warranty direct scam, they scammed me big time
Complaint
Jason
Country: United States
On 16 July 2007 I purchased the Secure Care+ Plan from Warranty Direct. I purchased this plan due to the factory warranty on my 2003 Audi A4 was going to end on 31 July 07. My car had 42,068 miles at the time of the purchase. I then felt like I bought a piece of mind that my car was going to be covered.
On the morning of 2 Aug 07, my car broke down. I took it to the Audi dealership immediately, just as my Warranty Direct contract said I must do. I was informed by the certified Audi technician that my transmission had locked up. The transmission must be replaced.
Since the car was already outside the factory warranty, I gave the dealership the contract number and the claims department for Warranty Direct. The dealership made the claim and it was denied immediately. Warranty direct stated that the transmission problem was pre existing. They made this denial before talking to any of the technicians. If the transmission was broke before I bought the warranty I would have taken it to the dealership while it was under the factory warranty. After I proved that point to them they said they needed to check the service records of the car. I have my car serviced exactly like the manufacture suggest.
After that was settled, they denied the claim due to the fact that it was a wear and tear malfunction that caused the transmission to lock up. Even if it was a wear and tear, my contract plainly states that it covers wear and tear failures. The claims manager (Jeff Baker) stated that my warranty does not cover wear and tear. I called the sales department and asked them, without giving them information about my dispute, if the warranty covers wear and tear. They assured me that any wear and tear failure would be fully covered. The Audi certified technician informed me that the oil sending unit inside the transmission is what caused the transmission to lock up. He said that this was a malfunction, not a wear and tear.
Now I am stuck without a car until this gets resolved. My warranty covers rental vehicles but I am scared to go get one due to the fact they might try to get out of paying for it. It is clear they will take any route necessary to get out of paying for this repair. Also you cannot get any supervisor on the phone. All you get when you call their ext. is voice mail, which of course they do not return your call. This seems like an auto warranty scam.
On the morning of 2 Aug 07, my car broke down. I took it to the Audi dealership immediately, just as my Warranty Direct contract said I must do. I was informed by the certified Audi technician that my transmission had locked up. The transmission must be replaced.
Since the car was already outside the factory warranty, I gave the dealership the contract number and the claims department for Warranty Direct. The dealership made the claim and it was denied immediately. Warranty direct stated that the transmission problem was pre existing. They made this denial before talking to any of the technicians. If the transmission was broke before I bought the warranty I would have taken it to the dealership while it was under the factory warranty. After I proved that point to them they said they needed to check the service records of the car. I have my car serviced exactly like the manufacture suggest.
After that was settled, they denied the claim due to the fact that it was a wear and tear malfunction that caused the transmission to lock up. Even if it was a wear and tear, my contract plainly states that it covers wear and tear failures. The claims manager (Jeff Baker) stated that my warranty does not cover wear and tear. I called the sales department and asked them, without giving them information about my dispute, if the warranty covers wear and tear. They assured me that any wear and tear failure would be fully covered. The Audi certified technician informed me that the oil sending unit inside the transmission is what caused the transmission to lock up. He said that this was a malfunction, not a wear and tear.
Now I am stuck without a car until this gets resolved. My warranty covers rental vehicles but I am scared to go get one due to the fact they might try to get out of paying for it. It is clear they will take any route necessary to get out of paying for this repair. Also you cannot get any supervisor on the phone. All you get when you call their ext. is voice mail, which of course they do not return your call. This seems like an auto warranty scam.
Comments
I was required to put a down a deposit of $150.00 via my American Express card, the remaining balance would be charged to my American Express card in monthly installments. This was yet another feature of Warranty Direct that I found favorable, as opposed to paying the entire sum up front for an extended warranty via the car dealership.
While on vacation in early September 2002, my wallet was stolen and my American Express card
subsequently cancelled. Unknown to me was the fact that Warranty Direct sent a letter to my home dated 9/5/2002 advising that they could not charge my card for the September 2002 payment on my vehicle service contract, and that I had ten days (until 9/15/2002) to provide a new credit card to them.
I did not return home from vacation until 9/16/2002 and promptly contacted Warranty Direct to provide them with a new credit card. Their representative advised me that it was "too late" and that my contract was cancelled. I then inquired what I needed to do to receive a refund of the $360.00 I had paid to date. I was told to send a letter to their cancellation department, which I did, yet to this day I have NOT received a refund of my money - It has been ALMOST ONE YEAR!
