GPS SYSTEMS AND WARRANTY

[00:00:01] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback accountability the all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.0. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Listen to turn attention to your car care segment brought to you with a kind compliments of Auto Insure 868 and Air Support Tactical. As per usual, my co hosts and colleague on the car care segment, Dirk Barnes is in the building. Dirk, good morning to you. Good morning. [00:00:27] Speaker A: Good morning David. Good morning to all the listeners of Real 106 this morning. [00:00:32] Speaker B: Double D's on your radio at this time and I hope you have an exciting story. I would love for you to share something only lock up anybody in the last week. You know, tell me something now. Share one story self now man, you [00:00:42] Speaker A: know one story but this is not so much of a recovery story. This is a situation. You know we talk about the background checks. [00:00:49] Speaker B: Yes. [00:00:50] Speaker A: Right. So we're in the middle of some expansion right now. Moving on. As I mentioned I'm going to a new building in a few weeks and of course you know, if you have expanded the attic on some additional staff it's a good time to start hiring. We had a candidate, I don't know what he was thinking or if he doesn't follow this show, sent in an application, passed your first interview, had an extensive background as a technician reach his second interview and you know this is where we make sure we have a face to face and that chance I could get to read body language and ask some personal questions only to discover during the questions that he was very apprehensive to answer about his interactions with the Trier and Tobago Police Service. So that raised some questions with me, some concerns. I told him, I said well you know, we'll have to look into certain things before we proceed. And when we did our background checks we recognized that this young man who by the way is under 25 sits down with a conviction for motor vehicle acne and possession of stolen stolen vehicles and trying to apply to air supports article. So you see what I told you in the past you have to be very careful in this, in this market. Now he is so his resume is so impressive as a technician he can talk the talk, you understand. So I don't know other organizations might have fired him. In fact he worked for a couple companies, not only the, the larger reputable ones but he worked for companies that installed GPS tracking devices in the past on alarms based on his resume. So you see how careful you have to be in this, in this particular industry. [00:02:36] Speaker B: I, I always look forward and I know for the past seven days you would have had some story that would have excited our listeners and share. Now one might argue, Dirk, that in a situation like that, repatriation, rehabilitation, maybe he's a changed person. Can we take the chance to put somebody in that position to work with you or any GPS organization with a past like that, Even if the person has been rehabilitated, they're no longer committing those crimes or in that field of criminality, if that is, its funny enough, [00:03:10] Speaker A: I am a believer that people deserve a second chance. Right. So that's why when I interviewed him and I spoke to him, I told him, you know, we'd have to look into these things. You see, when the Transbago Police service get back to us and they said they use these words known to the police. See those words, those words suggest to me that he's on their radar and continues to be on their radar. So once that happens, I am apprehensive because I have customers to protect. And remember, I am not just putting a GPS in your car. We are managing information, personal information, the places that you frequent, the church that you go to, your medical, if it is you go into the hospital, often all of these things come to a server and we have a right to protect that data. And he might not himself might be involved in seeing vehicles, but being exposed as a technician, he could, you know, pass that information on to other elements and it might never trace back to him. I just cannot take that chance with my customers. [00:04:14] Speaker B: And I want to thank you for your due diligence and thank you for expressing that again. So you see persons. Now it's not that we don't want to rehabilitate you, but maybe that line of work is not for you at this time or anymore. You would have breached all trust where that is concerned and we can't take the chance. Now it doesn't mean that somebody unknown to police can't pass information. But we cannot hang here if we don't know, right? We can't, we can't, we can't be rich if there's nothing, no evidence to support it, but known to police means that you would have been on that radar for quite some time. [00:04:51] Speaker A: And that's the thing, you know. But where he is employed currently, probably the best place for him. He's not employed with, in cars and GPS and alarm systems, you know, so he probably would be able to rehabilitate there and use some of those technical skills. So don't feel sorry for the young man. We don't because we have to look at how we do our business and do it correctly. Our Customers trust us. Now we have to make sure, maintain that trust. [00:05:18] Speaker B: Persons might wonder what does hiring somebody have to do with a car care segment with. Because they believe that car care segments only deal with the upkeep of your