IMPORTANT WARNING TO VW OWNERS WITH POWER WINDOWS!!!

I have a 2000 Jetta 4dr with power windows. A month ago I woke to find
that all my windows were open. My car had been thoroughly rifled
through and anything of value stolen, however the doors were still
locked and the alarm was armed. The trunk and it's contents were safe.
Although I was certain all windows were closed the night before, the
lack of any physical tampering made me wonder if the "all window open"
feature may be malfunctioning.

This morning I discovered that it was probably not a malfunction. Once
again, the windows were all open, the car had been rummaged through
(though this time I left nothing for them to steal). This time
however, it was clear that they had gone through the driver side key
lock, as there is significant damage to it. There is something stuck
inside the key hole, and the trim is completely damaged.

I spoke to a mechanic briefly and he believes they were able to
"hotwire" the all window open switch. Apparently this does not require
security authorization from the transponder chip in the key nor does it
require the alarm be disarmed, which is why the alarm did not go off.
They were careful not to open any doors or the trunk which would have
set off the alarm. My street alternates parking from one side of the
street to the other every 2 weeks and both times this happened the
driver door was on the sidewalk side, providing better cover for them
to work the door lock.

Don't assume your factory alarm is going to prevent this from
happening, it appears that as long as they can hotwire the all window
feature open switch, they can open your windows and help themself to
whatever they can grab.

Anyone have any suggestions to fix this? I am going to remove the fuse
for the windows until I can have a mechanic look at it, and hopefully
cut the wire that supports this feature in the doorlock. In the
meantime, I am going to write VW a letter about this and I recommend
all VW owners with this feature in their cars do the same.

Thanks for listening.