I have sent MULTIPLE letters via fax, and the U.S. Mail (First Class Mail AND Certified/Return Receipt Mail) and STILL NO RESPONSE from Warranty Direct! They are VERY quick to sell you on their product, however, if a problem beyond your control occurs such as a stolen credit card on vacation, they have a TOUGH LUCK attitude! WARRANTY DIRECT'S CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS! They claim to be Better Business Bureau affiliated, and I have filed complaints with the BBB to NO AVAIL!
AVOID WARRANTY DIRECT AT ALL COSTS! You will be better off obtaining your extended warranty (vehicle service contract)through the car dealership. All I want is a refund of my money that they effectively STOLE from me! When Warranty Direct chose to cancel the product I agreed to buy, and tried to make a good faith effort to continue paying for, the had the obligation to promptly return my money to me They still have my money yet I DO NOT have a product for the exchange of that money!
"OK" I said. I don't know anything about my warranty so I listened to what he said. I was put on hold again and another guy got on the phone and told me my file would close after the phone call so I had to make a decision on if I wanted to buy an extended warranty before I hung up. This was my final chance to get a warranty.
To make a long story as short as possible, the original guy got back on the phone and told me he could extend my warranty for 5 more years or 150,000 miles. He wanted a down payment of $500 and he would set up financing for the remainder of what was owed. I actually got him down to about $300 for the down payment and decided to take it. So far, so good. I had nothing to worry about and my warranty is now extended for 5 years. Longer than I plan on keeping the car.
Well, I got this package in the mail and I was horrified. The first thing I thought was, "I'm paying almost $2,500 for this?" First, it was horribly packaged. But that wasn't the worst. I was told my warranty was 'extended' for 5 years but when I looked at the verbiage of the contract it is very specific on what it covers......pretty much nothing. I was amazed at how little this coverage was. I was told my entire engine, tranny, computers, electrics and on and on and on would be covered. Well, it wasn't even close. Only a very select few parts inside the engine and tranny, no computers, almost no electrical.
At that point I was incredibly agitated and called them to get out of this. I spoke with a manager and told him I was misled and wanted my account credited back. Well, it didn't stop there. I spoke with a man there for 25 minutes and he would not let me get out of the contract. He danced around every complaint I had about this 'warranty' I bought trying to talk me out of it. He talked down to me in a very condescending tone and when I told him I do not want the warranty he tried to give me a discount from Chevy bringing it from $2,500 to $2,000 for the total price if I kept it. When I said no again he put me on hold for a moment and came back and offered another $200 off of the price.
There was an obvious desperation in his voice for me to not cancel my purchase. I finally got my way, after a long battle, and had to pay a fee to get out of the contract, but I must say it was worth it.
This was a few weeks ago and I wanted to post this because I spoke with my Mother who informed me that my Grandmother got a call from a warranty company attempting the same thing on her. She doesn't even drive her car anymore and told them that but they insisted and said they would work with her to get her down payment lowered and help her with easy financing. This is an 87 year old lady. How low do people go? Very low I see. I don't know if it was the same company but it sounded like the same sales tactics so I am going to assume it was.
If you get a call from warranty direct do not buy anything. The 'warranty' they sell is not even worth the paper it is printed on and the cheap box it comes in. It is an obvious scam that I was stupid enough to fall for. Don't make the same mistake.
After this was done they found that there was clutch material in my transmission fluid and the dealership said this was due to leaky seals so Warranty Direct sent out an adjuster and when they did he came out and took pictures of everything and agreed with the dealership that there was something wrong and it needed to be replaced. But then when he sent his report back to Warranty Direct it somehow changed to "he found nothing wrong with the transmission"! When I asked Warranty Direct to send me a copy of his findings they responded "we can't send that to you" I asked "why not" the lady on the phone responded "uh, uh, we just dont"! They just kept giving me the run around everyone that you speak to has a different reason why they would not cover the repair. One supervisor even told my service rep "there is abnormal clutch material but its still not enough reason for us to cover this claim"!
