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You’re not the only one getting repeated phone calls about your vehicle. Telemarketing robocalls have become so prevalent that “your car’s extended warranty” memes have been popping up across the internet. We’ve collected some of the very best for you to scroll through in the following article.
The Best Your Car’s Extended Warranty Memes
After scouring the internet for the best extended warranty memes, we settled on 28 that made our warranty researchers laugh the hardest. These are our favorites (click to enlarge):
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About Extended Warranty Memes
Some calls relating to extended warranties are scams, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Others are aimed at selling legitimate contracts for protection plans. But regardless of specific intent, the goal is typically to get your money and personal information.
These calls became a hot topic of discussion online in the last few years, with search traffic for terms like “car warranty calls” picking up steam in 2020 and peaking in 2021. With that increased interest came a flood of “your car’s extended warranty” memes poking fun at the often relentless nature of the calls. Phrases like “we’ve been trying to reach you” commonly heard on the recordings are often part of the joke.
Extended Car Warranty Robocalls
Calls about vehicle service plans were the top call complaint received by the FCC in 2020. That means that warranty robocalls made up a significant portion of the nearly 50 billion automatic telemarketing calls made annually in recent years.
In many cases, vendors outside the U.S. used local phone carriers to route their calls. This allowed robocallers to show up with the same area code as the recipient, or with one from nearby areas. These providers are known as “gateway” providers, allowing foreign representatives to pose as local callers.
FCC Response To Warranty Calls
Recently, the amount of calls about “your car’s extended warranty” have started to subside – or at least they should have.
In 2022, the FCC introduced new regulations to try and curb robocalling. One update is the introduction of Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) and Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (SHAKEN) standards, collectively known as STIR/SHAKEN. In essence, this set of protocols requires multiple carriers to verify callers as legitimate before a call reaches the receiver.
Additionally, the FCC issued orders to carriers demanding that they cease and desist providing service to robocallers. It also requires providers to block calls that come from a do-not-originate (DNO) registry. The agency can enforce these regulations with steep fines and penalties for telecommunications companies that fail to comply.
What To Do About Telemarketing Calls
Since the introduction of new legislation, you’ve probably started receiving fewer annoying “junk” calls. But that doesn’t mean they will stop altogether. The FCC has issued a few tips to use if you receive any robocalls, including those about “your car’s extended warranty.”
- Register your phone number on the national Do Not Call list. To avoid penalties, legitimate warranty providers and other companies typically won’t call numbers on this list. Scammers may not bother to check.
- Don’t answer calls from unknown numbers. Even calls with local area codes can be from telemarketers with spoofed numbers.
- Do not respond to any questions, especially ones that can be answered “yes” directly.
- Never give out any personal information when you receive a call or when talking to a person or company you don’t know and trust.
- Most state and federal government agencies will send you mail before calling. If you receive a call from someone claiming to represent one of these agencies, hang up and call the agency directly.
- If your voicemail is turned on, make sure that access to it is password protected. Some carriers allow you to log in automatically if you call from your own number, which scammers can spoof.
For more information, you can read the FCC’s downloadable and printable guide to stopping unwanted robocalls and texts. The guide provides information and links to tools you can use to stop, or at least reduce, robocalls about extended car warranties – and everything else.
