'Tis the dreaded Festive Season (continuous hands in pockets and never-ending visits to the ATM) and thus all the crooks and criminals have punted the bus fare from the provinces into Manila so that they can try their hand at "gaining access to sources of greater material wealth" as the farcical police warning puts it.
Now then. Growlette parks her Ford Lynx outside the clinic yesterday. Housemaid is with her. Housemaid leaves cellphone on charge in car. Growlette leaves Lotto tickets on seat ready to collect her winnings this week of 120 Pesos (not a whole lot, luckily). Growlette locks the car and sets the alarm. It makes the right noises as ever.
While inside the clinic (15 mins) the car is in earshot and in sight (although she isn't looking at it al the time).
The pair return to the car, she presses the key as usual, it makes the distinctive beep-beep-beep sound and the doors unlock.
The cellphone is gone, so are the Lotto tickets. Yet the alarm was set, and makes a helluva din if you key-open the car without disarming it (she would have heard it from where she was) and yet when she got to the car it was fully locked with the alarm armed.
Short of strange oriental magic which may yet be beyond the ken of the foreign devils, can anyone explain how this can have occurred?
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Is the remote radio or infra red ?
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It's two buttons on the key fob, that's all I know.
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1/ The door was opened by some means, but Growlette missed the noise. If the car alarm has self alarming (ie locks the doors and sets the alarm automatically - a few do this) she would never know. Mine goes bleep bleep when you unlock if the alarm has been activated while you were away.
2/Code scanning. Thief nearby has receiver scanning the frequencies for alarm codes, captures code to laptop or handheld, and programmes a dummy key. Bingo he is in.
A system called "rolling codes" is supposed to stop this but dont know your car well enough to know if it does this.
Sounds like you got caught by 2
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If its infa red. I can capture the sequence on my palm IR port using a programe off the internet.
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Where do you get the software for your Psion from ?
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Where do you get the software for your Psion from ?
Its a palm. Two actually. One old 3c for car satnav, and a palm m100 for traditional use.
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Code scanning is ridiculously simple with infra red, its somewhat more difficult with radio - although by no means impossible.
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The thing that suprises me most is that the thief turned the alarm back on after finishing - obviously didn't want some bod off the street coming along and nicking it. Very considerate of him!!;)
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G,
Have you tried ringing the stolen cellphone and asking THEM how they did it???!!
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Yes we rang the number but we got the "phone is unattended or subscriber out of reach". Anyway you can get your revenge up to a point by reporting theft to Globe Telecom who arrange for the phone to commit hara-kiri, which was duly done. Lesson, learned, if anything will go wrong it will be the technology that lets you down (Growler's corollary to Murphy's Law), and don't leave anything in car unless it's a slavering pit bull. Thanks for responses, all.
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Now, if I didn't know David Blaine was in hospital on a drip....
Come to think of it, David Copperfield is still out and about!
Cockle
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I have vague recollections that some manufacturers or some models of car the alarm wouldn't go off if you opened the hatch/boot so you could crawl in get the stuff and get out again without setting off the alarm. I can't remember the vehicle though. It was on Watchdog a few months ago. It was a known issue but the manufacturer didn't do a recall. It was the same with vw and the windows thing. You could get them to open so you could get stuff out. Maybe the thief just closed the window behind them or your car has self closing windows so they would have grabbed stuff before the windows closed on them.
teabelly
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It must have been cloned unless someone has access to a spare remote somewhere? Could someone get another when the car is serviced or maybe from the supplying dealer?
If it was cloned you need an alarm that uses a different random code every time it is used, like Clifford Cat 1 alarms.
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What was the VW and windows thing that you speak of teabelly?
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It's probably a GPF :-)
Sorry, I'll get me coat...
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Certain models, passat I think at least, you could open the windows by fiddling with the lock in a certain way. The windows would open but the alarm wouldn't go off. I think it was discussed in here quite heavily when it was again featured on watchdog.
teabelly
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Well both the Golf that I got rid of last year, and the Passat that replaced it have a feature whereby you can open all windows (and close them) by turning the key twice in the lock as you get in. I guess that this is the vulnerability that was exploited.
Don't think I have ever used the key to get into either car. What's the point when you can press the button on the keyfob?
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