car, the maintenance of your car. Do you know that the persons employed to track your vehicle, you would like to have them in a clean standing and a good upright citizen in the country. Because these are, that is part of maintaining your car. Because if you don't have your car, [00:05:40] Speaker A: well, you know, we talk about, about car care and let's look at car care front. And so we, we deal specifically on this show with the, the security side of things. Security is not just a word. It's a whole set of processes that work within security. And one of those processes as well is making sure we have integrity. So we have to make sure the integrity of our staff, the integrity of our processes hold strong against all sorts of external and internal factors. So that way when we provide security, we could say we're doing so holistically and we do it correctly and professionally. So therefore customers themselves can walk away knowing that hey, I have this level of protection. And it comes from people who are properly trained, properly vetted with equipment that is modern technology that is advanced. These are the things that customers want here. So the car care segment is going deeper and deeper into the areas that ensures that the clients themselves will become or people who become clients of several GPS companies or even my company has support Tactical will understand what is it looking for when they're shopping around. [00:06:51] Speaker B: I like that. Now normally when you buy a car, again we mentioned the insurance. They ask for specific things and you have a garage, do you have a gate, you have an alarm system, you have a GPS in the car they, they wanted. You know, all these things help them to say, all right, you, you, that car secure. We could give you insurance. Now you mentioned last week that you will get insurance. You had to get insurance anyhow, you take it that insure the vehicle, all right, the bank will give you the mortgage. If the car is stolen, you still have to pay a mortgage. But then when they start to talk about warranties being voided if you tamper with the factory construct of the vehicle dealership construct, meaning that you tamper with any kind of wiring fixtures in the vehicle that you avoid your warranty. Is that fact or fiction? [00:07:39] Speaker A: Complete fiction? No, that's a real, that's a real controversial question you ask. But there. But I'm glad you asked because up to recently I've been doing some extensive Research on this now just to continue and put some things in context for your listeners. I have a Master's in law, a masters of law. Right. I am also one of my colleagues as well who's here is also an attorney and we have sat down and we have looked at these so called claims that a dealership can just tell someone if you install a GPS shot again you could void a warranty. Well, they're in for a rude awakening one of these days because somebody will again take them to court and their dealership would again lose. There are several cases that have been tried in Trinidad and Tobago on warranty matters with claims such as these and they have lost. Trinidad and Tobago. When you know a lot of customers come to us and it's talk about the consumer, the consumer act and stuff like that. And I realize some of them haven't ready consumer act but what they don't realize as well is also have a sale of goods act and it also has an unfair contract terms act. All of these things protects not just the consumer but also the seller. But in the case of, you know, just voiding a warranty, I want to put some things in the context a lot of people would may not notice but your pain job on your car when you buy your vehicle is under warranty. If you start to see rust spots within a particular amount of time you can go back to the dealership and say hey I'm under warranty. But look, these what rust spots are coming up now. Every dealership finds out that you install a GPS tracking device, is he going to say well we're not fixing that your warranty voided. Make it make sense. There are processes and these things are laid out in cases in court that says that there's a process of how these things should be should be dealt with. And I'm making these blanket statements is just there as the proverbial warranty bogeyman to frighten people into going to their friends who sell GPS tracking devices to have it installed by them. [00:10:01] Speaker B: Good morning again Trinidad and Tobago. 25 minutes to the hour of 8 o' clock. We are in your car care segment brought to you with a kind compliments of Auto Insurance 868 Agency and Air Support Tactical Security Limited. My co host Dirk Barnes is in the building and we're chatting about the security warranties on vehicles from dealerships that install GPS systems. Now Dirk, if the thing is it's against the law persons, there has been a legal precedent set where dealership would have lost because he made a very good Point, why would my warranty be voided for paint infraction, which is the bodywork, if I installed a GPS into my vehicle to ensure that my vehicle, I can track it or my vehicle stays with me, it have a security monitoring system? If the laws are there, why would dealerships still take a chance, given that judicial precedent is already set, to still come out and tell customers they can't do that? [00:11:00] Speaker A: Well, that's the thing. And that at all confuses me because some of these larger dealerships have a legal department who should be advising them accordingly. But to make