$3100!
The dealer tried to sell me one for $700...

make a note:

Step 2: Start insurance/warranty company.

Are there any legit car warranty companies?

These practices would be only be ok if this company was selling $180 pairs of jeans.

@Big Poppa Pimp:
FTW! Nice.

Just b/c the founder and President is an ex-con doesn't mean it's not legit. I mean, the LifeLock creator got the idea while he was in jail, and that's an honest company, right?::nervous chuckle::

But seriously. Chris, having bats in your house/eaves isn't that bad. They eat a lot of bugs. I have been trying to build a successful bat box for years and/or get bats to live in my barn, so the mosquitoes don't bother the horses much. Please don't associate these gentle, docile creatures with this scammer. ;)

Lol I'm getting these spam letters now that my car is a couple years old.

@H1N1_GitEmSteveDave: Plus you can start a side business selling the guano

Wow, that woman got ripped off alright - I got my car warranty from US Fidelis for only $1595!

@IfThenElvis:

Yes, your savings account

That CEO they interviewed seemed like such a slimeball

"One hilarious detail pointed out by Today is that US Fidelis calls itself a "faith based" company..."

Good advice from the Bible:

"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men."

@IfThenElvis: If you get the one extended warranty provided by your car's manufacturer then it's legit.

I bought a third-party warranty for the car before my current one directly from the dealer (I thought I was buying the mfgr warranty but it turns out that I didn't pay close enough attention) and it turned out to be legit. It was a little bit of a hassle to deal with because if the repair cost more than a certain amount they would have to send out an adjuster but they almost always paid. But since I had a VW, the cost of the warranty more than paid for itself. I don't remember the name of the company, though.

Some insurance companies sell a form of extended warranty but they are legally insurance policies and are generally regulated by your state's Department of Insurance so they tend to be legit.

God, those commercials look about as legit as those "send us your gold, you morons" commercials. I always think these things are going after senior citizens.

come on, anyone who robo dials my cell phone at 7 in the morning about my nearly 11 year old car's warrantly has GOT to be legitimate.

fuck all extended warranties for cars. I will never again spend money on extended warranties or tire warranties or any of that. I bought both of those with my honda. never used it once. $3000 down the drain.

I guess faith based means "We have faith that you will part with thine money, as thou art a fool."

Kinda reminds me of most christian sects actually...

Ok, I do like the style of that house, if not the execution.

Maybe Mr. Atkinson "Found Jesus" in jail? Let's not all rush to condone this man for running a faith-based business. Everyone can change for the better. Maybe he plans on offering housing to hundreds of homeless families in his mansion, providing food, clothing, and spiritual guida--

pff.... pftttt.....

HAHAHAHA, I can't say that without laughing. You dumb jackasses. The house of cards always falls.

I have had a very positive experience with WarrantyDirect.com. No, I have no connection to them whatsoever other than satisfied customer. When my original Oldsmobile warranty ran out, they picked up the bumper to bumper to 100,000 miles and when that ran out I used them again for major drivetrain coverage. They worked well with the repair shop and agreed to pay for expenses that exceeded my policy cost.

@GMFish: I'm tired of companies saying they're "faith based" - most of them probably aren't, and most of them use the meaning of faith by using it to take advantage of others. The better principle to follow is "practice what you preach" and stick to treating your customers like you say you will, and like how you would want to be treated.

@donnie5: That better have been an expensive ass car.

Extended warranties are usually bad ideas. Buying an extended warranty from a company with an 'F' BBB rating is plain stupid.

I'm not defending US Fidelis (they sound like a sleazy company), but "terrific expose"??? Not at all. Other than the interview with the one customer service rep and the summary from the BBB, it was very light on facts and information. So one woman had her claim denied...they never say why. Her claim could have been denied for a legitimate reason, such as she knew it was overheating but continued to drive it until it did major damage.

"Useless coverage"...examples please. Is the policy too restrictive, too many exclusions? Are record keeping or claim filing requirements too onerous? Does the company ignore their own contract and deny claims for no reason?

The founder's felony convictions and $17 million home are not shown to be relevant. Were the convictions a single event (DAs love to stack charges) or are they a pattern of behavior? Were they related to a business venture that ripped off consumers? Why talk about the guy's new home? Other than being slightly inflammatory, it added nothing to the issue.

This is poor journalism and not worthy of Consumerist, though US Fidelis's behavior and extended warranty rip-offs are!

Glad to see a story on this. When I started seeing commercials for US Fidelis and 3 or 4 similar companies literally every 5 minutes on TV, I knew they were no good.

I can only imagine the list of parts & conditions that aren't covered on a 10+ year old car.

