A Driver Tracked Down Why His Rates Soared—and Uncovered a Secret Car Data Sale

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Is this real?
Is this legal?
I have so many thoughts swirling through my head right now and I’m not sure how to organize all of it.
All I know is that what this guy has to say sounds pretty sketchy…
Read on and see if you agree with me.
My insurance price jumped 45% for no reason, then I read this lawsuit about GM selling our driving data.
“Last month my car insurance renewal came and the price went up almost 45%.
I was so confused because I didn’t have any accident, no tickets, nothing changed. I started searching online to see what is happening and I found this official lawsuit document filed by the Texas Attorney General against General Motors and OnStar.
Basically, GM put tracking technology inside more than 14 million vehicles in US and over 1.8 million in Texas alone. They were collecting continuous driving data like exactly when you start and stop your trip, every time you brake hard or accelerate fast, if you drive over 80 mph, and even if you and your passenger wear seatbelt or not.
This sounds suspicious…
I always thought this OnStar thing was just for emergency if you get in accident. But the lawsuit says GM turned it into a big data business. The worst part is how they get people to agree at a dealership.
When you buy the car, the dealer gives you screen to tap. If a customer tries to tap “I decline”, the screen shows big warning message.
The warning says if you decline, safety feature like Automatic Crash Response and Emergency Services will be turned off. So of course people get scared about safety and click “Accept”. But GM didn’t tell them that accepting means GM sell their driving telemetry to data brokers.
Pretty sketchy!
They made deals with companies like LexisNexis, Verisk, and Wejo. These data brokers take your raw car sensor data, calculate a secret driving score, and sell it directly to auto insurance companies.
Then the insurance company looks at your score and raises your monthly bill if you had hard brakes or drove late at night.
Now the Texas AG is suing them under DTPA law to stop this and make them delete the data. Also FTC and federal class action courts in MDL 3115 are looking into this whole connected car data tracking.
Has anyone here requested their consumer report from LexisNexis or Verisk yet to see if your car was reporting on you?”
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If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who received a work email from a place she never even applied.
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Good lord, what’s next?!?!
These companies are trying to squeeze every last dollar out of us.
We’ve had enough!
It seems like there’s no limit to how much we’re being watched and monitored these days…
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