WHERE IT STARTED
FIRST SEEN: c. 2005-2008 (US auto-warranty robocalls) · GOING FOR: About 20 years
The scam took shape in the United States in the mid-2000s as phone-sold vehicle service contracts, and the first FTC enforcement sweep against auto-warranty robocallers came in 2009-2013, including Roy Cox Jr.
Vehicle service contracts sold by phone took off in the US in the 2000s, and by 2010 'your car's warranty is about to expire' was the most complained-about robocall in the country. The FTC's first sweeps came in 2009-2013 (including Roy Cox Jr.'s ban in 2013), but the calls returned at unprecedented scale: the Cox-Jones enterprise placed about 5.2 billion auto-warranty robocalls in the first quarter of 2021 alone, leading to a record $299,997,000 FCC fine in December 2022. A legal-but-deceptive tier also exists: CarShield paid $10 million in 2024 over ads promising coverage that was routinely denied.
HOW IT WORKS
Robocalls or postcards warn that the vehicle's (or appliance's) warranty is expiring and urge the owner to 'extend' it. The caller implies affiliation with the manufacturer or dealer, then sells a third-party service contract for a large upfront fee or monthly instalments. The contract either does not exist, excludes almost every real repair, or is issued by a company that vanishes; refunds are refused. Legitimate-looking sellers use celebrity endorsements and 'bumper to bumper' claims that the FTC has found deceptive. The calling infrastructure uses spoofed numbers and offshore telecom shells (Sumco Panama, Virtual Telecom) to evade tracing.
Unsolicited robocall or postcard about your 'expiring' warrantyCaller will not name the underwriting company or send the contract before paymentClaims of affiliation with the manufacturer or dealer'Bumper to bumper' or 'covers everything' promisesPressure to pay a large upfront fee today to keep the 'rate'
HOW USEFUL IT IS TO CRIMINALS
Robocalling costs fractions of a cent per call, so an operator can place billions of calls a quarter from offshore shells; a tiny response rate at $1,000-3,000 per 'contract' is highly profitable. Enforcement is almost entirely civil - record FCC fines are rarely collected and Roy Cox continued for a decade after his 2013 ban - so the risk to operators is low.
THE DAMAGE IT HAS CAUSED
$299,997,000
Record FCC fine against the largest auto-warranty robocall operation (no loss total published) — FCC, Dec 2022
No body publishes a total for warranty-scam losses; the best figures are enforcement outcomes - the $300 million FCC fine (2022), CarShield's $10 million settlement (2024) and AVP's $6 million in consumer harm (2023). The biggest single case is the Cox-Jones enterprise's 5.2 billion calls in one quarter. Non-money harm: the calls drove US robocall complaints to record levels and made consumers ignore legitimate recall notices.
5.19 billion Illegal auto-warranty robocalls placed by the Cox-Jones enterprise, January-March 2021 (FCC forfeiture order FCC 22-99)
$299,997,000 Record FCC fine against the Sumco Panama auto-warranty robocall operation (FCC, 21 Dec 2022)
$10 million CarShield settlement over deceptive vehicle service contract advertising (FTC, July 2024)
WHO USES IT MOST
MOST OF ALL: 🇺🇸 United States ▸
Auto-warranty robocalls have been the top US robocall complaint for years; the FCC's record $300 million fine and the FTC's CarShield and AVP cases are all US actions (FCC, Dec 2022; FTC, 2023-24).
United States (target market; FCC and FTC actions)Panama (Sumco Panama shell for the Cox-Jones robocalls)Hungary (Virtual Telecom kft, Cox-Jones enterprise)Philippines (call-centre operations for warranty telemarketing)
GOVERNMENTS LINKED TO IT
No government is documented as using this method.
NOTABLE PEOPLE WHO USED IT — RANKED BY PROFILE ORDER (NOT BY AMOUNT)
#1 Roy Cox Jr. CIVIL JUDGMENT (RECORD FCC FINE)REPORT PENDING
$299,997,000 FCC forfeiture (with Jones); $1.1 million suspended FTC penalty in 2013 · 2018-2022
Robocall operator banned from telemarketing by an FTC settlement in 2013, then found by the FCC to be co-running the Sumco Panama auto-warranty robocall enterprise that made about 5.2 billion calls in early 2021.
SOURCE: FCC forfeiture order FCC 22-99, 21 Dec 2022; FTC, Feb 2013
#2 Michael Aaron Jones CIVIL JUDGMENTREPORT PENDING
$299,997,000 FCC forfeiture (joint) · 2018-2022
Co-operator with Roy Cox of the Sumco Panama / Virtual Telecom robocall enterprise fined a record $300 million by the FCC for auto-warranty scam calls.
SOURCE: FCC, 'FCC proposes nearly $300M fine against auto warranty scam robocaller', 2022; Kiplinger
#3 CarShield (NRRM LLC) and American Auto Shield SETTLEDREPORT PENDING
$10 million settlement · 2024
Largest US seller of vehicle service contracts, which agreed in July 2024 to pay $10 million to settle FTC charges that its celebrity-endorsed ads and telemarketing were deceptive; $9.6 million was refunded to customers in December 2025.
SOURCE: FTC press release, July 2024; CBT News
#4 Tony Allen Gonzalez and Charles Gonzalez (American Vehicle Protection) CIVIL JUDGMENT (LIFETIME BAN)REPORT PENDING
More than $6 million taken over four years · 2018-2022
Florida brothers whose company called hundreds of thousands of consumers claiming ties to carmakers; banned for life from telemarketing and warranty sales by an FTC order in 2023.
SOURCE: FTC press release, March 2023; NBC 6 South Florida
SOURCES
FCC, 'FCC proposes nearly $300M fine against auto warranty scam robocaller', 2022, and forfeiture order FCC 22-99
Kiplinger, 'FCC slaps robocaller group with record $300 million fine'
FTC, 'CarShield to pay $10 million to resolve FTC charges of deceptive advertising', July 2024
FTC, 'FTC action leads to lifetime industry ban for operators of extended vehicle warranty scam', March 2023
NBC 6 South Florida, AVP lifetime ban
FTC, 'Robocaller banned from telemarketing in settlement' (Roy Cox), Feb 2013
ConsumerAffairs, extended auto warranty scam statistics, 2026