@bilups:

$3000? WTF

@pecan 3.14159265: There are plenty of examples of companies use the whole "faith based" thing as cover or distraction for what they are doing. I find it disgusting but sadly it works quite often.

"It's the biggest scam I ever got involved with," she told Today.

Uh, how many others have you been involved with? Maybe you're a bit too trusting?

@snowburnt: Step 3: Profit!

@snowburnt: i'm confused. how does this fit into stealing underpants?

@snowburnt: My next attempt is a batbox on a pole, and I can plant a garden underneath to capitalize on thew guano.

I knew it! I hear this damn commercial at least 17 times a day. I thought to myself just the other day "Maybe this company will be huge like the next Geico"..Haha, you gotta love it when jackasses get caught!

Any one still not convinced this guy is running a scam should look up "The Element Church".....a mega-church run by none other than the $17 million dollar home owing Atkinson.

Oh look...the church has the same business address as the main offices of US Fidelis in Wentzville Missiouri.

Looks like he IS faith based....just has faith you will part with your money so he can finish his $17 million dollar home.

@crazyasianman: Honestly? I'm a little surprised that they even pretended to deliver--I thought they were straight out phishing.

@rolandsherpa: Well put. I've changed "terrific" to "terrifically entertaining," because I *was* entertained. Even if I didn't learn a lot of truly incriminating info from the report.

Nice house.

The BBB received 1100 complaints. At what point does someone take action?

@rolandsherpa: I had some similar thoughts, but wouldn't have been nearly as articulate about it. Kudos.

I was also wondering about how policies like this are regulated. I know in my industry (insurance -- not car insurance, though), there are loss ratios that we have to meet. What that means is that if we make "too much" money on a product, states can yank our ability to sell it because it's either overpriced, we're denying too many claims, or we're not getting as many claims as we thought we would. If there are similar regulations in place for this type of warranty product, then the denied claim in this story might be an aberration.

1. Why was this company still allowed to operate despite 40 AG investigations?
2. There needs to be some sort of federal law that empowers the government, in cooperation with X number of state AGs, to completely shut down / enjoin a business at the drop of a hat. Everyone in my office received multiple calls from this company... usually at their office number, home number, and cell number. We are in NYC... 80% of us don't have cars.
3. That guy's house needs to the toilet papered.

A lot of the car warranty calls I received came from area code 417, which is Missouri.

I've had an idea to start something like an car "clinic" - I can do quite a bit and already do for about 15 cars of friends and family, but anyway, we'd be able to do most things (definitely not all, but most of the stuff that people get ripped off on) and our rates would be far far lower because we'd have a higher volume and wouldn't have fancy equipment for the big jobs. For instance, we wouldn't replace engines or transmissions, or do emissions testing, which usually require hoists and dynos/computerized equipment, nor would we do alignments or sell tires. I can probably count on one hand the number of times (excluding state inspections) I've had to take a car to a mechanic to do something I couldn't, so it seems to be that most of this stuff is pretty easy to do, people are just scared of it. It upsets me that people get such large sums of money taken from them for something that isn't really that hard to do.

On the weekends, I'd let 3-5 people sign up for an informative session to learn how to do things themselves. A relaxed environment, really trying to help the community.

It would definitely be a gentleman profession - I have a job now that I work in the morning/early afternoon and could do that then go to this. Charge $30/hr instead of the $70-90 local shops charge and I'd have a line of cars out the door.

Just one of my pipe dreams.

Frankly, when I see a business that has one of those Christian fish symbols in their advertising, I stay away. Not because I think Christians are untrustworthy, but rather because I think anyone who wears their religion on their sleeve to advertise their business is trying to get undeserved credit. It makes my alarm bells ring.

OK...is it just me or does their corporate HQ look WAAAAAAAY too much like an Iron Cross?

@cuchanu: *snrkk*

[xkcd.com]

Never trust anyone who;

Claims to be Xtian
Uses being Xtian as part of their sales propaganda

The only good xtians I have met, personally or professionally are the ones who demonstrated it with their actions rather than their words. The rest are like Falwell and his ilk.

I wanna know under what grounds the lady's car repairs were denied.

Normally I really dislike civil forfeiture, but it does seem appropriate here.

I get these, and also a lot of calls from people wanting to talk to Ashley. I suspect Ashley owes someone money. I keep telling them, "No this is still not Ashley," but they keep calling. I'm ignoring them, but maybe I should hook up Ashley with a new car warranty and kill two birds with one stone.

I generally consider any claim of being a 'faith based' business to be a huge red flag.

I need to check the warrenty my dealer sold me and make sure its not these yahoos!