Everyone seems to like tracking devices until they are the one being tracked then it's no longer fun!
I personally encountered a conundrum regarding a different type of tracking device about 15 years ago. One of my customers brought his 2002 Ram quad cab 1500 in, with the 4.7 overheating. I went out to the parking lot after he had dropped the truck off and departed. The truck was fitted with a Blow/Hum device because he was a DWI convicted fellow. Now, I'm NOT EVER going to put my mouth on one of those in order to start a vehicle in for repairs. So, I turned on the ignition key and crawled under the truck and crossed the terminals on the starter and drove the truck into the shop for assessment.
Little did I know that by doing that, the "device" notified big brother of a violation and sent out the location! YUP!
Next thing I know, the young man came to my parking lot, mad as a wet hen. Seems as though he had been called by his probation officer and notified of this "violation".
When queried about it, I told him what I did. He was a bit hostile to me, so, I told him that I had NOT driven drunk, and that I wasn't going to blow on something he'd slobbered on. After he regained a disposition of calm reason, we could hold a sane conversation about it.
He had a narrative just like everyone else about how he had been the victim of law enforcement, drove after "just one beer", and swerved,.... yada yada yada, boo-hoo, poor little him.... never mind he blew high on the field breathalyzer, and his attorney failed to get the charges either reduced or dismissed.
It turned out that I was "supposed" to have read the little bitty print on the blow module to call 1-800-dufus and sat on wait while they eventually would have gotten 'round to answering my phone call to take a statement, force me to fax an affidavit to them along with a signed work order, et. al.
Yeah, right. That AIN'T gonna happen! I made HIM call them whilst sitting in his truck (we'd moved it outside) and wait 45 minutes to get the bypass code and take his and my statements to obtain said code.
We fixed the truck, and, thankfully, he never traded with me after that.
In summary, that really chapped my hide that this device pinged these people as to the location of the truck. The feeling of invalidation I felt was palpable. And I did nothing wrong. After doing some checking, this device was owned by a private vendor, licensed by the state to do all the fitting of these devices, monitoring them, and so on. The abusive timbre these folks cast on me made me feel contempt towards them. I finally told them that they didn't need to treat ME in such a brusque manner. I decided at that point, that if anyone else brought me a car fitted with a device which is a nanny would be told to get all the necessary ducks in a row So I do not have to go through all that bother.
