Friday was an especially happy day for Sticks. His 18th birthday, a near-perfect score on the driver’s test, and a special gift for graduation and his 18th birthday all wrapped into one.

Our birthday cake, with 18 candles. If I close my eyes and wish hard, I can pretend the other 31 don’t belong there. This is the best German Chocolate cake on the planet, bar none. My MIL makes it especially for our birthday.

It took less time to blow out the candles than to light them.

Sticks challenges me for the ownership of the cake. Whippersnapper.

Today his “fairy godmother”, aka his wonderful aunt, gave him the best gift of all.

I can’t think of a better transportation mode for drums than a box on wheels. A very, very, very nice box indeed.

Technorati Tags: Toyota, Scion xB, birthday, gift, 18

This is the second notice we’ve received in the mail from these people. A couple of observations before I give details: a) There is no return address; only a telephone number; and b) There is no reference to which vehicle we should be considering a warranty for. Still, it looks pretty official, doesn’t it?

It took me awhile to track this down — Internet resources aren’t all that plentiful on these, but I did find some. There is a website for these people which consists of 2 pages: A home page which claims to have “Senior Warranty Consultants” to custom-design an aftermarket auto warranty for your needs, and a phone number.  The second page is a “contact us” page with the same phone number that’s on the home page.

A WhoIs query indicates that the business is located in Florida, but all contact information goes back to Premier Home Mortgage Corp. in Missouri, servers located in South Carolina (Nuvox Communications).

That’s the extent of what’s available online.

When we received the first notice, I assumed they were referring to the Prius, since our other car has nearly 200,000 miles on it.  But our Prius has an extended warranty out to 100,000 miles.  The language in this notice is loaded — here are some quotes intended to grab your attention:

This is your final warranty notice to extend or reinstate your warranty coverage

Sounds pretty official, doesn’t it?  Like maybe something isn’t right with our current coverage and it’s expiring?  Of course, as a throwaway they say that if you extended your warranty at the time of purchase, disregard, but they’re sending this out to everyone anyway.

It goes on with this:

The importance of having warranty protection is at an all time high.  If you have not extended your warranty yet, you must call (toll free) 1-800-xxx-xxxx on or before the deadline date.

This is an example of deceptive, covert marketing at its worst. It is a trap intended to force you to turn over your credit card and/or personal information on the phone.

WTOC TV in Savannah Georgia has a report on their website (their report concerns telemarketing, but I believe there are California restrictions on unsolicited telemarketers that would necessitate a different point of contact):

Two days ago, one telemarketer caught her attention, trying to sell her a new $1,600 warranty for her red 1999 Chrysler Town and Country van, which has 60,000 miles on it.

“They gave me this spiel about my car being out of warranty. You need this,” Sandra said. “If you need repairs, it will cost you money.”

Then the red flags started flying. They wanted her credit card and bank account numbers right then and there.

“There is no way I was giving my credit card over the phone,” Sandra said. “If I’m not giving credit, I’m certainly not giving my bank account number. She said, ‘We have to do this today.’ Okay. Red flag. You know this is illegitimate.”

“It’s just the most popular thing in cons,” Better Business Bureau president Ross Howard told WTOC.

Howard calls this type of scam spoofing. He says its object is to scare a customer into giving up personal info.

“Truth of the matter is, there are not many companies that will give you a warranty for cars with high mileage that is older,” Howard said. “They just want her money. That’s all it is.”

I did a search on the company at the Better Business Bureau website and got the following results:

The Bureau processed a total of 50 complaints about this company since the firm’s BBB file was opened in June of 2005. Of the total 50 complaints since the firm’s BBB file was opened in June of 2005, 47 of those were closed in the last 12 months

Several of those complaints were related to aggressive advertising, but many more were related to refund or exchange issues — nearly half. Despite this, the BBB gives it a “Satisfactory” record.

What troubles me the most about this covert, deceptive effort to get our personal information is that there are ties back to mortgage banking, whether direct or indirect. The BBB information lists a Sr. Vice President and Customer Service Manager as the company management - no President is listed.

So, assuming I were crazy enough to actually call this number, which I’m not and which I’m writing this to urge anyone reading this not to do, who would I really be giving my information to and why? Is the ultimate goal to engage them in some sort of mortgage marketing and/or scamming? (See this 2007 BBB warning about the proliferation of Advance fee Loan Scams).

The tipoffs that this was something other than what they claim to be?

1. No notice that the card they mailed was an advertisement
2. No mailing address on their correspondence
3. An incomplete website with no explanation of their product
4. The loaded language intended to make me believe I was somehow being irresponsible if I did not contact them immediately
5. No association with Toyota, the dealer we purchased the car from, or the warranty currently covering the car

Beware of email, telephone calls and mail like this, and whatever you do, DON’T give your personal information to them, no matter how much you are pressured to do so.

Technorati Tags: covert marketing, deceptive marketing, automotive warranty, scam, consumer protection, mass marketing, scam spoofing, automotive warranty advisors, buyer beware

This article from Wired News got my dander up today. Summed up, some are calling on Toyota to make the Prius noisier, because…

As hybrids become more popular, blind pedestrians have a new threat to contend with. The National Federation of the Blind is calling on the auto industry to make hybrid vehicles emit more noise — before there’s a rash of injuries and deaths.