such a claim, I'll use one dealership. For example, I have an employee who purchased a vehicle, and while I was looking at all these things, I decided to ask her, can I see a warranty? So in all of the documents that she received, the warranty was written in the booklet. So I examined the booklet itself and the warranty made no mention of GPS tracking devices. So. And that same dealership was telling her you would void your warranty. So the first question I want to know is what warranty are they referring to? Is it a dealership warranty or manufacturer's warranty? And where is that document? I just think they use this term to frighten people. Because I will, I will say that there are some dealerships that have been hurt by installers who do negligent work. But you cannot jump to the conclusion. And that is also written in law. If it is, you buy a vehicle or somebody delivers a vehicle to a purchaser, the purchaser puts in a GPS and then the car gets something, the car gets some kind of a fault. The time, the chronological chronology of events does not mean that because the vehicle now has a defect, the cause of it was a GPS tracking device. It could be something else. We have had issues we all know of somebody who bought a brand new vehicle, did absolutely nothing and had to take it back into the dealership with a defect. So it is, it is, it is. How to say this, boy, it is okay to think that the, even though you put any gps, it may not have caused the issue. Now if the GPS did cause the issue, which in, in court cases that have been argued, the, the, let's call it the, the legal burden is going to be on the claimant, the person who's trying to say, this is my warranty, I am supposed to void this warranty. If that, if, if that person recognizes that they need to make that, that case in court, that his warranty should be voided, then here's what you have to prove. To the court that you got an expert right to look at what the defect was. And there must be documentation, there must be photographs, analysis, scan reports, all these different things that you present to court. So if the court is saying you have to provide evidence to the court, you can't just say warranty voided and never even looked at the car. That's just not possible. So people who are coming to those kind of conclusions clearly have not sought any sort of legal advice and making these particular claims, which in certain cases, because you have white versus Third of Trinidad and Tobago, you have some other, other things as well, other cases where you would recognize that there were warranty issues and those issues would met in the. What is it in the favor of the claimant. So these are things that people have to sort of get aware of, especially dealerships and understand. You cannot just say you avoid a warranty. There are other remedies that you could examine. [00:14:03] Speaker B: Now when we look at installing a GPS system without giving away your secrets and what you do and that kind of thing, how much of the manufacturer's installation do you have to interfere with, like the brain box? The what? The electricals, you know, do you have to cut wires? And just. I don't want you to give away the secrets, but just, just broad. [00:14:25] Speaker A: I would speak to air support tactical and its installers. It's certified installers, mind you, because they are trained and certified. We, and I will say this simply, do not cut any wires in anybody's vehicle. We also do not interface with anything on the can bus. None of the computers. If it's a wireless system, there's absolutely no, no interface for the vehicle. But then you have other options of different types of systems. And we build our own plug and play harnesses and we go straight to where power source exists. And the power source exists beyond the electronics because the whole car is electrical. In fact, the body of the car is the negative, is the negative pole. So once we get power to our devices, our devices work and our tech. That's why our wired installations could take up to 90 minutes or two hours because of the amount of work we have to do to make sure we could avoid all of those particular systems. We have seen some vehicles come from roll and roll off dealerships. When people are doing migrations onto our system. The same dealerships who send people, people across by. By their friends. And then, and when we look at these, these installations, we have seen where it's connected to the ignition system. And the ignition system now is. Can bus on some of these, these Push button start vehicles. We have seen devices drop out of our feet and the device might have GPS tracking on a sticker inside of it. They didn't have the common sense to remove the sticker. And when we look at these things, even insulation, you have technicians outside here who wrapping wire around, around bolts and then tapping it into the chassis. You know, nothing is insulated, nothing is, is, is heat shrink wrap, nothing. Not even a protection of the harness itself to prevent it from rubbing against the chassis and grounding off. These are the kind of things that we see coming to us that sometimes we have to sit down and repair up to. I think we can. We had a lady who came in, I had to tell her, listen, because of what we saw, we have to do over this entire insulation. It wasn't our insulation to begin with, you know, so these are the kind of things that are happening outside there and customers are not aware of it. But I understand why. Some of the dealerships will