There's a great Simpsons episode where Homer learns that as a child he got a crayon shoved so far up his noise that it went into his brain and made him stupid. The crayon is removed and voila — he's a genius. Only that's not working out, so he decides to get the crayon pounded back into his noggin. Only how deep? Moe the bartender uses a mallet to pound the crayon in a little bit and then talk to Homer to gauge how dumb he's getting. Long story short, Homer is back to being a moron when he exclaims, "Extended warranty? I'll take it!" MSNBC.com is reporting that a pack of scam artists (e.g. Vehicle Services in St. Peters, Mo.) are mining the country for folks with Homerian IQs. Auto warranty firms are scamming ignorant consumers with high pressure warnings that their warranty is about to run out. Final notice. This is your last chance. They're also calling people on cell phones and at 4:00 am. Those feeble-minded enough to purchase $3,110 extended warranties find that they cannot cancel them or get a refund (we're shocked). What if your car should actually break? These extended warranties don't do much in that situation, either. D'oh!
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Oh, man, we get these calls constantly. I used to try to be polite to everyone that calls, but over the last year I’ve learned to just hang up.
I get them in the mail constantly. For a seven-year-old car with 128,000 miles on it.
I get calls and mail all the time telling me the warranties on my cars are about to run out. I immediately know this crap is so bogus because my VW is eleven years old and my Jeep is nine years old.
My wife is getting these calls on her cellphone constantly at all hours. It’s a computer warning that “This is your final notice. Your vehicle warranty is about to expire…blah blah blah”.
I get at least one of these calls a day, I have a car that just crossed the warranty line so I had no idea it could be this. I still hung up on them live or recording after the second repeat call. Doing my best to get people out of the telemarketing field, that work truely sucks.
I have one of these on my answering machine every night when I get home. The funny thing is that I’ve NEVER give that number out. The people call me on my cell phone which automatically forwards to that number when I’m home. They only way they got that number is because the phone company sold it to them. (aside: I also refused to pay for an unlisted number, so I made up a fake name to put in the phone book, I get lots of mail to that name too)
If I am home when I get the stupid warranty call, the recording says to push 1 to be transferred to someone who can sell me the warranty. So I always press 1 and when the live person comes on I tell them to hold on and I mute the phone and put it on speaker phone. It’s fun to see how long they’ll waste their time. Generally they give up after 10 minutes or so. I feel that I’m doing my part, as that’s 10 fewer minutes that they could be suckering someone else.
Being a Simpsons nerd is I felt the compulsion to tell you the actual quote is: “Extended warranty? How could I lose?”
We’ve been getting ones with big threatening warning stamps on them for our ’03 Accord. No calls yet…
compy386: D’oh!
We have two Fords, an ’05 Focus with 20K and an 05′ F150 with 31K. My wife and I receive these kinds of offers almost once per week, and of course, we throw them away. The only extended warranty I would even consider would be from Extended Care from Ford Motor Company, but I would still have to give that alot of thought…
The answer to unwanted solicitation calls is the National Do Not Call Registry. https://www.donotcall.gov/
Jonny…I gotta say, the first thing that went through my head when I saw the topic of this article was that same Simpson’s scenario…I laughed.
Do Not Call? How could I lose?
Geez it was hard enough to get stuff done with the regular mfg’s warranty.
Why in the world would anyone want a 3rd party extended warranty?
Sidenote – I like to take the junk mail (includes those extended warranty notices), eliminate any reference to me, then mix em up and send them back to everyone else since they are thoughtful enough to provide pre-paid return envelopes.
American Express gets the Visa application stuff, exended warranty notification goes to BestBuy, you get the idea.
It’s fun, but I can see I need to get out more.
Mud: Sidenote – I like to take the junk mail (includes those extended warranty notices), eliminate any reference to me, then mix em up and send them back to everyone else since they are thoughtful enough to provide pre-paid return envelopes.
I heat my house with it. I get enough junk mail each week that I can get a day’s worth of heat out of it. Cut’s my heating bill by 14%, can’t complain about that.
# Mud :
February 14th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Sidenote – I like to take the junk mail (includes those extended warranty notices), eliminate any reference to me, then mix em up and send them back to everyone else since they are thoughtful enough to provide pre-paid return envelopes.
American Express gets the Visa application stuff, exended warranty notification goes to BestBuy, you get the idea.
It’s fun, but I can see I need to get out more.
Even more fun: Take the prepaid envelope and tape it to a box full of bricks, old auto parts, dead small appliances, motorcycle tires or whatever else you have laying around you wish to get rid of. Send it from the post office. I’ve done that for years. I also make sure my name and address is prominently displayed as the return address.
I don’t get nearly as much junk mail as I used to.
