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Dealership Remotely Disables A Car Over A $200 Fee (www.cbc.ca)
An anonymous reader quotes the CBC:
A car dealership in Sherbrooke, Quebec, may have broken the law when it used a GPS device to disable the car of a client who was refusing to pay an extra $200 fee, say consumer advocates consulted by CBC News. Bury, Quebec resident Daniel Lallier signed a four-year lease for a Kia Forte LX back in May from Kia Sherbrooke. Two months later, the 20-year-old's grandmother offered to buy the car outright when he lost his job and couldn't make his weekly payments. After settling the balance and paying a $300 penalty, Lallier said, the dealership told him he would have to pay an additional $200 to remove a GPS tracker that had been installed on the car...
Lallier said there was no mention of the removal fee in the contract and he disputed having to pay it."I just find it absurd that over $13,000 was spent on this vehicle and we still have to pay $200 more to have their device removed," he told CBC. After Lallier refused to pay the fee, a mechanic notified him by text message that his car was being remotely disabled until the dealership recovered the device and $200 fee. "I went outside and tested my car, and it wouldn't work at all...and I got angry," Lallier said.
Lallier had finally started a new job and was headed to work, according to the CBC. The president of the Automobile Protection Association says the dealership's action was clearly illegal, since once the balance is paid off, "it's not your car anymore."
Lallier said there was no mention of the removal fee in the contract and he disputed having to pay it."I just find it absurd that over $13,000 was spent on this vehicle and we still have to pay $200 more to have their device removed," he told CBC. After Lallier refused to pay the fee, a mechanic notified him by text message that his car was being remotely disabled until the dealership recovered the device and $200 fee. "I went outside and tested my car, and it wouldn't work at all...and I got angry," Lallier said.
Lallier had finally started a new job and was headed to work, according to the CBC. The president of the Automobile Protection Association says the dealership's action was clearly illegal, since once the balance is paid off, "it's not your car anymore."
I can't help but feel like you completely missed the point of OP's post. GPS has basically nothing to do with this story, except for what the people that wrote it were referring to the device as. Immobilizer is the proper term. GPS is only a secondary function of it, and again, not relevant to this.
Their toll free phone number is 1-888-258-7467
Time for an "inquiry" into their practices. If enough /. members call it will definitely cost them more than the $200.00 they did this for...
http://www.kiasherbrooke.com/fr/contactez-nous
Address of Kia Sherbrooke: 4339 Boul Bourque, Sherbrooke, QC J1N 1S4, Canada, So, no, not in California
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
If a person owes you a bill, you bill him. Or file a mechanic's lein. Or sue him.
Breaking his stuff is not on your list of legal options. Because it is _his_ stuff. You have damaged his chattel and deprived him of the use of it. Doesn't matter if you had owned it at some time in the past.
Yes. They would have used cellular communication for that. The disablers are commonly referred to as GPS devices since they provide GPS tracking info (also via cellular) to the dealer. It's just a short name for the thing, not a mis-understanding of the technology involved.
Asinine behavior like this is what inspires people to write up how to's for removing these things. Turns out a fair number of these how to's already exist.
http://www.instructables.com/i...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://trackimo.com/disable-g...
On they Facebook panic button "We assume you are leaving a negative review because of the recent news coverage concerning Mr. Lallier. It would be important to understand that the CBC has unfortunately mis-identified Kia Sherbrooke as the seller. The car was in fact sold by a third party. If, indeed you are leaving your review because of this subject, we ask you to please remove your review as Kia Sherbrooke is not implicated in the sale. We simply share the same adresse as the third party. We are sorry for the confusion this has caused. We are currently in contact with CBC to clarify the situation."
This was a lease. If it's a lease, it's still the dealer's car. Hence the whole reason the GPS was installed in the first place. It stops being the dealer's car once the dealer is paid in full. The naughty part is that the dealer probably didn't tell him about the tracker and the removal fee. The client should be informed, and the removal fee should be built into the lease price.
Wrong.
Canada is a Common Law country like most of the commonwealth. In fact their legal system closely aligns with the UK and most of the commonwealth.
If the vehicle is under a lease, the leasee is the legal owner responsible for insuring and taxing the vehicle. The vehicle is security for the leasor. If the lease falls into arrears, there steps permitted to be taken are spelled out clearly in law (and the lease agreement). The leasor is only permitted to take legal possession of the vehicle after it has been made clear to a court that the terms of the lease have been breached, I've got a leased car in the UK, the V5 and Registration is in my name, as is the contract with BMW Finance. A lease is not a rental contract, which is what you're thinking of.
Disabling the vehicle remotely is completely illegal and a violation of consumer rights.
However that is pointless because the vehicle in question was not under finance. The owner had paid off the finance, including the penalty and the dealer was trying to impose a C$200 extra charge for removing a GPS tracker. So the vehicle was completely under the ownership of the former leasee which gives them absolutely no legal cause to remotely disable the vehicle. This is extortion by the dealer, pure and simple.
Yes, I read the article.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Dude, it's Quebec. Normal business rules, fairness and common sense do NOT apply in La Belle Province.
Time to learn to read. I'll help you:
"Bury, Quebec resident Daniel Lallier signed a four-year lease"
When you lease a car, you don't own it. It's owned by a third party and you lease it from them. A lease is a rental agreement with a specified time period.
Oh silly me. I must have forgot how to read. Thank god I accidentally covered myself when I said:
Now in this case, the vehicle was a lease and they may have additional rights prior to the purchase of the leased vehicle due to the fact that the dealership or manufacturer does own the vehicle in this case.
They later bought the car.
At which time they became owner of the vehicle and all objects permanently attached to it. Like I said in my last post.
The device was likely on the car to facilitate remotely disabling the car if they got behind on lease payments, and should have been mentioned in the leasing contract. Since they were no longer bound by that contract due to the ownership change, they have no right to remotely disable the car. If the dealership has a smart lawyer they're already mowing the guy's yard, sucking him off, and asking how many 0's he'd like on the settlement check.
You're right, they have no right to disable the car. And it doesn't matter why it was on the car, only that they no longer own the vehicle or the tracking device. If they were in the US, I would certainly report this to law enforcement as an unauthorized use of a computer system as they clearly used a computer at some point to unlawfully disable the device.