Scam: Your Car's Warranty Is About To Expire! - Unsolicited Phone Call

Have You Received a Phone Call That Your Car's Warranty Has Expired? It's a Scam!

Did you receive a call telling you that your car, truck or SUV's warranty has expired and you need to renew it? Scammers are not just busy on the internet, they are burning up the phone lines in attempts to scam people. See below for a consumer report of calls of this type. The FTC has intervened now to ask a court to issue an injunction against the companies believed to be behind the spam calls and scam.  See this page for details!

In most cases, the call is generated by a computer and you will hear a recording , telling you to press 1 to speak to an agent. Once connected to a live person, you find out that they know nothing at all about your vehicle. The callers can not even tell you the make, model, or year of your car, so it is clearly a scam or fishing expedition.  Before you tell them ANYTHING, ask them: "OK, YOU say my warranty has expired?  How do you know?  Prove it by telling me the make, model and year of my vehicle."

Odds are good that the caller will simply hang up then.

There appear to be a couple of scams using this approach:

1. Companies selling extended car warranties without any knowledge of your situation, just using a phone list (in other words, phone spam or junk telemarketers)
2. Scammers who don't even represent a real company, merely trying to get you to divulge your credit card or bank information so they can clean out your account.

See the following reports from consumers:

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1. Report received from a visitor, January 16, 2009:

   From time to time I do receive the "Family member died and I inherited their money" email scam but that is not why I am writing.  For over a year now I have been receiving phone calls to my cellphone stating that my car's warranty will be expired if I don't pay them.  I keep telling them that I want to be removed from the call list and they hang up on me.  I have asked them for their address- and they hang up on me.  I tell them that they are harassing me and want to speak to their manager- you guessed it, they hang up.  Every time it is a different number so I assume they are using some kind of phone scrambling device. I have done searches on the web of the numbers that show up on the caller ID and many other people have reported the same things with the same numbers. 

   TODAY I have received a notice in the mail with the same company name that one of the callers said one time when I asked, "Warranty Services".  The letter says the same message as the phone message states, "Our current records indicate that your factory vehicle coverage may be...." bla bla bla.  The number on the letter is:1-866-918-1439 and the address is:

   Warranty Services

   3710 North Kedzie Ave

   Chicago, IL 60618

   I did a search for the address and this website has the same address: http://www.eaglehomeloans.net/  and another search said the address is the location of a storage unit.  

   It's interesting that you have Freecreditreport.com as one of the top scams because I started receiving these messages started after I signed up last year with FCR.com and canceled after they asked for money.

2. Report received from a visitor, January 16, 2009:

   I get those warranty expired calls.  Or at least,  I DID, until I started wasting their time.  I'd put the phone down and half listen while I went about my work, shopping or whatever.  I gave them information which would make their product absolutely idiotic - I said I had a 15 year old Nissan Pathfinder that I'd probably sell in a year or so. In other words, if they tried to sell me an extended warranty for an old car that I didn't plan to keep, that proves they are scumbags.

   Anyway, I let them go on for about 15 minutes until they asked me for my credit card to sign me up.  At that point I'd tell them that I had no intention of buying, but since they were calling me at home, unsolicited, selling me a truly inappropriate product, wasting my time, then obviously they shouldn't mind if I wasted their time.  And the 20 minute call kept them from scamming someone else.

   They always became furious.  Sometimes they'd ask "why didn't you just ask to have your number removed?" (I had several times).

   After 2 or 3 of those calls and that reply from me, the calls just stopped.  I guess they realized it was better to remove my number!

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Information About Specific Phone numbers

There are several websites that focus on reports of scam phone calls. See these:

• 1800Notes
• WhoCalled.us
• WhoCallsMe.com

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Automobile Extended Warranty Scam Tips and Warning Signs:

• Beware of any mailings that appear to come from your automobile manufacturer offering extended warranty coverage.

   

• Never give out personal financial information such as bank account numbers or Social Security Numbers over the phone.

   

• When considering an extended warranty, or any other telephone or mail solicitation, always insist on getting the complete terms and conditions of your agreement in the form of a written contract before you agree to sign up, pay any money or provide your credit card information.

   

• Never give out personal financial information such as bank account numbers, credit card numbers of Social Security Numbers over the phone, unless you are absolutely positive that you know the party with whom you are dealing.

   

• The Federal Trade Commission says consumers, before signing any extended coverage contract, should fully understand its terms and coverage. The agency also stresses that what consumers are actually buying is not an extended warranty but a "service contract." "A service contract is a promise to perform, or pay for, certain repairs or services. Although a service contract is sometimes called an extended warranty,' under federal law, it is not a warranty," the FTC said. "A warranty comes with the original price of the car, whereas a service contract costs extra. It is mainly this separate and additional cost that distinguishes a service contract from a warranty."

   

• There are many things to consider when you're offered an "extended warranty" or service contract." Consumers should beware that certain "extended warranties" do not always provide the peace of mind and financial protection that consumers expected. Many of these contracts, when closely scrutinized, exclude so many items that they really provide very little coverage for outrageous prices.

• Check out a business with your state Attorney General's Office and your local Better Business Bureau before you agree to do business with them.

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Further Information

See this page for contact information for your state attorney general's office.

The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices and to provide information to help spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint in English or Spanish, click here or call 1-877-382-4357. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to more than 1,600 civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Frank Dorman,
Office of Public Affairs
202-326-2674

STAFF CONTACT:

Karen Jagielski,
Bureau of Consumer Protection
202-326-2509

To see a list of other product cases click here.

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There are a number of common telephone scams, such as:

• Collect Call scams
• Inmate collect call scams
• Phone service is about to be cut off
• Telemarketers

and some new and as yet, uncommon scams.