Stolen Motorhome

[Riverman]

Last question, if it's not cellular then how does it report to the "find my" app?

[Murff]

Originally Posted by Riverman

Last question, if it's not cellular then how does it report to the "find my" app?

https://www.apple.com/icloud/find-my/

Murff

[Bernheimer]

Originally Posted by Riverman

Last question, if it's not cellular then how does it report to the "find my" app?

From Apple: "Your AirTag sends out a secure Bluetooth signal that can be detected by nearby devices in the Find My network. These devices send the location of your AirTag to iCloud — then you can go to the Find My app and see it on a map. The whole process is anonymous and encrypted to protect your privacy. And itʼs efficient, so thereʼs no need to worry about battery life or data usage."

Google AirTags. It's not foolproof but for $29 totally worth it.

[Riverman]

Here's what I'm going with:

https://www.amazon.com/Optimus-GB100...s_id=617650011

[Bernheimer]

As I mentioned in my 1st post, the AirTag is our secondary tracker. I’d do both.

[Iadave]

It never hurts to personalize your RV a little making it easier be spotted for those searching for it. It may help if we knew the area where the OP lost the motorhome. We have a lot of eyes out there on the road.

[firerose617]

I'm sorry to hear this - unfortunately, we had something similar happen about 5 years ago. It was our first camper - a Four Winds Hybrid. It wasn't fancy, but it worked well for us to get away. We found a place in a small WI town. Since it was 3 hours away, they let us keep it up in the back area of the seasonal camper area...that way we didn't have to haul it back and forth every 2-3 weeks. Unfortunately, the back of the seasonal area was wide open to a field (front had a gate).

Well, one day the campground called us and asked if we picked up the camper...."uh....no".....it was gone. Someone most likely hooked it up and took it out the back of the field, and got on the interstate, which is literally right next to the campground.

We contacted the local police, but they never found it.

It wasn't the camper being stolen that made me so mad - it was I felt violated and mad that they got all the stuff in the camper (brand new Townie bikes), cast iron pans, etc.

The insurance company was fair - we ended up buying a used 5th wheel at a campground (seasonal) in NW WI near our friends cabin.

[Forelyndogs]

We had a previous rig broken into while at a repair shop. Other than stealing the old-fashioned TV and a couple of other items and a little minor damage to the rig it was more annoying than really catastrophic. Losing the entire rig would have been much harder. It is interesting to note that storage facilities and repair shops take no responsibility for your rig. Your own insurance must cover the loss even if access is controlled by the kind of security that is and will continue to be easy to override. As always it is our responsibility to know and understand our risks. Sorry for your loss, sounds like you made it difficult for a repeat theft. I think I would almost want to have the RV blow up with them in it.

[Bill Johnson]

Sorry for the loss of your motorhome. I just thought of something. I have an app called life 360 and I have the complete family on it. It will track everyone's cell phone and show everywhere it went for the week on a map, it will also if you click on it show the motorhome/car anything going down the highway smoothly not like the Google app that is useless. Get a used good cell phone and make a false side in an upper cabinet and keep the cellphone hidden in there connected to power and you will always know where your camper is. This app is very accurate. Just a thought

[rodpod]

Originally Posted by apgarrett

So a thing to know about that solution is that it will notify someone that the air tag is there. Apple didn’t want people tracking without consent so they programmed it to notify phones if it is following them. It will also help them locate it.

It takes 72 hours before the Appletag will notify them via a tone that they are being tracked. 72 hours is plenty of time to track the vehicle. The network feature allows for wide area tracking given all the Iphones out there. It has some limitations, but it's much cheaper than the alternatives. From my research it has been put to the test for vehicle tracking and recovery and works well under most circumstances.

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by Bill Johnson

Sorry for the loss of your motorhome. I just thought of something. I have an app called life 360 and I have the complete family on it. It will track everyone's cell phone and show everywhere it went for the week on a map, it will also if you click on it show the motorhome/car anything going down the highway smoothly not like the Google app that is useless. Get a used good cell phone and make a false side in an upper cabinet and keep the cellphone hidden in there connected to power and you will always know where your camper is. This app is very accurate. Just a thought

I hid an old Iphone (with a cell plan) hidden in my rv one winter. Every night when the temp got down below freezing the Iphone would turn itself off, no matter what the battery charge was at the time. It did not work for me.

