A way to easily steal certain types of vehicles has become a new challenge on social media, and a D.C. woman who says her car was stolen is sharing her story to encourage other victims to come forward.
Nicole’s Hyundai Elantra was stolen from her neighborhood in Laurel, Maryland last week.
Her car was found a few days later – the steering column had been ripped out, the window was broken. It’s still sitting in a foreclosed lot waiting to be repaired
Just the day before, she learned that some Kia and Hyundai models can be stolen with a USB phone charger.
“Most consumers are not aware,” she said. “So, I have a lot of neighbors who have Kias and Hyundais. As I pull into the parking lot, I worry that the same thing might happen to them this weekend.
Videos on TikTok and other platforms showing how to do it. Many call it the “Kia challenge”.
“The police told me it was teenagers,” Nicole said. “They just want to ride in your vehicle. They get on TikTok and see that it’s an easy thing to do, and they do it.”
Nicole wants people who own these cars to know the risk. She also wants car companies to do something about it. There are ways to fix the problem, but it’s up to the owner to pay for it.
“I don’t want to pay anything; I don’t want to do it,” she said. “You guys should have installed these things before I bought my vehicle.”
Nicole said if she had known the car could be stolen with a USB cable, she wouldn’t have bought it.
So far, she’s out several hundred dollars in deductibles and other expenses, and she’s still not sure when she’ll get her car back.
“I don’t want it,” she said. “I don’t want it because the police let me know it could be stolen again and I’d probably risk being rejected by my insurance.”
The only rental car she could get was a Hyundai, so she bought a steering wheel lock to prevent that car from being stolen as well.