“We’re calling you about your car’s extended warranty. Since we have not gotten a response we are giving you a final courtesy call.”

How many times a day do you get this message? Maybe three to five times? If so, you’re definitely not alone, but you might be wondering why you keep getting calls about your car’s extended warranty even though your car is completely out of warranty or possibly still has one.

These “warranty” calls are scams and you should be careful

As you probably already know by now, these calls that you keep getting for your car’s extended warranty are scams and you should avoid them as much as possible. They are known as “robocalls,” because these calls are typically conducted by a recording. “If you hear a recorded live message, instead of a live person, it’s a robocall,” said Kati Daffan, an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission.

These annoying calls typically occur throughout the day and can be very disturbing, however, you should be wary whenever you actually answer them. The calls are typically executed by scammers that are attempting to get your personal information and/or money with the disguise that they’re selling you an extended warranty for your car.

As you can guess, these “warranty” calls can be confusing to many people, especially if their cars are still in warranty or if they have an old car that’s been out of warranty for a long time.

How do these scammers get your phone number?

If you have ever purchased anything online, created an online profile, or submitted your personal information anywhere, the spam callers know how to get ahold of it. It’s an unfortunate circumstance, but we do live in an age where almost nothing is personal anymore and there are many people out there looking to make money in unscrupulous ways.

What should you do if you get one of these robocalls?

According to the FTC, if you get one of these “car warranty” scam calls, you should be sure to not press any numbers, hang up the phone, and then consider blocking the number. However, just keep in mind that scammers make these calls over the Internet, which allows them to change the phone number that shows up on your caller ID and enables them to keep calling you non-stop.

When you get one of these calls, you might be tempted to press a number in order to speak to someone or perhaps get on a “do not call” list, but don’t do it. According to Cars Direct, pressing a number may lead you to end up getting more calls from a different number because now you’ve just told them that you’re a “live” contact that will possibly comply. Unfortunately, it’s a seemingly never-ending scam and it’s best just to not play their game.

You can join the National Do Not Call List and contact the BBB

If you want to take things a step further, in addition to hanging up the phone and blocking the phone number, you can always join the National Do Not Call List, which should help you minimize, if not eliminate, the scam calls. And if you happen to get the name of the company that called you, then you can also report them to the Better Business Bureau.