Thank Heaven for HondaLink

[CharlesBranch]

I sold my car online to Carvana. After a couple of minor SNAFUs, they picked it up yesterday. I had carefully emptied the car before they came and then watched her ride away on the Carvana truck towards Columbus, GA. Then, last night, I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to retrieve my prescription glasses from the overhead compartment. I opened up the HondaLink app on my phone, told it to "Find My Car," and it showed that it was indeed in Colombus. Street View even showed the Carvana location with several cars in the lot. Sebastian, the bot that chats with you said that within the first 48 hours there is a good chance of retrieving things left in the car. But when I called this morning, the human I finally reached said there was nothing she could do. She finally said she would EMail the Columbus site, but not to expect them to retrieve the glasses. I decided to just drive to the location HondaLink said the car was still located 43 miles away. I drove into their lot, and there she was--freshly washed, parked next to a spiffy Mustang convertible, and ready for a new owner. There was a man in the lot, and he agreed to go in, get the keys, and look. When he opened the overhead compartment, there they were. He commented that sometimes technology works, and I agreed. He refused to accept a reward, so I put on my glasses and came home. One would think that a company like Carvana would have a system for dealing with things like this. I would not complain even if they had a $100 charge for retrieving items left in the car by mistake.

 

[vicw]

Glad to hear that you were successful retrieving your glasses, and agree that Carvana should have a process for handling this kind of oversight. It probably happens fairly often. It was pretty clever of you to use Hondalink to locate your car.

That reminds me of an incident while flying across country on American Airlines. I left a package of music CD's in the seat pouch on our first flight. The pilot from that flight actually managed to identify us from the seat map for the flight, and he showed up on our second flight, again locating us from the ongoing flight seat map, and kindly delivered it to me. I guess Hondalink, and American Airlines pilot deserve some thanks.

 

[CharlesBranch]

Glad to hear that you were successful retrieving your glasses, and agree that Carvana should have a process for handling this kind of oversight. It probably happens fairly often. It was pretty clever of you to use Hondalink to locate your car.
Seeing her there was kind of like seeing your old girlfriend on the street and wondering if maybe you made a mistake. I tracked her again today, and she has made her way to the Carvana Inspection site in Winder, GA. Based on the sign at the gate in StreetView, I might not have found such a friendly fellow there to retrieve my glasses. There appeared to be hundreds of cars there. I wonder when they will turn off my ability to track the car. That seems like a potential security problem if it still worked after someone else bought the car.