“It should be noted in the paperwork you signed.”
A woman purchased a new vehicle at the dealership and was surprised soon after to receive an alert about an Apple AirTag traveling with her. After a couple of attempts, she finally found out where it was. Now she wants to know why it was there in the first place.
TikTok creator Jaci (@the.jaci.effect) posted a story about the vehicle and the mysterious AirTag. She says she bought the car a few weeks ago. She apparently had no idea why there would be an AirTag tracking its location.
“And my first week of owning the car, I got an alert on my phone that an AirTag was traveling with me,” she says. “But when the alert came through on my phone, I was outside of my car. So when I made it make a sound, I didn’t hear anything.”
The day before she posted the video, Jaci was driving to work when she received the same alert. “And I got to work and was able to stop and make it make a sound,” she says. “It was coming from inside my car. It was dinging behind my steering wheel column.”
Luckily, Jaci’s co-workers were able to help her inspect and dismantle the part of the car where the AirTag was pinging.
“They had to take the steering wheel column thingy off,” she says. “And they had to take another cover off underneath. Hidden all the way back against what’s called the firewall … hanging from a thick wire was an AirTag in a case. So that bad boy was not coming out and obviously it wasn’t meant to be found, either.”
Jaci then went to the police station to file a report about the AirTag. She said she was able to pull some information off of the device and wondered if TikTok could perhaps be of more help than the police.
In the comments section of the video, viewers offered theories on the mysterious AirTag in Jaci’s new car. While it is possible that someone put it there for nefarious reasons, multiple people came to the same, arguably more innocuous conclusion: it’s there in case her car gets repossessed.
“I’d say that was installed at the dealership for repo reasons,” one person suggested.
“Repo tracker,” a second person agreed. “It should be noted in the paperwork you signed. Some might tell you that if you remove it they can reinstall one without your permission.”
A third person said, “My dealership sold me the car and it had one in there too and the dealership in my state found it. I had him take it out. No big deal.”
Another person agreed there’s likely an innocuous explanation for the AirTag. “It’s probably just the dealership using it in case of theft and they just didn’t take it out,” they wrote. “Did you try contacting them?”
If this happens to you, it may be a good idea to contact the dealership or at least review the paperwork before you call the police.
According to Airpinpoint, many dealerships use GPS trackers to ensure that the car can be located if the loan terms are violated and it needs to be repossessed later. This is reportedly more common at buy here/pay here lots, but it can happen at other dealerships as well.
The article notes that one of the most common hiding spots for these trackers is behind the dashboard panel. “The installer removes the lower dash panel, connects the tracker to a 12V ignition wire and ground, and replaces the panel,” the outlet states. “The device sits between the firewall and the dash, invisible unless you pull the panel.”
In this Reddit thread posted to r/BMW four years ago, commenters said that the iPhone alert is a lifesaver in this regard. Apple’s website explains that its iPhones are programmed to determine if there is an unfamiliar AirTag traveling with you. That alert is only triggered when the AirTag is separated from its owner, so there won’t be any false pings if, say, a friend gets into your car with an AirTag in their backpack.
Motor1 contacted Jaci via TikTok comment and direct message for comment. We’ll update this article if she responds.
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