Faces Put on a Farce of a Warranty

A lot of coverage has popped up in the past few weeks about a robocall scheme that involved automated calls hawking extended car warranties. After numerous consumer complaints, the whole thing has been debunked as a scam following weeks of investigation.

I guess there’s a few legitamcies to the warranty claims. Basically the powers behind this scheme did everything they could to rip people off while having some iota of legality behind their claims—perhaps just enough to skirt a lawsuit. Wishful thinking at this point.

It’s funny that the mug shots and bios of the perpetrators are included with the news coverage; it kind of puts a face on the crime.

So why is this story of such interest to me? Because about a year ago I began receiving calls from these people. The first time, I chose option “1” to connect to a customer service rep, after the robot voice informed me that I was due for a warranty upgrade.

Think about it: I was only about five months into having purchased that red Subaru wagon that I abused a few posts ago, and I thought that maybe the past owner had some kind of warranty that was somehow being transferred to me. (I'd pity any company that had to pay warranty claims on that lemon.)

Needless to say, my cynicism toward telemarketers shined through:

“So what is this extended warranty your robot just told me about?”

“Sir,” (indignantly), “that is NOT a robot.”

I don’t really remember much else from the conversation except the customer service rep was very rude to me, insisted the talking voice that initiated the call was not a robot, and then slammed the phone down in my ear. It is ironic that this whole scam is being dubbed the “Robocall Scam.”

After that initial call, I went to a telemarketer identification website that allows you to enter a phone number and query a user-populated database of such unsavory callers. The 1-800 number I entered popped up right away, and with more than a few unhappy comments left by others who had been contacted. One guy summed it up best when he asked, “Who the hell warranties a 10-year-old car with 100K + miles?”