41–50 of 325 posts
Why did they not park the car back and wait with the police on call in order to catch the thieves that would have come back the next night?
Reading this article is honestly a bit of a domestic culture shock for me, where does this guy live in The Netherlands? Here in downtown Amsterdam we called the police because the rear window of someone's car had just been smashed outside our office, and the police's response was "Has anyone been hurt? Nope? Then we're not coming". Meanwhile, wherever this guy lives they're sending officers because some BMW call cent…
You sound frustrated, like you think it’s a bad thing that the police has time to respond to these types of incidents. When you’re not in one of the big cities, it is in fact common that police has time for this type of stuff (I live in Zeist myself and could see this type of thing happening here). I think this is rather a signal that the police in Amsterdam is underfunded, and/or the types of crimes they deal with a…
I'm just honestly surprised. I've only lived in Amsterdam inside The Netherlands and wouldn't expect the police to respond to something like that.
> it’s not a “search a whole neighborhood” situation
> They gave the police the exact
> coordinates of my car and it only
> took the surveilling car 5 minutes
> to get to the car
In any case, it doesn't make much difference. I think if someone called the police here in Amsterdam with the exact location of a broken-in car they'd say tough titty and have the owner show up at the closest station and file a police report.
The thieves would have been wiser to take something, anything to make the narrative of the original break in more believable. They didn't sell the narrative well enough, which left people curious.
More surprising that the car has some call home feature that the owner doesn't seem to know about.
Having recently gotten a new BMW (in USA), they give you a huge packet of about 30 pages explaining the BMW TeleService and the "SOS" button. They also make you sign a power of attorney-style doc giving them rights to notify police in case they believe your vehicle is in trouble and provide police/EMS with its exact location. Mercedes and Audi have similar systems, as do others via OnStar. This is one of few cases wh…
Everytime I take my 2016 in to service, I ask both sales and service to disable teleservices. They say they cannot. I then call BMW teleservices (every time), and they tell me that the dealer has to do it.
There are explicit instructions from BMW online that in Germany you can take it to the dealer to have it disabled. No mention of any other country.
Yes, the emergency aspect of it is valuable. It's not worth the compromise in privacy, at the complete discretion and ineptitude of a corporation that has a profit motive.
In 2016, I certainly did not sign (and was not asked) any kind of doc authorizing location disclosure. My car definitely does have teleservices activated. (don't know if they will report my location)
I've anecdotally heard a lot of stories about the relay/replay attacks on keyless ignition systems used in many BMW models and other cars as well. No need to smash the window at all in some cases. Remarkably simple attack in principle, and probably a nightmare to explain to your insurer given there will be no evidence of a break in. Makes you wonder if you should start storing the key in a metal/RF shielded box at ho…
Is that really an issue? This isn't the first type of theft that doesn't require a break-in. Tow the car and there's no evidence either.
If you say it's been stolen then it's been stolen. File the police report and that's the end of that, no? Unless they have specific reason not to believe you personally (history of fraud), it'd be a crappy insurance company that would question it.
Reading this article is honestly a bit of a domestic culture shock for me, where does this guy live in The Netherlands? Here in downtown Amsterdam we called the police because the rear window of someone's car had just been smashed outside our office, and the police's response was "Has anyone been hurt? Nope? Then we're not coming". Meanwhile, wherever this guy lives they're sending officers because some BMW call cent…
>because some BMW call center calls the police in the middle of the night telling them that some car reported unspecified distress within some radius Isn't that much more severe than "window smashed"? It's "Burglary in process, or someone might be dying, and you haven't received a 112 so no ambulance is on the way."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>because some BMW call center calls the police in the middle of the night telling them that some car reported unspecified distress within some radius Isn't that much more severe than "window smashed"? It's "Burglary in process, or someone might be dying, and you haven't received a 112 so no ambulance is on the way."
The BMW just reported some ambiguous state of distress, whereas a person calling the police and telling them that some car has had its windows smashed in in downtown is by all reasonable criteria equivalent to a burglary in process. If someone's not stealing from that car now, they will be in 5 minutes.
It reported damage to the car severe enough to sever the door frame!!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You sound frustrated, like you think it’s a bad thing that the police has time to respond to these types of incidents. When you’re not in one of the big cities, it is in fact common that police has time for this type of stuff (I live in Zeist myself and could see this type of thing happening here). I think this is rather a signal that the police in Amsterdam is underfunded, and/or the types of crimes they deal with a…
I think it's great that they have time to do that. I'm happy that somebody in this country has working public services. I'm just honestly surprised. I've only lived in Amsterdam inside The Netherlands and wouldn't expect the police to respond to something like that. > it’s not a “search a whole neighborhood” situation In retrospect I may have misread this: > They gave the police the exact > coordinates of my car and…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
$30k in cash is not the same as a $30k car. A $30k car that's been stolen is not worth $30k, then there's liquidity, risk and a bunch of other things. Having your car parked outside is not at all like having a box containing $30k outside your house.
well then is it closer to having a box with $15k? $10k? $5k? In all these situations, the incentive is still there.