CAR TRACKERS: ARE THEY REALLY WORTH IT?
You have probably pondered on the actual worth of a tracker in your vehicle, you have probably asked yourself if it is just a hype and if these trackers really serve any purpose.
Well, in this article, we will be talking a lot about wether or not GPS trackers are really worth the money. There will be a couple of real life stories and personal experiences to help you decide or better still, estimate the value of having a car tracker installed in your vehicle.
We will also discuss the other options available to you, should you not see the need to install a car tracker in your vehicle.
Let’s begin with the story of a retired government official who was driving with his wife along a road called Alakia in Ibadan few years back. Just as he approached a rough patch on the road, a vehicle hit his car from behind. As you would expect, Baba got furious and came down to access the damage and also angrily asked the other driver if he was blind or sleeping behind wheels.
What Baba did not realize at the time was that the hit on his car from behind was a deliberate accident by Men of the underworld. They were interested in stealing his car and were certain Baba would respond they way he did.
No sooner had Baba come down from his car than the thieves brandished their guns in front of him. They threatened to shoot him and his wife if they did not behave themselves. These Criminals asked Baba if he had any form of security in his car, to this question, Baba said No.
So they bundled Baba and his wife to the back of his own car and drove them over several kilometers into the outskirts of the town.
Now, you are probably wondering why the car thieves had to take the car owner with them. This is their modus operandi. They do this just so they are sure whatever car security system in the car doesn’t demobilize the car, and if it does happen, they still had the owner of the car in their custody to tell them what to do to deactivate the car security. So, when they drive for an hour or so without the car going off, they get confident that the car has no security. It is upon this conviction that they now decide to allow their victims alight from the vehicle while they speed off into oblivion.
In the case of this Baba, these thieves were wrong. This is because Baba’s car actually had a GPS tracker. Now, this is another beautiful thing about car trackers. Car trackers do not interfere with your vehicle operations unless you command it do so by sending some commands through your mobile phone.
This means that unlike those other cheap car security devices where driver has to discreetly press a button to stop car from going off later, a tracker does not in any way affect your driving or interfere with your vehicle mechanism. So, a thief can actually drive your car for days and months without realizing it has a car tracker.
Back to Baba’s story. The car thieves dropped off Baba and his wife in the middle of nowhere that night after collecting their mobile phones from them. After trekking for some distance in the dark, Baba and his wife stumbled upon a palm wine tapper returning home on his bicycle. Fortunately, the palm wine tapper had a small torch light phone and he was kind enough to allow Baba borrow his phone.
Baba immediately called one of his sons, told him where to find the particulars of his car tracker in his email and that was how Baba’s son was able to demobilize the car from where he was. Baba’s Son was also able to track the live location of the car . Later that night, they went to pick up their car and drove back home.
Trust me, this story has not ended. This is because by the time Baba and his people got to where his car was, they found out that the thieves who stole his car upon realizing the car engine had gone off did what car thieves do in such circumstance. What did they do? Your guess is as good as mine.
They stole another car.
This time, their victim was a young man travelling to Ondo state that night to see his family.
Unfortunately for the young man, he didn’t have a tracker in his own car. We will never know if that young man ever found his car but our own Client, Baba recovered his own car.
From this story, there is no doubt that the importance of having a sound car tracking system in one’s vehicle cannot be over emphasized.
Having a tracker in your car boosts your chances of being able to recover your car by 95 percent. Aside being able to track and determine real live location of your vehicle and being able to remotely demobilize your vehicle from whatever location, patronizing us at www.cartrackernigeria.ng gives you a lot more value for your money as there are so many extra features that you will no doubt find beneficial.
These extra features are as follows:
VEHICLE MOVEMENT HISTORY
This feature allows you to playback history of places your vehicle was driven to, routes taken, number of stops made and all up to one year. For example, we are currently in the month of January, 2025, you can decide you want to pick a random date and check out all the places your car was driven to on the 4th of july, 2024 for example. This feature is especially useful in cases of itinerary disput between car owners and their drivers.
VOICE MONITORING
This is a cool feature that allows you to listen in on ongoing voice conversations by occupants of your car even when you are not physically present in the car. This feature has been known to help foil kidnap attempts and even saved car owners from imminent danger. A solid reference is the case of a wealthy man who was kidnapped in his own car. Unbeknownst to the kidnappers, the car had a tracker and this gave the police a lot of leverage. The police were several steps ahead of the kidnappers because they were able to eavesdrop on the plans of the kidnappers using the tracker voice monitor feature. Because of this, the man was rescued and the kidnappers were arrested.
