So the whole Law and Order tie-in is NOT a desperate cash-grab by two minor celebrities who see their careers coming to a swift end. It's a way of making a super-clever point about it being a "crime" to pay for car repairs because you didn't listen to Vivica Fox and Tracy Marrow and buy the non-insurance the pitch in their ads. Got it.
And how exactly does the whole CarShield business model make it such a reprehensible scam? Let us count the ways:
1. The ads manipulate language to tell the listeners what CarShield wants them to hear but not what CarShield does NOT want them to hear but which covers their butt legally. We hear over and over again how "covered repairs will be covered" and buyers of CarShield "will never pay for covered repairs again." Well, no duh. But thousands of people will ignore the word "covered" and just hear "repairs" and "never pay." And if viewers of limited means aren't already anxious enough,
2. The ads play on the economic insecurity of their audience. Every time you turn the key, you might hear a strange noise that means that you are about to spend $$$$ you don't have on the thing that you need to get you to your job and make money and pay the bills. Every time you go out on the road, you run the risk of sustaining damage to your car that you can't pay for and that's the ball game, your whole life has been turned upside down and you are basically screwed. So here are a bunch of people with first names and single initials for last names to tell you how much they "saved" by getting CarShield. Which leads us to...
3. CarShield never tells us the price of their "service," because they don't want viewers to factor that in to the risk of having to pay for a car repair. A "basic" CarShield contract will run you $100 a month. You can get "gold"-level coverage for $140 a month. Remember, this is for a WARRANTY. It is not INSURANCE, which you still have to pay for separately, hopefully from a company that is not run by con artists like CarShield. So let's pretend that there really is a guy out there who had a $2K car repair actually covered by his CarShield Warranty. He certainly had the "gold" membership. But if he paid the premiums on that policy for more than fifteen months, that warranty cost him more than the repair would have. $140 a month placed in a bank account for fifteen months would have netted him a $100 surplus after paying for that repair out of pocket. Oh, but what if he needed the repair after SIX months? Well, that still would only save him $1160, not $2k. But this is all a moot point, because....
4. CarShield's thirty-page warranty agreement- which I'm guessing nobody reads- is chock-full of legalese which explains to the customer why they shouldn't even bother calling when they want to file a claim (I've heard stories from people who can't get anyone on the line for "24/7" towing service, or if they can, are told to pay out of pocket and "file for a refund.") CarShield is very good at using phrases like "engine repair" while excluding specific parts which are needed to effect engine repair. It's the reason why many mechanics refuse to accept CarShield (and why CarShield is actually BANNED in some states, like California.) It's deceptive but legal because it's right there in paragraph 4 of page 22 Sorry You Didn't Read It Sorry No Refunds.
Look, extended warranties- which is what CarShield, HomeShield, etc. etc. offer- are all scams. Every one of them. This is just maybe the very worst because it doesn't target homeowners who probably have a bit of financial leeway because after all they own a house. I'm quite certain that the vast majority of customers drawn in by these disgusting ads are renters, minimum-wage workers, single parents and elderly people on fixed incomes. They can't afford your non-product, CarShield. Stop taking advantage of loopholes in our ridiculously lax Truth in Advertising Laws. Or just keep paving that road to hell, where if there IS a god you'll be joined by Big Gambling when your time comes.
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