Edit:  As a followup to this post, here’s a good article from Consumer Reports about auto warranty scams. Still getting scammy letters as of 8/2017.

“We don’t actually send out any paperwork without receiving a down payment.”

This from an article by ConsumerMan, written in 2008, addressing the onslaught of fraudulent extended auto warranty offers by mail and by phone.

And here it is, 2016, and the tide has not turned. In the last couple of months, I have received virtually dozens of these solicitations to purchase an extended auto warranty (the companies not realizing that my Prius is already at 165,000 miles in 9 years, and hence ineligible by anyone’s standards.) Here are just 3 examples:

An article at Edmunds.com also addresses this ongoing plague. Granted, there’s no way of telling just from a solicitation that any given company is fraudulent or reputable, but the fact that there are so many of these things hitting my mailbox and email and even my phone is a pretty good indication to me that there is a huge and lucrative market for these things, and wherever there’s money to be made the roaches will scurry out of the woodwork.

By the time your manufacturer’s warranty has expired – many of them run up to 7 years or 110,000 miles or even more – your car’s pretty much past its day and you should think very hard about whether purchasing an insurance policy (that’s what these are) is really worth it.

Beware of high-pressure sales tactics and “limited time” offers. Research any company and/or policy carefully before sending any money to anyone. And for heaven’s sake, if a salesman tells you, “We don’t actually send out any paperwork without receiving a down payment,” run away fast.

Be careful out there.

The Old Wolf has spoken.