I like my Prius quiet, thankyouverymuch. Isn’t this backwards, though? The National Federation of the Blind should really be calling upon all drivers, whether of Mack trucks or the Toyota Prius, to stay the heck out of intersections when people are in them. One of the first things I learned in Drivers’ Ed 101:

Pedestrians have the right-of-way, inside or outside crosswalks.

If we follow that rule, the blind should be perfectly safe from the silent Prius, provided that the driver of the Prius knows the basics of auto safety. Perhaps the National Federation of the Blind should call upon law enforcement to actually uphold that simple rule by ticketing drivers who think they own the road, crosswalks, and sidewalks.

Is it just me, or is there a growing tendency to ignore the obvious and in-place safeguards in favor of expecting ‘fix-its’ from the corporations?

(Disclosure: I love the Prius, loveitloveitloveit and wouldn’t change a thing, except possibly owning a second one. I am completely biased and proud of it.)

Technorati Tags: Toyota, Prius, corporate liablity

Have you ever had one of those days when you open up a news site and check the calendar to see if it’s April Fool’s Day? Check these out:

• (CNN) Cartoon Network Promo for Aquateen Hunger Force sparks bomb scare. While I was getting ready for work this morning I saw the footage of this on CNN. I couldn’t believe it when I saw what the hoo-ha was about. Jeers to Cartoon Network for engineering such a stupid promo. The worst part of this was the placement of these silly LEDs (or electronic dangerous-looking thingys to law enforcement) under freeway bridges. (More on Make Blog.)
• Also from CNN.com and the Land of the Absurd, we have this story about a Tampa, Florida rape victim who goes to jail for a 2003 warrant when she went to police to report that she had been raped. Worse yet, these idjuts kept her in jail for two full days and refused to give her a second dose of the morning-after pill to prevent pregnancy, because the jail worker had her own “religious convictions” about contraception. Two morals to this story: 1) Don’t get raped in Florida; and 2) If you are, don’t expect any consideration from the PO-lice down there. Gawd.
• Over on HybridCarBlog.com, a shining example of why the Big 3 Automakers are being buried by Toyota and Prius sales. GM is evidently calling it the “Prius Effect” and confessing that they underestimated the ‘image value’ of hybrids. News Flash for GM: It’s not “IMAGE VALUE”. Every time we fill our little 9-gallon tank after putting around 500 miles on the Prius we raise our middle finger to the oil companies and folks who are so arrogant they think car buyers will just blindly roll over and wait another 10 years for their hybrid offerings.

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled programming now. I’m sure mine was hijacked by aliens.

Technorati Tags: news, Cartoon Network, Boston, Prius, GM, Tampa, CNN

I found this video on digg.com tonight and can’t stop laughing, even though I would NOT have wanted to be this kid or his dad.

Here’s the formula: Dad brings home $50,000 Mustang, 14-year old son thinks it’s way cool, takes the keys and gets in the seat while friends are watching. Son starts the car, but has a bit of a problem…

He has no clue how to drive a manual transmission. Watch the video…it’s a hoot.

I sent this to my mom and brother tonight, because when my brother was 14, he drove our cousin’s brand-new car through their garage, too.

Technorati Tags: youtube, video, new car disaster

Over on Blogher, harleychick wants to know about women and car dealerships. Boy, do I have some stories to tell after the past week. But rather than blather, I’m going to give my top 10 advice items to car dealers:

1. Don’t BS me
2. Don’t pressure me
3. Don’t assume I haven’t done my homework
4. Don’t patronize me
5. Let me BROWSE
6. Listen to what I’m asking and what I’m telling you I want. Don’t waste my time trying to talk me out of it. It’s my money and my decision, whether you agree with me or not.
7. When I walk onto the lot with my husband, don’t treat me like I’m not there. Assume I’m part of the whole package. Talk to us both. Look me in the eye.
8. If there’s a neat feature that you think we should see, show it to us. We might like it and we might not.
9. Start from the assumption that if you do right by us, we’ll be repeat customers and tell our friends. That way you’ll be careful to really work on showing us what will fit our needs and budget.
10. BE HONEST. If you don’t know the answer to a question, don’t try to dodge it. Say you don’t know but you’ll find out.

Last Friday we had the best and worst of salesmen all in one night. The Toyota salesman was awful; the Honda salesman was so good that we will probably go back and buy one, and possibly two cars from him.

The difference? The Toyota salesman did just about everything negative on that list. The Honda salesman was exactly the opposite. No BS, no pressure, but he did show us some features we didn’t know about, and basically steered us toward other cars that might have fit our needs better but were a bit less money than the ones we thought we wanted to look at. He asked me questions directly, and when we told him that we wanted time to consider, he just gave us his card, took our names but not our phone number and left us alone.

He will get a sale, a mention, and a link when we decide what we’re doing.

PS to HarleyChick — I don’t really care if what gender the salesperson is as long as they’re following these guidelines….

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Technorati Tags: car salesman, car shopping, honda, toyota, top 10