Seems that car thieves have found yet another way to steal your car or truck without any effort at all.
The car thieves peer through the windshield of your car or truck, write down the VIN # from the label on the dash, go to the local car dealership and request a duplicate key based on the VIN #.
A friend of hers didn’t believe this e-mail, so she called Chrysler-Dodge and pretended she had lost her keys. They told her to just bring in the VIN #, and they would cut her one on the spot, and she could order the keyless device if she wanted. The Car Dealer’s Parts Department will make a duplicate key from the VIN #, and collect payment from the thief who will return to your car. He doesn’t have to break in, do any damage to the vehicle, or draw attention to himself.
All he has to do is walk up to your car, insert the key and off he goes to a local Chop Shop with your vehicle. You don’t believe it? It IS that easy.
To avoid this from happening to you, simply put some tape (electrical tape, duct tape or medical tape) across the VIN Metal Label located on the dash board. By law, you cannot remove the VIN, but you can cover it so it can’t be viewed through the windshield by a car thief.
I urge you to forward this to your friends before some other car thief steals another car or truck.
Well; I used to work at Northtown so I can say with confidence that there is some truth to this.
Store policy dictates that you have to see a Title and photo ID (and make a copy of them for the parts manager), but if you knew someone @ the dealership (parts dept) obviously you could get away without doing it…
Btw actually stealing the car (not just the contents of the interior) would be tricky on anything newer (~2002+) because they all have transponder security systems with ‘chipped’ keys that have to be programmed to the car.
Like I said there’s some truth to it though…
Btw; you can get a ticket for covering your VIN plate in NY as far as I know, so do it at your own risk. :ohnoes:
[font=Verdana][size=2][font=Verdana][size=2][font=Verdana][size=2]not in all states; but in NYS yeah for sure. good point
btw whoever is cutting the key has to use the chrysler site to look up the key code. i’d suspect that with information that way it is today, if your login was used to search for the key code for car that showed up stolen shortly after; it would catch up with you eventually. just a thought.
that reminds me; i should check to see if my old login info still works… snky. j/k
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… But this is antithetical to the way car thieves generally work — they’re creatures of opportunity who steal cars as they find them, quickly and anonymously. They don’t want to have to go around recording VINs, forging documents, calling attention to themselves and risking exposure by showing their faces at auto dealerships, waiting around for keys to be made, and hoping the cased cars are still where they found them when they finally return with their duplicate keys. Car thieves have plenty of other methods for stealing automobiles at their disposal, and most of them will gladly accept the slight damage those methods might cause to cars during the course of their thefts (especially if, as claimed above, the merchandise is destined for a “chop shop”) than have to go through the delay and risks entailed by the rigamarole described above…
Thanks to people breaking into my car to begin with I had all my exterior locks changed. So therefore theyd still have to break their way in to call attention to themselves
anyone ever use “auto-jigglers” aka. “tryout keys”; just like havin the real thing, with a little practice. That is definatly a scary thought with the vin thing though, never really thought about that.
