If you have a phone, you've probably been offered a (last, final, only, etc.) chance to extend your car's warranty. Hopefully you realized an anonymous caller from an unknown number had no idea what kind of car you drive much less when your warranty expired and promptly ended the call.
Way back in 2008, several state attorneys general teamed up to hang up on the auto warranty scammers, and the next year a federal judge ordered two companies to cease the annoying, probably illegal calls.
Finally, yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission slammed the hammer down on LA-based SBN Peripherals (aka Asia Pacific Telecom, Inc.). The FTC's report says the company made more than 2.6 billion random calls in less than 20 months. Unfortunately, 12.8 million of those calls paid off with some consumer being scammed.
For their many, many, many telephonic transgressions, the company was ordered to pay $5.3 million. The company is conveniently unable to pay that amount, of course, so the FTC is claiming more than $1 million from a Hong Kong bank account, a $357,000 lien on a house, 50% interest in a Saipan office building, interest in seven tracts of land, a 2004 Corvette, a 2005 BMW X5, a 2004 Dodge Durango, a recreational vehicle and a partridge in a pear tree. We're betting the extended warranties on those cars is not transferable. All defendants are also ordered to never, ever again engage in telemarketing. EVER.
But if you're still in need of an extended warranty for your car, email us with your credit card number and we'll get right back to you. (We're joking of course! We prefer cash.)
You can read the full FTC report here.
Way back in 2008, several state attorneys general teamed up to hang up on the auto warranty scammers, and the next year a federal judge ordered two companies to cease the annoying, probably illegal calls.
Finally, yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission slammed the hammer down on LA-based SBN Peripherals (aka Asia Pacific Telecom, Inc.). The FTC's report says the company made more than 2.6 billion random calls in less than 20 months. Unfortunately, 12.8 million of those calls paid off with some consumer being scammed.
For their many, many, many telephonic transgressions, the company was ordered to pay $5.3 million. The company is conveniently unable to pay that amount, of course, so the FTC is claiming more than $1 million from a Hong Kong bank account, a $357,000 lien on a house, 50% interest in a Saipan office building, interest in seven tracts of land, a 2004 Corvette, a 2005 BMW X5, a 2004 Dodge Durango, a recreational vehicle and a partridge in a pear tree. We're betting the extended warranties on those cars is not transferable. All defendants are also ordered to never, ever again engage in telemarketing. EVER.
But if you're still in need of an extended warranty for your car, email us with your credit card number and we'll get right back to you. (We're joking of course! We prefer cash.)
You can read the full FTC report here.
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