch to see if it has a tracker fitted.
The Police know this and because the chances of catching the criminal are are so small (they don't have the resources to setup a stake-out for one low value car), they don't bother going after the car and instead refer you to your insurance company.

If the Police go after your car and don't catch anyone, that gets logged as an unsolved crime, this looks bad on the Govt crime stats and the Police get it in the neck. Better for them to leave it to your insurance company..........

It's all about lies and statistics.

That doesn't make any sense! Its already logged as a crime when the owner reports the car stolen. It is not logged again as a crime if the police find it?

Strider590

verityboo wrote: »

That doesn't make any sense! Its already logged as a crime when the owner reports the car stolen. It is not logged again as a crime if the police find it?

No it's not, they'll refer you to your insurance. Mostly they'll only get involved if the car was taken by force/violence. Just as they do with car accidents (with or without uninsured drivers), hit'n'runs and vandalism.
"It's a civil matter" as long as nobody was injured.

Even if they do log the crime, because they've not wasted resources on investigating it only to hit a brick wall, it's still better for their targets.

You don't understand how Policing works, it's all about meeting targets and massaging statistics. It's an endlessly frustrating job, I have a friend who joined thinking it would be a job for life, he's now sick of all the red tape.

verityboo

Strider590 wrote: »

You don't understand how Policing works, .

I do have a pretty good grasp of it;)

I know the police will not bust a gut to find a stolen car, its obvious that they have to prioritise resources but thats a different argument. My experience with a stolen car was the the insurance company insisted that I had a crime number and the police took the details and gave me one no problem

Strider590

verityboo wrote: »

I do have a pretty good grasp of it;)

I know the police will not bust a gut to find a stolen car, its obvious that they have to prioritise resources but thats a different argument. My experience with a stolen car was the the insurance company insisted that I had a crime number and the police took the details and gave me one no problem

That's exactly the argument, they're not going to waste resources chasing a crime they won't solve......

magan

I don't expect that much from the police either, however I want to sort this out for the peace of mind of my husband. Does someone for for fact if we should even pay to change our name or if activating has a fee apart from the subscription? Any link that could help to find the answer?

Strider590

Ok, let me put it this way...... For a tracker to be fitted, you must have bought something fairly worth nicking.
If you can't afford to pay to have this done, then perhaps you've spent beyond your means........

They can charge what they like, the sort of people they usually deal with wouldn't think twice about writing a cheque for several thousand £.

magan

As with every industry there are norms of what is common or not. Cowboys charge what they feel like, a reputable company is supposed to have a set of prices and procedures for this kind of transaction. Buying a house is more costly than buying a car but there are ways to transfer name to new owner or change the name of insurance, you can not say that because you bought a house you chew more than you can bite. (without changing the subject of the car) There must be a set of procedures, of "this" is what you usually pay : Change or name (between £xx and £xx)+ Activation (depending on type) + Whatever it is (or only that) That is what I would like to know