GEO FENCING
The Geo fence is another feature that allows vehicle owners to restrict the movement of their vehicles to certain areas of their choice. Once your car gets driven beyond the areas you have mapped out , the car engine automatically shuts down and then you receive a notification on your mobile phone to that effect.
Again, this is very useful for car owners in taming their errant drivers.
FUEL MONITOR
There is a fuel monitoring feature that churns out raw data of your car daily fuel consumption as you move from point A to point B. This feature helps you to keep tab on your car daily fuel consumption in relativity to distance covered.
Being able to tell when there is an abnormal surge in your vehicle fuel consumption either due to mechanical fault or sabotage or pilfering I something to cheer about, right?
ANOTHER TRUE LIFE STORY
Let me quickly narrate another true life story that highlights the immense power of a GPS car tracker. It is a story that showcases how these smart tracking devices can be used for purposes outside of the reasons for which they were originally created.
Some of you might find this story annoying while some might find it intriguing. I simply want you to know that the essence of narrating this story I’m about to share is to let you see the other side of the usage of a car tracker.
Just maybe you might be inspired and also be able to come up with another ingenious usefulness of a car tracker just like the customer in this story did.
This story is about a businessman who contracted us to install a car tracker in the car he recently bought for his darling wife. At the time of installation, we were under the impression that his priority was protecting the car from being stolen.
Unbeknownst to us, this man had a different motive. Here is the story he narrated to us months after he had accomplished his mission.
The nature of his business was such that he was hardly ever at home and at some point, he began to suspect his wife of infidelity. He said he decided to contract us to help install a tracker in the car he bought for his wife so that he could confirm his suspicions.
He soon found out that his wife always drove to a particular house address at the other side of town at least twice weekly. During one of her several visits to this strange address, the man said he decided to remotely demobilize the car, thereby making it impossible for his wife to drive home in time to pick the children from school.
After several failed attempts to start the car, the wife had to return home in a taxi. The businessman knowing what he had done ,had gone to to pick the kids from school and notified the wife he was already at home with the kids.
When the wife arrived home without her car, he said he asked her where her car was and was hoping the wife woudn’t lie about the actual location of her car. The businessman said he told himself that if the wife told him the true location where the car supposedly spoilt, it meant her hands were clean but that if she lied, it meant she had something to hide.
Unfortunately, the wife lied by giving him a wrong location and also told the husband not to bother helping out as she had already sent Wasiu, their family technician to the car location. The businessman acted as though he bought her story, told his wife he had a business meeting and left the house.
The first thing he did immediately he drove out of his compound was to call Wasiu’s phone to tell him not to tamper with the car as only him knew what was wrong with the vehicle and that he was going to call him back in 20minutes time to tell him what to do to get the car started. This was just a ploy to buy himself some time as he was already on his way to the car location.
The Businessman said Wasiu, the technician was surprised to see him few minutes later as he had no premonition of his imminent arrival at the car location.
He said upon arrival, two things shocked him to the bone marrow.
The first shocker was the realization that the compound where the car was parked was a nameless guest house. The second shocker was finding his best friend who had earlier told him on phone that he had traveled out of town standing beside Wasiu.
It turned out that the mystery man his wife was always meeting twice weekly in that guest house was his best friend and both of them had been having an affair behind his back for more than 5years. What a betrayal!
Even though I do not endorse couples spying on one another, this story made me realize that a car tracker could also be used as a spying tool.
Now let’s talk about the other thing I promised to discuss at the beginning of this article..
ALTERNATIVES TO NOT INSTALLING A CAR TRACKER
Of course , there are options , should you decide you don’t want a car tracker installed in your vehicle in spite of it’s many advantages. These alternatives are risky, stressful and unreliable. However, for the benefits of those who might prefer them due to paucity of funds and other personal reasons I can’t currently fathom, here they are:
- Always ensure that your vehicle is parked in secure locations where car jackers and vandals cannot access.
- Hire a security guard to watch over your car. Hiring a personal security guard to watch over your car will eventually cost you way more than the cost of getting a tracker except if it is a neighborhood security guard.
You must know that a neighborhood security guard is saddled with the responsibility of watching over a lot of other people’s cars and might not be exactly effective in preventing your car from being stolen since he is not omnipresent.
- Buy steering lock device. You can purchase a device called steering lock to help secure your vehicle. Steering lock ensures it is difficult for a stranger free up the wheels of your car, except that it not impossible, as there are a number of ways car thieves can expertly unlock your steering lock device.
Now the ball is in your court, the choice is yours. Should you ever consider installing a tracker in your car someday, always remember that www.cartrackernigeria.ng is the best car tracking company in Lagos and Nigeria at Large.