[Lanwangeek]

Wow, I'm sorry to hear about what you are going through. However, I can relate to your story. I had a 2005 Grand Junction 5th wheel RV which was our first one. We had it about 14 months before two guys decided that they deserved to own my RV. The RV was stored in a storage facility with cameras and coded gates. They rent a storage unit with a fake drivers license from SC with the story that they where moving to the state. At 10:57pm on a rainy night Saturday night, they showed up with a truck that had the tailgate down and no license plates on the truck. The broke the king pin lock off and 27 minutes later rolled out with the RV in tow. Two days later my wife drove past the storage lot and didn't see the RV. She called me to see if I had taken it out for some reason. I told her I would check on the way home from work but figured she just missed it when driving by. Oh boy was i wrong. Long story short version is that the manager of the storage facility was a retired police detective which I believed really helped with the police giving the theft more attention. In our case, one of the two guys was arrested and convicted. He actually got to spend Christmas and New Years day in jail before getting to see the judge. We went to all his court hearing and his family would sit there and give us nasty looks. I guess it was our fault for him getting in trouble. Both guys where apart of a ring that went around stealing RV's, boats and running various scams. Since this was the guys first conviction even know he has been arrested multiple times. He always managed to get out of the charges. So, the judge gave him 5 years of probation. The police detective bet that within 6 months he would be caught again and his probation would be revoked and he would serve the rest of the time in prison. The other guy involved was wanted by the Secret Service for fraud, title forger, and several other crimes. The police told us that we would never see him stand trial since he had much more serious charges pending. Insurance waited several months hoping that the RV would be found before they had to pay out claim. That was an ordeal into its self. We found out later that the RV had been re-titled and sold but have no idea if the insurance company every got it back or not.

[apgarrett]

I'm glad to hear that there was some justice, even if it wasn't strict enough in my opinion. I don't think they will ever catch the guy who took mine.

What you said about the family giving you dirty looks like it was your fault demonstrates this perception right not that if you have something nice, then you probably don't deserve it. It totally fine to take it. Regardless of how hard you worked to get it.. I even noticed it in the Black Widow movie I watched the other day. The Black Widow and her sister watch a father with his family park their BMW which they then promptly steal. Isn't she supposed to be a super hero and or a role model? They even joke about it like it wasn't a big deal. It really hit me as awful especially after going through what I went through.

I'm sure this isn't going to get better any time soon, but I won't lose hope or let it take away my kindness. I am and I will always be more cautious and less trusting moving forward.

[JFlightRisk]

When our Class A was stored offsite, someone VERY skinny broke in through one of the roof vents. No MaxxAir covers on that one. He destroyed both of them trying to get in. Fortunately he only slept in it, and used the toilet, and stole some items he could sell. Apparently didn't want to hot wire it and steal it, just sleep in it for a while. Other trailers next to us we also broken into, and severely trashed inside. We felt lucky in that respect.

It cost me the new vents, aggravation of cleaning it back up (fingerprint dust is a bear!), and a lesson about our then insurance not covering it since it wasn't at our house. The feeling of being violated still sticks with us to this day. I can feel some of your pain.

[Grumpy]

Originally Posted by JFlightRisk

and a lesson about our then insurance not covering it since it wasn't at our house.

Yep...Everybody who has their rig in storage needs to check their policy. Many only cover storage locations if the policy is written with that caveat.

[Bill Johnson]

[QUOTE=Riverman;989685]I hid an old Iphone (with a cell plan) hidden in my rv one winter. Every night when the temp got down below freezing the Iphone would turn itself off, no matter what the battery charge was at the time. It did not work for me. I was reading an article about cell phone temperatures and the found the iPhone died at 32 degrees and most other manufacturers went below zero