Auto Warranty Robocall Scammers Busted 358
ectotherm writes "The nice people behind the recorded phone messages stating 'By now you should have received your written note regarding your vehicle warranty expiring...' — the ones who instantly hang up when you ask for the name of the company — have been busted. Fox News did a little background digging on the four people charged." Don't know about you, but I received three or four postcards in the mail from these scammers, as well as uncountable robocalls. The FTC says they cleared $10M since 2007.
Re:Why can't the greedy crooks ever learn.... (Score:2, Interesting)
and there were no criminal charges filed against them.
And the new scam de jour.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why can't the greedy crooks ever learn.... (Score:5, Interesting)
and there were no criminal charges filed against them.
What I found interesting were the priors for some of these people. You'd expect related charges, but they're totally off-base:
- indecent exposure
- obstruction
- trespassing
- battery
- filing a false report of a bomb
- firearm violations
That's quite an interesting assortment.
And although I got robocalled a lot, I never did get any of their postcards. I'm not on the DNC registry.
Re:I never got it... (Score:4, Interesting)
I actually led them on for quite a while by asking dumb naive questions. I was trying to go so far as to find out where to send the check. I think they wanted a credit card number. I did get a company name at one point, but it was something generic. It didn't come up when I later googled it. I write the name down but must have tossed the paper.
I wasted a little of their time, and had fun doing it. Does that count for anything?
My scathing email to the FTC... (Score:1, Interesting)
I happen to work, as a contractor, for a VERY high-level (think: one step from the POTUSA) office and I was receiving these calls on my gov issued cell phone. I wrote a nice letter to the FTC about 1.5 months ago. They never even got back to me and I left them my full address. Is there anybody out there?
Re:Knew it was a scam very quickly (Score:2, Interesting)
It was kinda obvious to me that this was a scam when they told me my warranty for the car was due to expire soon. I don't have a car.
That's fun.
It was obvious to me for the exact opposite reason. I had five cars. And the youngest of them had been out of warranty for at least 5 years. When I gave them the VIN for the '56 Ford (after thoroughly harassing them for not knowing the VIN on the warranty they were calling about) they wouldn't accept it - not enough characters. They hung up when I said it was a '56. On the next call, they hung up when I gave them a motorcycle VIN. Then they flooded my line with calls - well, 3-5/day - and hung up whenever I tried to connect with a person. Then I started screening calls, and they finally went away.
I understand that this is an over-reaction, but if they were sentenced to death and I were an executioner I think I would cheerfully pull the switch to fry their brains.
Okay, it's done, but what was the net gain/loss? (Score:3, Interesting)
We are all rather familiar with the notion of "cost of doing business" when it comes to fines associated with illegal and/or unlawful activities in business. Quite often, the fines and other punishment are so small and insignificant that it is not a deterrent but is instead factored into the cost of doing business.
This warranty scam activity was very VERY obvious that it would be shut down at some point. The fact that it went on for as long as it did was pretty amazing all by itself. Who was responsible for the slow response on this? Further, the engineers of this scam made a LOT of money from this. When compared against the fines and other punishments so far, was there a net gain or loss for these perpetrators?
My point here is that if there was a significant net gain, then the perpetrators won. It doesn't matter that they were shut down. That was a matter of time. It took long enough that they somehow managed to pull in a LOT of money. How much of it did they get to keep? Frankly, I think the government needs to take ALL gross income from the operation. (Note "gross income" before expenses and payroll and the like.) And they need to extract this money directly from the perpetrators. If there are any legal prohibitions that will prevent the government from issuing such punitive measures, then you can see very clearly and plainly what is wrong with U.S. laws governing business. (It would be an effective license to commit fraud and be shielded from punishment.)
Re:Okay, it's done, but what was the net gain/loss (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My call... (Score:5, Interesting)
They called my lab repeatedly while I was a grad student, after several calls I kept a log with time, date, and apparent Caller ID number (which was always bogus) and any info I could get out of the operators. But hey, I was a grad student, so I had time to kill, I just kept them on the phone for as long as possible.
scammer: Your car warranty is expired, would you like to renew your auto warranty?
....
me: expired?
scammer: yes, wou---
me: are you sure my warranty expired?
scammer: yes, would you like to renew your auto warranty?
me: well, which car are we talking about?
scammer: The newer one
me: the new one? i bought them at the same time.....
and when I got bored (rare) or sensed that they were about to hang up (usual)
me: I'd like you to know that I report every one of these calls to the FTC (and I really did: http://www.ftc.gov/phonefraud [ftc.gov] )
I think my number finally got blacklisted by their phone operators or something, after awhile they just hung up on me every time. Once the operator just tried to heckle my school's sports team. (its tough to rattle a geek by making fun of a football team) I *always* pressed '1' when I got those calls, must have logged at least 30 calls on the FTC website.
Re:I get the stupid post cards too (Score:5, Interesting)
They didn't know a thing about your warranty. Or your car. The call folks all the time who either have no cars, or ancient cars that haven't had warranties of any kind for years and years and tell them 'your warranty is about to expire'.
