Miss a Payment? Good Luck Moving That Car

Miss a Payment? Good Luck Moving That Car:
"The thermometer showed a 103.5-degree fever, and her 10-year-old’s asthma was flaring up.
Mary Bolender, who lives in Las Vegas, needed to get her daughter to an emergency room, but her 2005 Chrysler van would not start.
The cause was not a mechanical problem — it was her lender.

Ms. Bolender was three days behind on her monthly car payment.
Her lender, C.A.G. Acceptance of Mesa, Ariz., remotely activated a device in her car’s dashboard that prevented her car from starting. 
Before she could get back on the road, she had to pay more than $389, money she did not have that morning in March.
This new technology is bringing auto loans — and Wall Street’s version of Big Brother — into the lives of people with credit scores battered by the financial downturn.