The recent spate of spam telephone calls peddling extended auto warranties could well be a last-breath effort before federal rules kick in to dampen the practice, consumer advocates say.
Thousands of consumers are complaining nationally about recorded pitches they’re getting on mobile and home phones for auto- warranty extensions; some have told regulators they don’t even own a vehicle. In many cases, consumers say their warranties have not yet expired but didn’t know it until they checked paperwork from the original purchase.
“It’s really designed to prey on people who really don’t know whether their car is still under warranty or not,” said Jean Herman, president of the Denver-Boulder Better Business Bureau.
That doesn’t mean the warranty service isn’t legitimate. The calls are the top complaints logged by Colorado consumers this summer, according to the state attorney general’s consumer-protection office.
New Federal Trade Commission rules will require all prerecorded sales calls — not just those for auto warranties — to have an “opt-out” choice available as of Dec. 1 to remove you from the calling list.
Then, beginning next Sept. 1, consumers must give written permission to receive prerecorded sales pitches from companies they already do business with, such as a mortgage or credit-card company.
Without it, the calls — to home phones, anyway — will be illegal.
Prerecorded sales calls to cellphone numbers don’t violate existing FTC rules but do violate Federal Communications Commission rules, which regulate many forms of communications.
So far, that hasn’t seemed to stop the calls to cellphone users.
“It’s been a wave for a period of time, and they’ve been operating with impunity and avoiding detection,” Colorado Assistant Attorney General Jan Zavislan said.
Though there are federal and state do-no-call lists where consumers can register their telephone numbers, it’s not automatic that a call won’t come anyway.
“Technology allows them to hide . . . and they say, ‘Go ahead and catch us,’ ” Zavislan said.
Pinning down offenders — even with the help of other states — has proved elusive, though authorities in states such as Missouri have filed suit against auto-warranty operations in their state.
Many phone rooms illegally use “spoofing” tools that alter the supposed source of the call on identification units, a violation of law.
David Migoya: 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com
