Your caller ID shows you a local number, and you pick up to a guy named “Brian” – who suspiciously sounds a lot like he’s calling from a busy office in Kolkata – with some important news about your car warranty. Do you listen, or bail out?
While most people are generally going to hang up immediately, some people might be a lot more susceptible to this common type of scam call. In fact, these sketchy calls have even topped the Federal Communications Commission complaint list in recent years. It seems like as long as cars exist, so too will car warranty scams.
Here’s what to look for so you know exactly when to pump the brakes.
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What Are Car Warranty Scams?
The all too common car warranty scam takes the form of a phone call, and the contents of that call can range from crude to convincing. At the lower end of the spectrum, an automated voice — reading from a script but claiming to be your car dealer, manufacturer, or insurer — tells you that your car warranty is due to expire soon (or something along those lines). They then ask you to follow a few button prompts to get more information and, of course, eventually make a payment. Spoiler: that payment will not be going to anyone remotely responsible for your vehicle’s warranty.
The trickier, more subversive phony car warranty calls come from real, human callers (i.e., scammers) who might even share accurate details about your car’s make, model, mileage, insurance, and current warranty. Using high-pressure sales tactics and some simple social engineering, they’ll typically ask you to confirm your private information (such as your social security number, credit or debit card details, or other banking info) and try to get you to purchase something like an “extended warranty.”
As real human con artists, these callers will often use emotional tactics to drum up guilt or pile on pressure. They’ll often claim to have already sent you numerous requests by mail or urge you to seize a tempting “one-time-only” offer that you can cancel easily – or they may threaten to close your file altogether. No matter the tactic car warranty scams employ, it’s all a ruse to get the private information or money that the scammers ultimately want out of you.
Car Warranty Calls: Red Flags
The bad news is that car warranty scams are a tale as old as phone scams themselves. The good news is, when a scam is this played out, we know all of the regular red flags that give it away as a con. Sketchy car warranty calls share a lot of red flags in common with general scam and phishing calls, but they also have some specific traits to keep an ear out for.
- If you don’t have an auto warranty to begin with, just hang up immediately. If you’re shopping for one, it’s safer for you to make the call to them.
- Be wary of any automated messages claiming to be from your car dealer, insurer, auto loan company, or manufacturer. It’s virtually unheard of for any of these organizations to request payment from you via a robocall.
- Likewise, note any suspicious generalities. If it’s a real car warranty call, it’ll tell you exactly what company it’s coming from, rather than a generic, completely unbranded call “regarding your warranty.”
- That said, don’t take caller ID at face value. Sophisticated scammers sometimes use simple tech known as spoofing tools to display local numbers, or even the number or company name of trusted warranty providers, on caller ID.
- As always, if a deal you’re being offered sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Buckle Up Against Car Warranty Scams
For the most part, you can stay safe from car warranty scams in the same ways as you can from similar phishing attacks or general scam calls.
- Let suspicious or unknown numbers (or even car warranty calls in general, given the proliferation of the scam) go to voicemail.
- Cross-reference the information in said voicemail – like the number, the name of the company, your warranty’s expiration dates, coverage, and other details – with the real deal in your contract or the warranty provider’s website.
- Ignore instructions from robocalls that prompt you to press a number on your keypad, as this is often a tactic used by scammers to confirm that they’ve reached an active number ripe for the taking.
The golden rule is: never, and we mean never, give out your valuable private information over the phone unless you’re absolutely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’re talking to the legit business entity you’re trying to give money to.
What To Do If You Miss the Exit
At the peak of their dubious popularity, criminals made about 13 billion scammy car warranty calls per year. While that number has fallen to the single-digit millions in recent times, it’s still an incredibly popular scam, which is all to say that there’s nothing to be ashamed of if you fall victim to it. Rest assured, you’re not alone.
First things first: as soon as you realize you’ve given out your private financial information or otherwise made a payment to scammers, contact your bank. In most cases, especially if you haven’t abused the privilege in the past, they’ll allow you to stop an in-progress transaction or reverse a charge that has already gone through once you explain the situation. Even if there’s a fee involved, it’s likely that fee is cheaper than paying whatever the scammers ransomed from you.
Your bank can also advise you on whether or not it’s necessary to put a freeze on your bank account or debit card, or to change your account numbers. Additionally, you can file a complaint with the FCC online – sharing your story might just help others avoid the same hassle in the future.
Stay Safe Down the Road
Of course, once you’ve confirmed a number as a car warranty scam, block the number and mark it as spam. Likewise, don’t forget to dive into your phone’s settings to make sure that your scam call protection features are fully enabled (here’s how to do it on Android and on iOS). These features get more effective at filtering out bogus car warranty calls and all sorts of other phishing attacks and grifts as time marches on, so don’t sleep on them.
If you’ve got a phone number for a car warranty call that seems a little fishy, Spokeo’s got your back. Just enter that number into our Reverse Phone Lookup, and we’ll cross-reference it with billions of available public records from industry-leading data sources to find who that number really belongs to.
Basically, Spokeo People Search is a big, cushiony airbag you can deploy when car warranty scam calls strike.
As a freelance writer, small business owner, and consultant with more than a decade of experience, Dan has been fortunate enough to collaborate with leading brands including Microsoft, Fortune, Verizon, Discover, Office Depot, The Motley Fool, and more. He currently resides in Dallas, TX.
