VW refuses to help police GPS track car during kidnapping...
Just when you thought Volkswagen couldn’t possibly kick any more public relations own-goals, a kidnapping happened. Here’s how the Wolfsburg’s carmaker dropped the ball, again…
Gassing the monkeys, before Dieselgate came to light, was a particularly low point - even for a morally bankrupt organisation such as Volkswagen.
I didn't think they could get any lower and then the 23rd of February happened.
Waukegan Lake County, Illinois in the US, it's kind of halfway between Milwaukee and Chicago on the western shore of Lake Michigan. A 34 year old mother of two is parking her Volkswagen Atlas in her driveway at home. It's a completely unremarkable day. She's got two kids in the back, she ferries kid one into the house and comes back for kid two.
This is where the unremarkable aspect of the day just evaporates. Great PR work, Volkswagen.
A BMW, completely off the script, steams into the driveway and a bad dude in a mask gets out and begins to steal the Volkswagen. So she goes into full Mamma Bear mode because someone's got between her and her cub. So she goes for this guy who's going to steal her car and unchivalrously beats her to the ground. She gets run over as the cars depart, and the two-year-old is still in the Volkswagen.
So I give mum 12 points out of a possible 10, so far, and she gets a bonus point because despite being run over and requiring emergency surgery, she gets a phone and she calls Emergency Services in the US on 9-1-1 and the Sheriff’s department springs into action.
Lake County Sheriff responds urgently because this is not just a violent assault in the theft of a car, it's also the abduction of a toddler, and most of the cops I know take that kind of thing very seriously. Around the world, nothing gets taken more seriously than that, except probably terrorism and weapons of mass destruction - things of that nature.
The cops are on it and the Volkswagen, fortuitously enough, was sold with Volkswagen's GPS tracking feature which is subscriptions based. With a little bit of cooperation between Volkswagen and law enforcement, this Mumma Bear is on the road to getting her kid back.
You'd think so, at least.
While they're searching for this vehicle in which is an endangered child, the detectives actually call Volkswagen's GPS tracking service which is called Volkswagen Car-Net, and they flat-out refused to assist because someone had not paid the $150 subscription fee.
Did they save the kid? Did Volkswagen get its corporate pants metaphorically pulled down yet again? Find out what happens next by watching the full report above.
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