They are cold calls. They haven't done any research. Some of the better ones use the same cold reading techniques that psychics do to trick you into thinking they know what they are talking about. They are hoping you are dumb enough to provide the information to them when the call.
Re:I get the stupid post cards too (Score:4, Interesting)
They didn't know a thing about your warranty. Or your car. The call folks all the time who either have no cars, or ancient cars that haven't had warranties of any kind for years and years and tell them 'your warranty is about to expire'.
These guys yes. Not all of them. I got a postcard with the make and model of my car and they knew exactly what day the manufacturer's warranty was going to expire. I even bought the car second hand, so it wasn't like the dealer ratted me out. I think it must be DMV records correlated by vin with dealer reported original sales, or possibly just DMV records and assumptions that first registration equals a sale on or about the same day,
Re:Knew it was a scam very quickly (Score:3, Interesting)
they told me that the manufacturer's warranty (5 years) on my new car (2 months) was about to expire...
I decided to fuck with them, and told them I owned a 2002 Lamborghini Gallardo (the Gallardo, as nice a car as it is, didn't enter production until 2003).... I also kept them on the line for almost an hour being transferred from one "department" to another asking for their corporate mailing address.
Re:I don't worry about warranties on my cars... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why can't the greedy crooks ever learn.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not on the DNC registry either, but cell phones are supposed to be taboo for legit marketing companies; the only telemarketing calls I've ever gotten on my cell (I don't have a landline) were from robodialers for this scam. And I got dozens of calls.
Re:I get the stupid post cards too (Score:4, Interesting)
They didn't know, they just guessed.
For example, I got these calls when I had a 2002 Civic, but the car wasn't under my name; I kept getting the calls after I returned the car to my parents and bought myself a 2009 Civic Hybrid... there's no way that's out of warranty already ;) I tried getting someone on the line (to mess with them) after that, but all I got was a perpetually ringing line. Nobody ever answered.
Re:I get the stupid post cards too (Score:5, Interesting)
Usually either your bank/car dealership financial office(check the small print) or one of the big 3 credit record places.
I used to maintain a snailmail catalog list, my boss was frequently considering buying access to lists of buyers of related product X or readers of related magazine Y.
When I looked through some of the options you could get from, say, Experian, I was rather amazed. Recently graduated nurses or lawyers in practice for 10+ years. Age x to y, married or not, kids or no kids, own home/renting, bought a luxury/economy car this year, household income in 5k increments, how many times they'd moved.
Freaking specific shit. Didn't beat the ROI on our "please send me your catalog" list, though.
Re:I love scammers..they're so much entertainment. (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a (legit) marketing company tell me I was getting a free watch (for somehow making it through the first round of the [a?] drawing) and three free magazines, so she had me pick three of six or seven magazines. After I picked she mumbled something about how I just needed to subscribe to one of them to get the magazines.
I refused, because I didn't really want them in the first place; I was then informed I would only qualify to get the free watch if I subscribed.
I've never understood why these companies can get away with giving people things in exchange for money but still call the things "free". I guess if you don't actually lie (if the words themselves are true) it's legit?
Somehow I'm not surprised I didn't win the second round of the drawing.
Amazing that Chuck Schumer was the only one (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why can't the greedy crooks ever learn.... (Score:5, Interesting)
At least that WAS the situation. Things were in rapid flux. I think the larger data warehouses are putting together lists of cell phone numbers, that you can buy and use to suppress those numbers out of your file; but they're not cheap, and they aren't complete.
Re:Fox news?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of their people are nuts, but they do have Shepherd Smith who can be pretty cool sometimes (even if he does have a creepy face):
When a commentator next to him said that waterboarding was helping intelligence efforts, he got so angry that he yelled that, "he didn't give a rats ass if it helps" and that, "We are America! We do not FUCKING torture!" (followed by a quiet "oops" a little later). [youtube.com]
Here he is mocking Glenn Beck on air. [youtube.com]
Re:Fox news?! (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm so conflicted... Fox News actually reporting something that affects me in a positive way? I don't know how to feel!
Well, Fox News does this quite often. You see, some weasels on the net as well as some of their TV competition (who they are destroying in the ratings mind you) don't like Fox. As such, they smear them. Then disingenuous folks like you pretend to have watched Fox News, even though you haven't, and bitch about them. This is sometimes due to ignorance, other times due to ideology. At which point, you repeat things "you have read about" or "heard about" from various sources with no credibility, or in the case of some outlets, just making stuff up works too. Fox News is by far the most accurate (whether you like the style of some of their commentators or not, yeah, I hate Hannity, too). The one thing that gets me more than anything is Fox will do corrections on those rare occasions when they get something wrong, and get bashed for being honest enough to correct it. All news media makes the occasional mistake (some more than others). Is Fox the only one we are going to piss on about it?
Re:Why can't the greedy crooks ever learn.... (Score:3, Interesting)
That is interesting, how were you able to tell?
