Remote Chance

I am always amazed at the number of Urban Legends that get e-mailed to me as truth. Most of them are quite obviously not true, and I can almost always prove it by checking it out on Snopes.com. Today, however, I received one that required me to call a professional - my husband! The story goes like this:

"This only applies to cars that can be unlocked by that remote button on
your key ring. Should you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are home,
and you don't have "OnStar," here's your answer to the problem! If someone has
access to the spare remote at your home, call them on your cell phone (or borrow
one from someone if the cell phone is locked in the car too!) Hold your (or
anyone's) cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the other person
at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the phone. Your car will
unlock. and it works. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you.
Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach
someone who has the other "remote" for your car, you can unlock the doors (or
the trunk, or have the "horn" signal go off, or whatever!)"

Being that my husband is a professional in the car service industry, I asked him about this. He said that while he has had 2 or 3 customers tell him that this works, that he and the guys in his shop have never been able to make it work, therefore he doubts it is true. Further investigation on Snopes.com revealed just that - it isn't true. Which meant I had to e-mail the sender - AND everyone they sent it to - the cold, hard truth: they are spreading urban legends. This one did get me thinking, tho.....wouldn't that be cool if it did work?

(But I have OnStar, so even if I am dumb enough to lock my keys in my car I can just call them and they'll unlock it for me. How do they DO that??)