A woman says she tracked her £30,000 stolen car using an app but was told by police to pick it up and they would meet her there.
Alexandra Vlad discovered her Lexus UX was missing from her drive in Newham, east London on the morning of February 6.
She checked a tracking app on her phone and could see the last location recorded was in Hackney, around six miles away.
The 32-year-old called police and gave them the information, but she claims they told her to go and get the vehicle herself.
She was shocked at their response, but decided if she wanted her car back she’d have to go.
Ms Vlad said the situation made her feel ‘unsafe’ and ‘anxious’.
‘I had no idea what I’d find inside. Drugs? A dead body?’ she said.
When she arrived she found the car with no belongings inside, no petrol left and the lights on the dashboard flashing. It also looked as if the thieves had tried to remove the tracking device.
Ms Vlad, who is originally from Romania, said she was speaking out as she’s unhappy with the way a public body has treated her.
She explained: ‘I was baffled. You pay taxes to pay for police – just to leave it to us to sort out. What are we even paying for?’
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: ‘On Tuesday, 6 February we received a report that a car had been stolen from outside a house in E13.
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‘The owner later contacted us to say she had traced the car and collected it. Enquiries continue.’
In October, a car owner managed to track down his prized £23,000 vehicle after it was stolen from his Birmingham home – using Google Earth.
Jayy Robinson, 23, posted about the theft on social media after being left ‘unimpressed’ with the response from police.
A blurry video of the stolen car was shared on Snapchat – but the thief demanded £2,000 to return the car.
However one of Jayy’s tech-savvy friends did a reverse image search of the building the car was parked next to, and the pair managed to triangulate the location after spotting the name of a housing estate on a wheelie bin.
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