A Canadian man who recently sold his 2017 Cadillac Escalade was surprised to see that his old vehicle remained connected to his MyCadillac smartphone app even after it had been purchased by someone else, allowing him to control a complete stranger’s vehicle from more than a thousand miles away.
This story, which was first picked up by the French-speaking CBC Radio-Canada, involves a former GM customer named Gilles Veilleux. The Quebec-based car enthusiast purchased a third-generation Cadillac Escalade in 2017 and promptly connected the vehicle with the OnStar-developed MyCadillac smartphone app, which allows the user to turn the vehicle’s ignition on and off remotely, receive updates on the vehicle’s maintenance intervals and even request roadside assistance. The app also includes a geolocation feature, allowing the user to track their vehicle’s movement in real-time, similar to how fleet tracking software operates.
Veilleux sold his 2017 Cadillac Escalade last summer and had forgotten that the vehicle was still connected to the MyCadillac app. When he opened the application, he was surprised to find that he still had full control of the vehicle through MyCadillac, allowing him to see the vehicle’s location and switch the ignition on and off, among more. When he opened the app, he saw the vehicle was driving on the highway in the United States with its new owner presumably behind the wheel.
Shocked at this discovery and realizing the potential for this oversight to be leveraged by bad actors, Veilleux contacted Radio-Canada to raise the alarm bells. The CBC then sent reporters to meet the new owners of the Cadillac Escalade in St. Louis, Missouri, Ronald Fraction and Markeyta Williams, where they had Veilleux demonstrate the control he had over the vehicle. With the new owners looking on, Veilleux powered up the MyCadillac app and turned on their vehicle’s engine all the way from Beauce, Quebec – which is located more than 1,200 miles away from St. Louis. Not surprisingly, Markeyta Williams found this turn of events “terrifying.”
CBC reporters later contacted GM Canada for comment, with a spokesperson explaining that it’s the owner’s responsibility to inform GM that they’ve sold the vehicle and to delete the app after the transaction is complete. While reading the fine print on smartphone applications is advisable, it’s safe to say that few people who use such applications do this. With countless GM vehicles on the roads capable of using the MyCadillac, MyChevrolet, MyBuick and MyGMC apps, it’s highly likely that other GM owners are unknowingly driving around in a car, crossover, truck or SUV that’s connected to someone else’s phone.
Thanks to the CBC’s reporting, the Fraction-Williams family was able to get in contact with OnStar and remove Veilleux from the account. Likewise, concerned owners of modern, second-hand GM vehicles can also reach out to OnStar to ensure their vehicle is not connected to the previous owner’s application. Issues such as these may become more commonplace in the future, as roughly 50 percent of all new vehicles produced have similar connected features, the CBC report says. This number is expected to rise to around 95 percent by 2030, as well.
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Comments
How long is OnStar free for Cadillacs? Charging a few monthly encourages past owners to kill the service to stop the charge
Even better would be if dealers/GM would actually take care of crap like this.
The same thing happened to my brother a few years ago, and when I sold my Cruze back to the dealer last year, sure enough it kept sending me updates and telling me I needed to change the oil.
I suspect this is extremely common, and probably most people just don’t check if their old car is still connected their account.
Technology is great when it works for you but can be a pain as well with some down sides.
Yea I’d say it’s sucks when it doesn’t work. Good observation.
That’s technology for you. Convenient and pain at the same time.
Same here. I had several GM trucks. I had control of one of mine long after sale. Good luck getting anyone from onstar to help. Clueless. Had more trouble with them than you would believe. Long time customer. Now dropped everything.
This problem is not uncommon. Has gone on for years.
Had a 2014 Chevrolet Volt that was traded in after lease expiration. It presumably sat on a dealer lot or at an auction for months and I non-stop got notices from OnStar about needing to charge the battery. Tried to delete from account – NOPE. Tried calling OnStar – NOPE. Contacted the dealer – NOPE. All had excuses as to why they couldn’t shut the OnStar off. I deleted the app and sent the emails to spam. Eventually they stopped – probably when someone finally bought the car.
“probably when someone finally bought the car”
Probably not. At least not from what I saw. I was impressed by how many miles the new owner put on that Cruze Diesel though. Good to see he was making use of it.
This happened to me when we traded in my wife’s Terrain. I was told to just delete the myGMC app. That didn’t completely solve the problem, since the Terrain also showed up on the myChevy app. It was comical to see where the next owner was driving. I could see how that could be a problem tho.
This could be linked to this feature which prevents in Canada bought Escalades to be resold in the firsr six months after original purchase.
This was a 2017. And you’ll notice from the comments, this issue is incredibly common.
I still have access to my old (2017) ford raptor I know where the new owner lives and works and everything going on with the truck and I still have access to my old (2020) Chevy Silverado and know all the same stuff… I’m sure when I sell my TRX I will have all the access I had before. This isn’t a new problem I think it going to turn into a bigger issue in the coming years as newer cars are resold as used!
I first noticed I could mess with the new owner by using the app when the dealer called to ask me if I ever had a problem with my Tahoe starting on its own. I was bored one night and stated messing around with the app on my phone and kept making my old Tahoe start. At first I told the dealer no but then I told them what I was doing. The service manager is a good friend of mine so we had a good laugh about it.
Yep. As others have said, I too was unable to get my sold car removed from the app. And it has happened more than once. I canceled the service within minutes of selling the car(s). When the car didn’t disappear from the app I called onstar, tried removing/ reinstalling the app, reached out to their social media, you name it. All I got was weird excuses, “we can’t “, incompetence and frustration. I was very tempted to sound the horn on the car nightly but restrained myself. After about a month the car finally disappeared from my “garage” in the app. I pointed out the potential for mischief and Onstar was totally uninterested.
You could kill someone by starting the vehicle in a closed garage and filling the garage with ///cO2, unknown to the home owner.