be apprehensive. But making blank statements that is not lawful, that you will lose in court, makes absolutely no sense. The remedies that you will have to use is going through a thorough investigation. If you believe that a GPS tracking device has caused problems, a vehicle that the customers complain about during its warranty period, then prove it to the customer and document it. And then at that point in time, you don't void the entire warranty yet void the claim for the repair, which means that the vehicle is still under warranty, you know, but that particular component that maybe might have been damaged by the, the installation, whether through negligence, that you could prove the, the claimant, owner, the defender. [00:17:18] Speaker B: Well, the claimant is the owner who making the claim. [00:17:22] Speaker A: We know well, right. The person who making the claim, I want to call him the claimant. Because in the eyes of the court, the claimant is going to be the. It's probably going to be. It could be either way, depending on who's. [00:17:29] Speaker B: Depending on who came, right? [00:17:30] Speaker A: But the purchaser, owner of the vehicle, they are the ones who are going to have to pay for the repair. Now, the owner might say, but that is unfair, and it is unfair. So then the owner's remedy is to go back to the installer who did the installation and tell them, hey, look at this report. Look at what went on across here. You have to pay me back for the repairs. That is how it's done. Your warranty is still intact, and the person who takes responsibility is the person who made the mistake or conducted the negligence and how that is presented to them in Proof, not just I pick up the phone. Hey, Makano, starting this morning, you install a gps. Yes. Well, the problem is the GPS you've already voided. It doesn't work that way in the real legal world. So then customers should not be afraid to take this, take these dealerships to task. [00:18:13] Speaker B: So then do you get a warranty on or a guarantee on GPS installations, especially coming from Air support Tactical Security limited. And if so, what. How does that warranty look? What is the guarantee that a customer can get? [00:18:32] Speaker A: Well, first let's. Let's deal with the warranties. We could only offer warranties, not only inflation. We could offer warranties. On our system. Our warranty is a repair, replace, or refund. All right? If it is that we cannot repair it and we cannot replace it, which I have never seen happen, we would refund you. And I will come back to some refund myths in a little while as it relates to the installation. If any installation causes a damage to our customer vehicle, I personally would stand the cost of that particular repair. All right? Now, luckily, I would not have to do that. But why? I could say that even though some of these vehicles are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, because I pay for insurance for that very, very position, if anything should happen, I have insurance. That is why we have liability insurance. When I recognize that these cars will be. When I first started off, the cars that we were dealing with was 20 and 30,000. These cars, most of the cars was coming at a point in time because that's what people could have afforded 15 years ago was rolling off 60, 70, $80,000. Now, we've seen cars coming to us as a million, two million. We have Porsche Range Rovers, Pradus, all kind of thing coming across here that are expensive vehicles. I don't want to mess up all those vehicles. And I have to take money out of my pocket because I am not the one now doing things. So these technicians, even though they're, they are trained and they have a very close, a very tight position to operate within, all right? I am still not there. A mistake can be made. So in the event that a mistake is made, we have insurance. We have the resources to be able to cover the cost of repair if it has to go back to your dealership. I have not had a warranty infringement in 15 years. My entire existence. I have not had a warranty infringement. I'm knocking on wood now because I don't want to have any in the future. All right? But we have a backup plan for that. So to say that if you want to use the word guarantee, we guarantee that we're going to make sure that we take care of your vehicle. Warranty is a replay, sorry, repair, replace and refund. And as I want to come to as well, consumers, right when you are purchasing a GPS tracking device, you are not entitled to a refund because you change your mind. You want to jump to another company. We have had people come into us and telling us things like that. Once you, once you reach into the point of you have made a decision by some other company and then you see our ad and you want to run across to us, you, you cannot just start a conversation with us at us. Well, I try to get a refund from them. They are not entitled to give you a refund and vice versa if people come to us. Because once you enter into a contract, a sale, that is a contract. And the Consumer Protection act protects not just you, the consumer, but it also protects the seller and as well as the Sale of Goods Act. So be very mindful that if you can't just change your mind and say you want a refund, it does not work like that. This is not the United States of America. [00:21:32] Speaker B: Outside of that. Let's talk a bit about vehicles that find themselves in auto. In RTA's the vehicle write off but there's installation, there's GPS tracking