Activating a Tracker in a second hand car

Rover_Driver

Strider590 wrote: »

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.

It would still be recorded as a crime, the difference would be the investigation at the time due to the circumstances - for example, if the vehicle had be stolen when it was parked in the street at 8am and found to be missing at 5pm, without any other information, apart from recording the vehicle as stolen and giving the crime number, there is little else that could be done at that stage.
If there was force/violence involved, that would be a completely different matter and more urgent action would be appropriate.

boyse7en

I don't know about the car side of things, but for Motorbikes the police will go and find ones that have been stolen and can be tracked.
I get 2 or 3 press releases a month from various tracking company telling the story of how a bike fitted with their kit has been recovered (the latest one recovered a nicked R1 from the back of a van - along with another stolen motorbike and teh van, which was also nicked). OK, they don't always get to arrest someone, but at least they get their vehicle back.

£430 +£100 seems very steep. Trackers seem to be about £300 to buy + annual fee of about £99 (£200 for 3 years)

iamashoppingaddict

My OH bought a car which had a tracker on it already. The insurance company wouldn't insure it without proof that the tracker had been transferred to his name.

Therefore he paid a £30 transfer fee and £300 for the tracker service for the life of his ownership. Tracker (the company) did not send anyone out to look at the tracker as it was fitted at one of their approved centres a few years back.

Sgt_Pepper_2

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.

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.

What a load of bull.

Sgt_Pepper_2

Rover_Driver wrote: »

It would still be recorded as a crime, the difference would be the investigation at the time due to the circumstances - for example, if the vehicle had be stolen when it was parked in the street at 8am and found to be missing at 5pm, without any other information, apart from recording the vehicle as stolen and giving the crime number, there is little else that could be done at that stage.
If there was force/violence involved, that would be a completely different matter and more urgent action would be appropriate.

Well said.

Sgt_Pepper_2

Strider590 wrote: »

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.

I don't think you understand either.

Cash-Strapped.T32

I'd second the cheap £35 tracker off ebay option.

Stick something like a gaff-gaff sim it, or depending on your current mobile network, one that's free to text on the same network, basically whichever option is cheapest.
Even on a PAYG sim you only need to add a tenner every 3 months or so to keep the sim valid, £3.33 p/m has got to the cheapest tracking tariff going.

Then if it ever is stolen, *you* have the control over if it's tracked, where the info goes, etc..
I had a case at work where a van was stolen, I had little old ladies calling in all morning telling me it was being joy-ridden around their estate & the load was flying over the road, but the tracking-co wouldn't do anything, not even turn it on until the police had contacted them about it (not a valid crime number, but actual contact like a call or fax - a fax!?).
By the time they'd gone through all that rigmarole it was burning in a layby somewhere..

Nah sod that, just track it yourself, open the co-ordinates in something like googlemaps & get a mate to drive you over to collect your own car or call the police once you're there & keep phoning them till they turn up..

magan

iamashoppingaddict wrote: »

My OH bought a car which had a tracker on it already. The insurance company wouldn't insure it without proof that the tracker had been transferred to his name.

Therefore he paid a £30 transfer fee and £300 for the tracker service for the life of his ownership. Tracker (the company) did not send anyone out to look at the tracker as it was fitted at one of their approved centres a few years back.

This is exactly what I was looking for, we are also with Tracker (the company), the life of his ownership seems to be now £400, but they told us to ring the technical team to come and check that the "battery is fine" and that is working as it should be (?) so that proves my point that it can actually be activated without the need of the technical team. Thanks a lot for your reply, of course thanks a lot to everyone that contributed, after so many replies I don't see that much the point of the tracker, however the final decision is in the hands of DH, after all is his "new little baby"

TrickyWicky

magan wrote: »

after so many replies I don't see that much the point of the tracker

On the contrary, I do. The police may not take it all that seriously (especially if it's a cheap car that you've spent £££ on to do up or it holds sentimental value etc) however at least you will be able to find your car and retrieve it.

Otherwise you're left with an endless list of options to try and find it - ringing scrapyards, metal yards, car sales, ferry companies, eurotunnel etc.

If you do get your current tracker reactivated OR get a GPRS powered tracker, DO NOT TELL ANYONE ABOUT IT. If you do and someone steals it who knows about it, it will be the first thing they look for to strip out and disable. All the time no-one knows about it any thief will not know its there to even bother looking for it.