Missouri gets tough with sleazy telemarketers

Herb Weisbaum • Profile • E-mail

The phone call didn’t make any sense to Anita Topolinski of Seattle. The recorded message said the extended warranty on her car had expired and it was unsafe to be on the road without it. She knew that wasn’t true because her new Toyota Prius is under warranty.

“They were just trying to cheat me and steal my money,” she told me.

Mrs. Topolinski didn’t take the bait. Many others have. More than a thousand unhappy customers have complained to the Better Business Bureau. They say they were tricked into buying an extended warranty or unable to get a refund when they tried to cancel.

Eloise Bangert, who lives in Kirkwood, Mo., says she got pressured into buying. “I kept saying I can’t afford it, and the salesman kept lowering the down payment,” she recalls. “He just kept pressing and saying, ‘Who’s going to pay for it if something happens to your car?’ ”

She reluctantly agreed and gave the salesman her credit card number for the $250 down payment. Later she did the math. With the down payment and 15 monthly payments of $145.93, it was going to cost her more than $2,400 for protection she didn’t need; she already has an extended warranty on her car.

Bangert tried to cancel numerous times, but still hasn’t gotten her money back. “It’s awful to push people into things that they don’t really want and don’t need,” she says.

‘Operation Taken for a Ride’
Last month, I warned you about the phone calls, postcards, and letters being used to sell overpriced and often unnecessary extended warranties. Since then, readers of the ConsumerMan column have e-mailed asking me why someone in law enforcement didn’t go after these crooks. Well, someone has.

Do you need the coverage? Consumer Reports does not recommend buying an extended warranty unless you plan on keeping a trouble-prone vehicle for an extended time after the original warranty runs out. Most manufacturer warranties are sufficient, with bumper-to-bumper coverage of at least three years or 36,000 miles and powertrain coverage that’s often longer. If you want an extended warranty, ones offered by the auto manufacturer are typically better than those offered by third-party companies. Some disreputable dealers may tell you that you must buy an extended warranty because the bank requires it. In fact, lenders typically don’t require it, and making you pay for one under these pretenses is illegal in some states.

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon sued seven companies operating in his state, accusing them of using deceptive sales tactics. For some reason — no one seems to know why — close to 100 telemarketers pitching extended car warranties are based in Missouri.

In a news release about the lawsuit, Nixon said, "Many consumers — confused, but not wanting their car warranties to expire — went ahead and purchased the new, but in most cases, unneeded service contract the company was hawking.” The lawsuits ask the court to stop the allegedly misleading sales practices and order the companies to make refunds to unhappy customers.

Here’s a trick some of the dishonest salespeople use. They will make it sound as if they are connected to your dealership or auto manufacturer, when they are not. Lois Hartness, of Florissant, Mo., says the telephone salesperson told her straight out that his office was located at the car dealership. “He had me thoroughly convinced that he was legitimate,” Hartness says. “But he was lying about everything.”

When she realized she had been taken — her Honda still has three years left on the bumper-to-bumper warranty — Hartness called back to cancel. “They just screamed in the phone,” she says. “They wouldn’t listen to me at all.”

This is not unusual. People who try to get a refund are often told to “go jump in a lake,” says Scott Holste, a spokesman with the Missouri attorney general’s office.

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