device in the vehicle. Insurance refused to repair it that vehicle, the cost of repair is too much. So that's why they write off the vehicle. They probably pay less than vehicle with you know the drill. What happens then with the contractual arrangement with the GPS company and this vehicle because the device is then the vehicle still according to where it's located or where the impact took place. What does air support tactical do in instances like this? [00:22:15] Speaker A: If we can't, if we can't retrieve the actual device to hold it on, to hold it for the customer when they come out another vehicle to protect that vehicle, then we'll have no choice but to decommission device. Now that customer will maintain their time on the system but when they come back they will actually have to pay a more discounted rate just to get the device itself from us. And then they put a new device in the vehicle and then they continue their service. So we have had instances like that already, but in most cases I can't think of any case other than one car that actually got an, that was set a fire, mind you, that was a domestic thing and the person had burned down the card that we wasn't able to retrieve the GPS in Most cases we have been able to retrieve the device. It took some doing. But once we get a hold of the device and the SIM card and the SIM card is the important thing for Shelley and truly because the SIM card is something that we have to decommission if it is, we don't plan to use could normally be taken and used in another vehicle. [00:23:16] Speaker B: So the police usually cooperate with you guys coming in after. Well, how long after investigation because the car write off the RTA happened and this is appear the investigating and they allow you to come in with your text and you know, go through the mangle wreck to retrieve this device. [00:23:30] Speaker A: I can't recall of any time that we have gone through the police. Most of the times it's the cars held by an insurance company or something like that. But to say there was any police yard, I don't think we ever had to go in to retrieve a device in a police station or anything like that. [00:23:46] Speaker B: As we talking car care maintenance and GPSs and all these different things. I have to ask in the event, I mean you are very learned in this, in this area, I hope you can share some insight. In the event that a car is written off by the insurance agency. All right. With the claim and what have you, who gets to keep the wreck? I. I thought, or I am of the view that if the insurance say listen, we'll pay you for the. We'll pay off for the car. The car was valued at 75,000. It got in the accident. We pay 75,000, they take the wreck. Or is it that the customer could keep the wreck? I've heard instances where the car the gain is 75,000, but if you take 50, you could get to keep your wreck. You can still salvage parts and do different things. You know, how does that work? What is the legality where that is concerned? [00:24:35] Speaker A: Well, from my personal experience, I had a scenario where I was involved in an rta. A guy had broke a light and ran to my car and my car was written off. I dealt with maritime when he pointed out it was years ago. So we're talking about 20, 30 years ago. And maritime would have paid me, would I would have kept the wreck and maritime would have paid me the balance. So they had the wreck estimated at a certain amount. Whatever my insured amount was, I got the balance of that, which strange enough, got me to repair the vehicle and the car was fine. I sold the car and all that kind of stuff. A lot of people do that. But in some cases where the wreck has no value and probably has and his recommendation is to take it and put it into parts to get some value from it. The insurance company may very well keep the wreck, pay you what they need to pay you in terms of your coverage. And most times it goes to paying off a loan or something. And then they would hand that vehicle over to a scrapyard or a garage and then they do what it is they, you know, they could do. Sometimes those wrecks are sent to auction and some of these garages would scrap it onto parts. I've even seen some of these garages find a way to put these cars back on the road. Now, from what I understand, licensing division, if they get involved, they could actually say that this car is going to be demostered from the, from the licensing. So they will basically take back the number and you will. That car cannot go back onto the, onto the registry. So if that vehicle is deregistered, really and truly, and that is a conversation that has to happen between the insurance company and licensing. Once that happens, it makes no sense trying to repair that car, fix that car, it really is to pull it apart and sell off the parts, whatever salvageable parts they are. So there are different methods that take place depending on the severity, depending on your policy, depending on the insurance company and how they manage risk. So there's no one fast rule. But there are instances where different companies in different situations will take different courses of action. [00:26:36] Speaker B: I can understand that. Because if that car is damaged beyond repair and you attempt to bring it back in the sense of joining the chassis and those kind of things, I mean, if it broke once while it was under manufacturers, you know. [00:26:52] Speaker A: Yeah, [00:26:54] Speaker B: that I believe the decommissioning would be a safety issue. Yeah, because