FAMOUS LAST WORDS – ‘MY RV CAN’T BE STOLEN BECAUSE IT IS IN A SECURE STORAGE FACILITY’
The Word Is Out…Yes They Can!
Theft of every variety is on the rise. Auto theft is growing exponentially in terms of the volume of stolen vehicles and how sophisticated thieves have become. This same trend has unfortunately moved into trailer and RV spaces as well. Trailers and RVs are getting stolen by the dozens every day.
A new WhereSafe GPS client, Kelley from Seattle, told us her story about her RV being stolen from a ‘Secure Storage Facility’. Unfortunately, this is a story that’s all too common. It’s not that storage facilities are not secure, often they are, it’s more that thieves will get what they want if they are determined, regardless of how secure the facility is.
In this case, Kelley and her husband had bought their Jayco Jay Feather 24 RL that cost $44,000 (USD) in May 2022, stored it in the storage facility and it was stolen at 4:20am one June morning. On top of the MSRP, they had about $8000 worth of belongings in the trailer as well. They only used it for 3 camping trips. “I can count on my two hands how many nights we slept in that trailer. That is a very expensive investment for 10 nights,” says Kelley.
They had their previous RV stored there for 5 years with no issue, however, ownership changed and the facility began declining in quality and service. The storage facility had a video system, but the video quality was so poor that it could not be used to identify the suspects. The thieves had acquired an entry code to the facility. The facility owners were unable to identify whose code was used through the code logging system, which should provide that information.
After the theft, and all the work with police, the facility, and the insurance company, the Jayco was never found. “We did get a payout from insurance and bought another RV. But we were out of pocket and lost over $10,000 plus the insurance deductibles both on the insurance for the trailer and homeowners insurance (to cover the stolen items inside it), which cost another $1500.”
This unfortunate situation drove Kelley to go online and research a product that would help mitigate theft. She saw a tongue lock that looked promising and was marketed as ‘virtually indestructible’, and then a subsequent video that showed it being sawed off in less than a minute. They looked at tire boots and locking lug nuts but were not convinced of the capabilities of these items to help against a determined thief. While researching locks, Kelley stumbled upon a video by a police officer that highlighted GPS tracking by WhereSafe GPS.
In their search for the right security products, they had criteria to guide them. “We didn’t want to have to drill holes in the exterior, we didn’t want to pay a small fortune, we didn’t want something that we had to continuously charge, but could have that option, which brought us to WhereSafe, which checked all those boxes,” says Kelley. They also required movement alerts when the trailer moved unexpectedly or if it moved outside of a pre-set geofence, and wanted to know the physical real-time location of their RV trailer. “The other big thing was that we didn’t want to have it brought into a retailer to have it installed, because that is just going to cost me more money and they will often install them in an area that is hard to get to. I wanted it to be easy,” she adds.
They decided on the WhereSafe Solar GPS Tracker, because of its long battery life, option for trickle charging and solar charging, and at a very affordable cost, especially when compared to the value of the RV investment.
Let's hope that this type of traumatizing experience does not happen again to Kelley. That said, perhaps she will have some peace of mind, that she will always know the whereabouts of her new travel trailer.
To listen to the full interview CLICK HERE