Devices Allow Dealers To Disable Cars For Late Payments

(CBS) -- The days of a repo man sneaking on your property, and taking your car in the middle of the night, may be ending.

Today, cars can be equipped with a disabling device dealers that lenders control. CBS 2's Dorothy Tucker takes it for a test drive.

The repo man's job is getting a lot easier, helped by this little device called a starter interrupter or GPS tracker. From any computer a car dealer, like Vince, can remotely ruin your day if you miss a payment.

"Either you pay it or you don't," he said. "You don't pay it they shut your car off."

Vince says they have to call the consumer before turning the car off.

"You have the next 30 minutes or 24 hours to get to my store to pay your car payments," he said. "If not we will shut off your car."

Desmond Altman has a tracker and doesn't mind.

"Until it's fully paid for it still belongs to someone else," Altman said.

But Victoria Brown doesn't like it.

"If they shut it off in the middle of you driving or if you're stuck out in a location where you can't get back home that's ridiculous to me," she said.

Dealers claim they would never activate the tracker while you're driving, but there's no law in Illinois preventing them from doing that.

State Senator Steve Stadelman is drafting a bill.

"We just want to make sure these devices are used safely," he said.

Stadelman's proposal: at least a four to five day advance warning before a dealer can disable your car plus, "If your car is disabled there should be an opportunity to immediately contact someone to get the car started again if you are in an emergency."

The device is hidden out of sight under the dash, the hood or even the trunk. It is impossible to disconnect unless you know A.C. Grayer, who has a business removing them. He says he disconnects approximately 15-20 trackers a month.

"I believe these devices are counter-productive," he said. "How do you as the lender expect to get your money when they can't go to get theirs?"

Privacy is also a concern of critics of GPS trackers. The proposed bill would make sure location information collected from consumers would not be abused.