Now wait. Does that really work? That you can Scotch-tape a 41-cent prepaid return envelope to a $25 carton of bricks and the post office will take it? Why is my bullshit meter pegging?
This must be a uniquely American scam, as I’ve never heard of this type of solicitation here in the GWN.
# Stephan Wilkinson :
February 14th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Now wait. Does that really work? That you can Scotch-tape a 41-cent prepaid return envelope to a $25 carton of bricks and the post office will take it? Why is my bullshit meter pegging?
Remarkably a number of the return envelopes do not have the $.41 amount on them. Of course you cannot normally do this with them. With those you can stuff a partially folded magazine in them and leave it in your mailbox. Usually the kids have fun doing that. I believe, although I might be wrong, the Post Office collects the difference from the receiver. I don’t know, I never get them back.
I’m finding though that more and more return envelopes do have the limit on them. My assumption is because of this very reason.
I’ve never gotten one of these calls, or junk mails. I have been on the do-not-call list for about 3 yrs.
We were getting those computer generated calls all the time on our company development lab phone – what a PIA. I solved the problem though – we moved our lab recently to another building, and I made sure that phone number stayed in the old building!
I got a couple messages on my answering machine about extending my vehicle warranty, from a live person. The thing is, my vehicles are a 1991 Buick LeSabre with 157,000 miles and a 1995 Chevy C1500 truck with 111,000 miles. I purchased both of them used; they were already old when I bought them and I never had any warranty on either one. In fact, I’ve never owned any vehicle with a warranty as I’ve always bought older used cars. Unless the caller was dialing the wrong number and leaving a message intended for someone else, these were some very strange calls.
I CANNOT get these damned extended warranty calls to stop coming. We are on the “No Call” list and etc. We’ve “pressed 3” to talk to a human being and demand they remove us from their list, the standard excuse is “It takes up to 30 days, sir.” And they never stop calling. My vehicles are 1989, 1992, and 1994 models….and they’ve been told this and yet they keep on…..
hey guys about the warranty isnt it illegal for then to be calling like this?
if it is let me know because i have ingo on them/
snickers420:
Yes, it is illegal since they’re breaking the FCC and FTC rules on when and how to contact people.
If you do have info on them, please post it. It will help all of us. They have our info, maybe its time that we have theirs…
Thanks for any info you provide.
I am on the Do Not Call List as is my cell phone. They call regardless. It shows up as a private caller and since I have a family member who calls that way I answer in case it is them. But lately it’s been this scam. They will not give me the name of the company (they hang up when asked). They will not give me a location or who is bonding them (again they hang up) and they insist that I either pay at that moment because it’s a final notice or that I lose out. This last time I tried to say I needed to discuss it with my spouse to see if I could get a call back number so I’d have something to report — but they hang up. This is very frustrating.
A Service Advisor for a Six-Line Auto Dealership for the Last 18 years, sadly I have seen too much. The truth is, people buy these extended warranty’s, over the phone, and visit me afterwards to check the coverage. Unfortunately, they never cover anything, and I get to watch as their expressions turn when I explain what they bought. People that buy them are mostly older, trusting, kind, people that get taken for a ride. So, warn all your older family members to only buy warranties from the Dealer where they bought their car, and the Manufactures extended warranty is always the best!
c.l.k.
WELL I USE TO WORK FOR THESE WARRANTY COMPANYS AND THEY ARE SCAM BUT IM NOT GONNA PUT THEIR INFO OUT THERE
YOU GUYS WILL HAVE TO PAY ME A FEE IF YOU GUYS WANT THESE CALLS TO STOP
I HAVE ALL THEIR INFO. ADDRESS ,PHONE NUMBER AND SUITE # AND THEY HAVE BEEN CALLING ALL OVER THE UNITED STATES
IM TELLING YOU GUYS RIGHT NOW IF YOU WANT IT TO STOP SEND ME AN EMAIL AND I WILL NEED A FEE FOR THIS SECRET INFO
pac2000: lol.
Man…
These bastards make lawyers look like saints..
WHen I had my 92 Accord they were giving me this b.s when i didnt buy it with a warranty, and it was out of production by 5yrs, and I picked it up at 159k.
What a coupla bastards.
And the letters.. seriously. I mean Cmon!
Go on google and look this shit up.
It lists in their address.. FUCKIN SCAM ARTISTS. “If ya stupid enough to pick up ya phone at 4am, and give us 3100 for a car that hasnt seen a warranty since NIXON, than ya stupid enough to buy a warranty on a vehicle that ya cant cancel.”
Serioiusly…
“YOU GUYS WILL HAVE TO PAY ME A FEE IF YOU GUYS WANT THESE CALLS TO STOP”
Seriously? Too bad the FTC has shut them down. No blackmail for you.