I mean, you welding it back together and fabricating it back together could pose a very real and possible threat for a future road traffic accident on the road. You know, of course, as we get set to wrap this interview here this morning with this segment, I don't want to say interview because it's no longer an interview. It's a staple on the morning show as it relates to the gps. And again, I want to reiterate the points of voided warranties. If you can just reiterate some of those highlights this morning for a listening audience. Somebody just asked me if I could revisit it. So I'll ask Dirk to revisit it this morning just to share with you again just before you wrap. Now, if the dealership comes with you with that, how you could handle it or you should handle it personally, a [00:27:45] Speaker A: warranty an entire warranty cannot be voided because of an installation of a GPS tracking device. There's no. Once you enter into a purchase with a dealership, you have entered into a contract with them, the warranty is part of that contract. So they cannot come and change that contract or the terms of that contract just like that. They can't do it and they can't provide a condition. And also, if you consider the fact that a GPS and different providers, these are commercial items, they cannot make a statement like that. Because even the people who are involved in GPS could probably sort of seek some redress in courts for any company that says something like that. Now, that doesn't stand to say that a mistake could be made and that they're remedies that the dealerships themselves can't exercise. If it is that there is a. You took your car to someone and they did some sort of foolishness and they caused a problem with your car, and you go back to the dealership and the dealership identifies it, records it, makes sure they document it, and they could prove that it was really through data and through analysis and investigation, that the problem that you have that is existing is as a result of the installation, they can deny your claim under the warranty right for that particular repair, which means that you, the customer, will have to pay for that repair. But it's not over for you. You can still exercise some degree of redress by the person who made a mistake with that data that they would have provided. And in law in Trinidad and Tobago, they are required to provide any information that suggests that a defect would have taken place and a repair needs to be done. They have to provide proof of that. I'm talking about the dealer here now. So you will have that proof. You can take that proof to the person who made a mistake and then they will have to reimburse you. If they don't, you can go before the courts and get your reimbursement. So generally speaking, the dealerships themselves are operating with this blanket statement. And this statement is not guided by the illegal departments. It's clear it's not there. They're getting no guidance. And you could also ask them to see the, the warranty because, I mean, I've purchased vehicles recently and I've examined my warranties and it makes no mention of GPS tracking devices and stuff like that. It talks about aftermarket and it speaks about aftermarket. If an aftermarket device causes an infringement on the vehicle, that that is going to affect your claim in that particular instance. So to wrap it up. You cannot install a GPS and then going for a paint infringement or something wrong with your transmission and they say well hey, you have a GPS or we're not repainting a car or we're not repairing the transmission, you will have to pay for that. It cannot work that way. It has to make sense. And I'm hoping that the dealerships, especially in your roll and roll off side of things, listen to what I'm saying because you do have remedies, right? But those remedies require that you prove that whatever defect was a cause of the of the GPS device. And by the way, the cortisone want to also see the expertise of the person who is signing that report. It can't just be somebody who working in your service department. If it is that you and the purchaser do not agree on that particular report, both of you will have to find some common person who that you would allow to do the to do. It has to be agreement between the two of you. Some common expert will come and examine and make a determination and then that report is what's going to be used on the basis of that of that dispute. So if you don't believe me, for all you guys who don't believe me, go contact your attorneys, let your attorneys look at it. You can message me at air support tactical. I will send you the paper that we have done and you can examine it and you could see for yourself. But the fact of the matter is the law is there, it protects both entities and this voiding of warranties is just, just, just like that is not lawful. As I'll wrap up with that, I [00:31:36] Speaker B: thank you very much, Duke. I look forward to another exciting edition of Car Care segment in the not too distant future. Well, next week, Wednesday, God's fair life. Dirk, thank you very much and I hope I have a story from you, the master storyteller in the world. [00:31:51] Speaker A: I hope and I don't. I like it to be quiet. [00:31:53] Speaker B: Well, that's a story too. It's quiet. That's a story too. Thank you very much Dirk and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you. [00:32:00] Speaker A: Take care. Bye bye. The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5.