Warranty Direct said that I could send out another adjuster for just an additional 90 as if they would not alter his findings as they did the last adjuster. DO NOT EVER DO BUSINESS WITH WARRANTY DIRECT! You will never get any staight answers out of them, they will never put anyone on the phone with any authority and ability to make any decisions!! They want you to wait until your car stops working and you are stuck on the road and put yourself in danger before they will consider honoring the warranty.
I now owe the dealership over 900 and I still dont have a working transmission, or a working vehicle for that matter! So now I am out 2,400 for a extended warranty policy that is useless and am still going to have to spend an additional 3,000 to get the transmission fixed so I can get my vehicle back!
I had an extended warranty policy on a 2005 4-Runner. I purchased the 4Runner in Jan 2008, when it had approximately 34,500 miles (the Toyota manufacturer's warranty was for 3 years, 36K miles--this manufacturer's warranty was still in place when I purchased the SUV). I then purchased the extended warranty a couple of weeks later. This extended warranty was for 5 years or up to 100K miles, whichever came first. The price of the warranty was 1,632.
I sold the 4-Runner in April 2010. It has 67,400 miles on it. During the time I owned the 4-Runner, I filed a claim for 462, which was promptly paid. After selling the SUV, I asked for a refund of the prorated warranty since I could no longer use it. I expected a refund amount close to 350, estimating that roughly half of the warranty life had passed. I had a little more than 2.5 years left on the term and had used roughly half of the mileage coverage limit (since the mfr's warranty ended at 36K, this meant there were 64K miles of coverage when I purchased the warranty. Driving 31K miles after the expiration of the Toyota warranty meant I used roughly half of the 64K miles in my extended coverage).
I expected something like this: (1,632 amount x 50% remaining coverage = 816 prorated refund. 816 less the 462 claim paid to me earlier equaled a net refund of 354). Instead, Warranty Direct told me that I was getting a check for 75. This is because they estimated that my warranty coverage had only 33% left, not 50%. They base this on the fact that my 4-Runner had 67K miles, which means that the coverage was 67% used, based on 0-100K miles, which is the official term of the warranty. Therefore, they contend that the amount is approximately 76 (1,632 amount x 33% remaining coverage = 538 prorated refund. 538 less the 462 refund claim paid to me equaled a net refund of 76).
Their formula for determining the prorated refund is unfair. They assume coverage from 0-100K miles, which is false since they do NOT cover any repairs while the manufacturer’s warranty in place. They will not pay anything until after the manufacturer’s warranty expires. Therefore, they should not be taking credit for the first 36K miles that Toyota was responsible for covering. Using that as a way to reduce their refund amount is a poor practice that tarnishes their good service. If that is how they base their refunds, then they need to cover the car from the first mile.
If an attorney reads this, I hope he or she can help resolve this. All I want is a fair amount and for Warranty Direct to change this unfair policy.
It appears as if all Warranty Direct wants is the money(), but Warranty Direct never intends to pay for any repairs as they continue to cite 1 reason or another. And the customer cannot speak to the Warranty Direct representative. The only people available to the customer are help desk operators who don't know automotive mechanics and can't do anything to help at all in any way possible. Warranty Direct claim to have a cancellation policy, but Warranty Direct provides no way to address a cancellation. Warranty Direct also promised to pro-rate payments, but Warranty Direct doesn't easily refund payments. Warranty Direct is the most disreputable company I've dealt with. Don't ever purchase an extended warranty contract through Warranty Direct. Warranty Direct never intend to help you with your car repair costs. Warranty Direct is a total can complete Sham!
Look at the EXACT same post on another site with the substitution of another warranty company's name:
http://scam.com/showthread.php?p=1013955
I don't know if either of these are legit, but something is very fishy here.
These people need to grow up. What the hell kind of way is this to do business? If you can't succeed on your own merit without bashing each other--and falsely at that--then you should get the hell out of business and do something that doesn't involve competition. Make your damned products better rather than trying to make up for your failings or crap products.
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Seems like this post is a fraud.
Look at the EXACT same post on another site with the substitution of another warranty company's name:
http://scam.com/showthread.php?p=1013955
I don't know if either of these are legit, but something is very fishy here.
These people need to grow up. What the hell kind of way is this to do business? If you can't succeed on your own merit without bashing each other--and falsely at that--then you should get the hell out of business and do something that doesn't involve competition. Make your damned products better rather than trying to make up for your failings or crap products.