There isn’t much in this crazy world that I can count on, but this I know for sure:
The factory warranty on my car has expired.
I’ve had a “second warning” to that effect every day now for months, and I have no doubt about the veracity of the information. It would be strange indeed if my car’s factory warranty were still in effect after nine years and 110,000 miles.
At first, the calls were annoying. They can come at the most inconvenient times – as I’m heading for the bathroom, newspaper in hand, or right after that first sip of wine at dinner, for example. But after a while they became a reassuring ritual. The sun rises, the phone rings, a recording warns me that my car’s warranty is kaput, life goes on.
So it is with mixed emotions that I learned that federal regulators have gone to court to halt the calls. They say as many as a billion calls have been made across America. And it seems some people actually buy warranties from the callers because the Federal Trade Commission is suing the companies behind the telemarketing campaign – Voice Touch Inc. and Transcontinental Warranty Inc. – to make them refund the money they’ve collected so far. According to the FTC, their warranties are bogus.
Imagine that! Who would have thought that these nice people who are so concerned about my loss of warranty coverage would be running a scam? It’s enough to make a person lose faith in mankind. Next, they’ll be telling me those free trips I win from time to time are bogus, too.