The only case where I could be sure if a number was a mobile number or not was in NYC with the 917 area code. It was (and will be) the only mobile area code as after its creation the FCC ruled that you can not have area codes specifically for mobile devices. Also, relatively recently 917 has been switched back to a general area code.
Re:Why can't the greedy crooks ever learn.... (Score:2, Interesting)
I worked briefly for a mail order company that dabbled in [legitimate] telemarketing.
Sorry, but that's an oxymoron.
Especially when you later go on to say that you didn't even know anything about the numbers you were calling until you called it. There ain't no such beast as legitimate telemarketing.
Cold calling should be illegal, period.
Typical of Government (Score:1, Interesting)
This is typical government work when conflation is involved. Government is just not established to be involved with the private sector. See bailouts, government healthcare, Do Not Call Lists, digital transition mandate... the list goes on. Anything the government touches in the private sector will wither and die a fabulous death, guaranteed. (Take note how the FTC did nothing, as it took a Schumer's personal vendetta to get anything done.)
Re:My call... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not quite (Score:5, Interesting)
The real problem is the government's indifference — took millions of complaints over years for them to enforce the law...
Millions of complaints had nothing to do with it. IIRC, Senator Schumer got one of there calls and the rest is history.
Note to telemarketer: scrub congressmen from phone list.
Re:I get the stupid post cards too (Score:4, Interesting)
It wasn't the auto warranty scam, but one of those calls was scarily accurate. My wife had just got off the phone with me telling me that our fridge was leaking water and needed to be replaced. (Came with the house and was quite old so it wasn't completely unexpected.) Literally seconds after I hung up, my work phone rang. "If you own your own home, you need to protect against major appliance failure..." The scammers are spying on me!!!! (Do I need to wrap my phone in tin foil? ;-) )
Re:Knew it was a scam very quickly (Score:3, Interesting)
That rises an interesting question: could we measure the efficiency of artificial intelligence by how long it can keep a phone solicitor busy? That would both act as an improvised Turing test, and help the populace.
Re:Busted only when they bothered someone "importa (Score:3, Interesting)
I had dinner with a guy who had his company's merger (in an obscure concrete-related industry) with a larger entity get reviewed by the FTC and turned down (all during Bush Jr's second term). He was understandably annoyed with the FTC, but his description of the FTC's operation was pretty stunning. Apparently they're pretty autonomous and aren't really accountable at all. He even had the backing of a household name Republican Senator with Bush connections and didn't get ANY traction.
My guess is that the FTC doesn't really give a shit about consumers and has their own agenda. There's probably legitimate reason to provide them insulation from political pressure, but probably not reason enough to prevent accountability.
Re:The Real Problem (The Phone Companies) (Score:2, Interesting)
The phone techs you talk to when you call AT&T have access to a lot of tools and information you may not have access to, but ultimately, they are limited to handling the kinds of issues they have been trained to handle. Getting new material to these techs takes a long time and a lot of work. Chances are, they didn't help you because they don't know how to respond.
I worked in a Bell Canada call center before, and from what you're saying, it sounds like you've worked in some sort of call center in your life. While I sympathize with employees, it in no way makes it right.
The customer service is organized in a non-customer-service way these days -- anything to get them off of the phone. Calls can only last an average of 4 minutes. Any longer than that and you get penalized in some way (unnecessary coaching, failing to get that new position or a raise). The customers have no control over it because every single company does it the same way, through outsourcing.
I know I'm opening up a new can of worms here, but if the customer service was better then they would have been able to help.
Re:The Real Problem (The Phone Companies) (Score:3, Interesting)
"Never attribute to malice what could more easily be attributed to stupidity."
That is what the malicious want you to think.
Re:My call... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why can't the greedy crooks ever learn.... (Score:3, Interesting)
After I complained online to the FCC about the car warranty scammers calling my cell phone, I too received a letter stating that there had not been any infraction. So, I wrote a letter back to them, quoting the information they sent me, stating that it was an infraction. I demanded that they reinvestigate. Still haven't heard anything back from them.
Re:Does this happen in countries where telecom is. (Score:3, Interesting)
There are phone scams elsewhere but it seems not to the same extent. In the UK we no longer have a nationalised phone service but the regulatory environment seems to be more successful in keeping the worst excesses under control.
I sometimes get calls from automated systems but they show up as International on the caller ID. I believe that the regulations for automated call systems are stricter and enforcement harsher here so they only operate from outside the UK jurisdiction. We also get free caller-id if you know how to sign up for it.
Calls to mobiles are charged entirely to the caller here and mobile numbers have a standard prefix anyway so we do not have two of the elements of the problem.
I did get some random cold calls on my mobile a while ago claiming to be from my mobile phone company and trying to sell me a new contract. The problem with that was that my phone is pay-as-you-go so there is no contract to expire. I think they were just calling all numbers that were first registered 18 months earlier because that is the usual first contract duration.
The problem that gets the most coverage here is reverse charged SMS messages where people say they did not request the messages. That seems to have died down a bit now; I believe that was as a result of the regulator making the mobile phone companies get their act together in responding to complaints.