Question of the Day -- Pests

"This is the second notice that the factory warranty on your vehicle is about to expire."

Question of the Day -- How many times per week do you get this call?

Comments

[MH]

Everyone is complaining about these calls, but I don't seem to get them. Ironically, I have a car with a factory warranty that is about to expire. Probably about to double expire since the end of the warranty period is fast approaching and the end of the company that provided the warranty is approaching even faster.

[Wendy]

Buy used cars, and you'll never get this call. :)

[kata]

I did buy a used car and still get this call 2-3 times a week. I'm pretty sure any factory warranty on any part of my car expired years ago.

[Siobhan]

Heh, 2-3, I think? Apparently my congressman (Mike Doyle) was getting these calls on his personal line and got pissed off enough to try and do something about them, but I can't find a link on his website.

[laura]

This call goes to everyone. I've never bought a car. We keep getting my parents' hand me downs. I know people who don't own cars who get this call.

[Amy P]

I don't think we get the calls, but we get endless junk mail about car warranties.

[Siobhan]

Ah, here.

[Siobhan]

Ok, looks like my markup was stripped:

http://consumerist.com/5245770/congressman-mike-doyle-is-pretty-much-done-with-these-auto-warranty-calls

[Wendy]

Wow, I've never gotten one of these calls. Could MA have state laws preventing them from calling?

[MH]

Maybe nobody wants to issue a warranty on a car in MA? I've heard things about Boston drivers.

[ExpatMom]

Naw, it doesn't have anything to do where you bought your car or your warranty. We live in Europe and we get those calls -- from the US. We have a (Skype-In) US phone number to make it cheaper for friends and relatives to call us and we also use it for business/Internet ordering issues. Not for our car though -- that we bought in Germany. Used.

(The really irritating thing is that they call around US East coast dinner time. Which is 1 am in Germany. Argh!)

[Heather/MN]

I've never gotten this call in my life.

[kip]

I called them and gave them my SSN and info so they could give me a deal. I'm just waiting to here back from them to see if I qualify.

[MH]

Kip, don't answer any e-mail from Nigeria. Please.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

Last year, when I was a lecturer somewhere, I inherited my predecessor's calls, and got them every few weeks. The only voice mail I ever got there!

[Timothy Burke]

These calls come to people who don't even own cars. I get it about twice a week. What really aggravates me is that I get it on my cell phone as well our home phone, and occasionally on my office phone as well.

[Russell Arben Fox]

This call came to a room on campus where the faculty were having an end-of-semester meeting on Tuesday. Right in the middle of a presentation--RING!, the phone on the wall goes off. The presenter was surprised (we all were; no one uses those phone lines anymore) and, just for fun, hit the intercom button, and we all heard the message. It brought the house down.

[Nancy]

I live in Toronto. A few months ago I got perhaps 4 or 5 of those calls on my cell phone, over the period of a few weeks. None since then. I seem to recall reading that people in the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba, in particular, were receiving the calls; and that the RCMP was gettng involved, since it was a cross-border issue. I don't know if that went anywhere.

[Doug K]

I've never had that call.. all my cars are brand new used cars, but it looks like that doesn't even matter.
Maybe CO has a law of some kind ?

[Janice]

I also got the call here in Canada. Weird!

[Doug]

"A U.S. federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Friday shutting down a telemarketing campaign that made hundreds of millions of alleged deceptive "robocalls" promoting vehicle warranty contracts.

The request for the restraining order granted by Judge John Grady of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois was filed by the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday.

The FTC said the telemarketing scheme has prompted "tens of thousands of complaints from consumers who are either on the Do Not Call Registry or asked not to be called." This is a violation of federal law.

The pre-recorded, automated telemarketing calls made to cell phones and landlines have been deceiving consumers into thinking their car warranties are expiring, and pitching sales of service contracts falsely portrayed as extended warranties, the commission said."
-- By Darrell A. Hughes Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

11D gets results!

[Van Sales]

I visited this blog first time and found it very interesting and informative.. Keep up the good work thanks..

[Doug spots comment spam]

Van Sales here and in "All politics is local"