Vehicle stolen - Tracker company want £600 to trace it

RakeshS

Hi all,

My car was stolen over the weekend and I subsequently found-out that it had a tracker on it. I wasn't paying a subscription to the tracker company, but they said that they could trace/locate it on a "no refund" basis, for £600. They have sent out a signal to the tracker and it did 'ping' yesterday, so the tracker is active and potentially can be used to locate the vehicle.
I spoke to them just now and they've sent out another signal, and if that comes back, I was going to pay the amount... Unless someone can suggest an alternative to this?
The company I'm speaking to is called "Tracker" (0800 911900.) Does anyone have any experience with them and/or are there any other company that can trace the tracker instead of them?

Any help would be massively appreciated.

R

Exemplar

Is the car worth more than £600? yes? then pay it
What would happen if the insurance discovered that you had the means to find the car but decided not to?

RakeshS

Exemplar said:

What would happen if the insurance discovered that you had the means to find the car but decided not to?

Not sure, but I plan to activate it if it pings again. The guy from Tracker is going to call if it 'pings' again.

What I'm really interested to learn is, is this tracker uniquely accessible to the company I'm in contact with, or are other 3rd parties able to access it equally easily? Can I save anything on the potential £600 outlay? The car is worth more than £600, but if someone can do it for less, I'd be interested...

powerful_Rogue

RakeshS said:

Exemplar said:

What would happen if the insurance discovered that you had the means to find the car but decided not to?

Not sure, but I plan to activate it if it pings again. The guy from Tracker is going to call if it 'pings' again.

What I'm really interested to learn is, is this tracker uniquely accessible to the company I'm in contact with, or are other 3rd parties able to access it equally easily? Can I save anything on the potential £600 outlay? The car is worth more than £600, but if someone can do it for less, I'd be interested...

Nope, just Tracker.

Belenus

What will you do if you pay £600, go to the revealed location and find nothing? Or find just a  tracker lying on a pavement. Or find some unpleasant men who don't consider legalities such as car ownership.

This is surely a Police and/or Insurance matter.

How much is the car worth?

I presume that the car is insured and that you have reported the theft to the insurance company.

You could inform the insurance company and leave it to them to pay or not pay. That is what I would probably do.

Have you informed the Police? They will probably do nothing but they might be able to encourage the tracker company to act as otherwise they could in theory be charged with withholding information about a crime.

I am probably delving into the world of fantasy there. 

maisie_cat

In 2004 I paid a one off £300 to transfer the tracker membership for my car when I bought it, the other option was something like £100 a year. The £600 sounds reasonable in today's money

theoretica

An option would seem to be to tell the insurance company about the tracker - and leave it to them how to act.  As pointed out above, what would you do with the location yourself?  Fine if joyriders abandoned it in the next town, but very many options I wouldn't want to act on alone.

Brie

I'm curious to know how you found out about the tracker.   And the company did they contact you out of the blue??   Are you sure it's not a scam pretending to be a legit company?

I wouldn't be paying money out to a company I didn't know about for a service I'm not sure will result in a reasonable outcome.  

Thinking at best you pay £600 to get a location where the vehicle was when they were pinged but is no longer there.  Not so best you get there and it's a burnt out wreck.  Or as someone else has suggested has some nasty people sitting in it drinking beer and eating big macs. (other fast food is available).  

[Deleted User]

I have seen on the police TV shows if they get a ping from tracker and are asked to investigate, they have specialist kit to triangulate the location once they get close - the tracker ping may be in a city or at least area of a city so could be a real pain to locate without specialists - why not get your insurance company to do this? Depending on the car though, they might be taking it for parts as much as wanting to sell it so you might find the tracker eventually but not much car left

Sandtree

Deleted_User said:

I have seen on the police TV shows if they get a ping from tracker and are asked to investigate, they have specialist kit to triangulate the location once they get close - the tracker ping may be in a city or at least area of a city so could be a real pain to locate without specialists - why not get your insurance company to do this? Depending on the car though, they might be taking it for parts as much as wanting to sell it so you might find the tracker eventually but not much car left

There are various different tracker devices out there, even Tracker used to sell a variety of them back when it was owned by RBS Insurance/Direct Line Group. How they work, how easy they are to block etc varies notably. Did have one reactivated to find the car was in the middle of the North Sea and using other tracking tools identified the boat it was on but there was no appetite for any dramatics of meeting the boat as it landed in Russia or such  

To the OP - if you are claiming on your car insurance then speak to them about the tracker before paying it yourself, depending on vehicle value etc they may decide they are willing to pay for reactivation and may well have better corporate rates for doing so.

Grumpy_chap

RakeshS said:

Hi all,

My car was stolen over the weekend and I subsequently found-out that it had a tracker on it. I wasn't paying a subscription to the tracker company, but they said that they could trace/locate it on a "no refund" basis, for £600. They have sent out a signal to the tracker and it did 'ping' yesterday, so the tracker is active and potentially can be used to locate the vehicle.
I spoke to them just now and they've sent out another signal, and if that comes back, I was going to pay the amount... Unless someone can suggest an alternative to this?
The company I'm speaking to is called "Tracker" (0800 911900.) Does anyone have any experience with them and/or are there any other company that can trace the tracker instead of them?

Any help would be massively appreciated.

R

Presumably you've reported this to your insurer and also to the Police.

I never thought if the "scam" idea until @Brie mentioned it.  If you do decide to call Tracker, use the contact details on the website:
https://www.tracker.co.uk/contact-us
That does not give a free-phone number, but they may have one.  It seems unlikely that a scammer would have a free-phone number as "911 emergency" as the number quoted.

As others suggested, it is really for the insurance company / Police to track the vehicle.

You've not mentioned what the car is.  Is it plausible that a previous owner would have fitted a Tracker device?  Quite likely on a Range Rover, less so on an Aygo.