CarShield, a company that sells vehicle service contracts to automobile owners that it claims will cover the cost of certain repairs, has agreed to pay $10 million in a settlement with federal regulators over charges that its marketing tactics were deceptive and misleading.<\/p>\n
In a statement Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission said CarShield, which employs celebrity endorsers including rapper and actor Ice-T and sports commentator Chris Berman, had falsely lured customers with the promise of \u2018peace of mind\u2019 and \u2018protection\u2019 from the cost and inconvenience of vehicle breakdowns through its contracts. <\/p>\n
The FTC also charged American Auto Shield, LLC (AAS), the administrator of CarShield\u2019s\u00a0vehicle service contracts, in the scheme. <\/p>\n
The agency said that at least one ad, which ran 18,000 times on television, stated, \u2018With CarShield\u2019s administrators, they make sure you don\u2019t get stuck with expensive car repair bills like this.\u2019 It also touted CarShield contracts as \u2018your best line of defense against expensive breakdowns.\u2019<\/p>\n
Yet many purchasers discovered that their repairs were not covered, despite making payments of up to $120 per month for CarShield\u2019s product, the FTC said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Instead of delivering the \u2018peace of mind\u2019 promised by its advertisements, CarShield left many consumers with a financial headache,\u2019 Samuel Levine, director of the FTC\u2019s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. <\/p>\n
\u2018Worse still, CarShield used trusted personalities to deliver its empty promises,\u2019 Levine said. \u2018The FTC will hold advertisers accountable for using false or deceptive claims to exploit consumers\u2019 financial anxieties.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement, CarShield said that while it disagreed with \u2018many\u2019 of the FTC\u2019s assertions, it shares the agency\u2019s \u2018commitment to helping customers fully understand exactly what we provide and the value we offer.\u2019 <\/p>\n
It said that its marketing efforts now include additional details about the elements of typically covered car repair and that full plans are now \u2018easily viewed prior to making a purchase decision.\u2019 <\/p>\n
And it said it had expanded its Shield Repair Network \u2018by adding more than 10,000 preferred car repair shops, and added a concierge system to help customers quickly locate a repair facility convenient for them.\u2019<\/p>\n
A representative for AAS did not respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n
CarShield, based in Missouri, has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau \u2014 but the company\u2019s BBB listing features more than 300 pages of complaints and a 1.6 out of 5 customer rating. A recent report from WDAF-TV of Kansas City, Missouri, said CarShield had sued the BBB, with the case being settled out of court. <\/p>\n
American Auto Shield, based in Colorado, likewise has a 2.9 customer rating despite an official A+ rating from the BBB.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
CarShield, a company that sells vehicle service contracts to automobile owners that it claims will cover the cost of certain repairs, has agreed to pay $10 million in a settlement with federal regulators over charges that its marketing tactics were deceptive and misleading. In a statement Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission said CarShield, which employs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}