Automotive Repair News Today

Braxton Critcher [00:00:05]:
Wow. I, uh, I just can't stop reading this quote and my jaw just continues to drop. Listen to this from Samuel Levine. He is the director of the Federal Trade Commission and their Bureau of Consumer Protection. He said instead of delivering the peace of mind promised by its advertisements, car Shield left many consumers with a financial headache. Yikes. Have you experienced that headache before? Or maybe you're a repair shop owner and you've had to turn customers away because they used car shield and you at your repair shop, and rightfully so, it's your repair shop, you decided to refuse people who use vehicle service contracts. Hey there, I'm Praxton Kretch here, and this is automotive Repair news today.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:57]:
Thanks for checking out this podcast, this YouTube video. Be sure to give us a follow a subscription on your favorite podcast or on this YouTube channel. And follow along, because stuff like this is going to be coming out. And I just want to talk about it, because if you're new to automotive repair news today, this podcast, I am outside of the repair industry. I'm just now getting into it. If you know Lucas Underwood, he's a good friend of mine, and he's encouraged me to start keeping you informed. If you're a repair shop owner, a technician, service advisor, even if you're within a dealership repair shop, you know somebody that's in the automotive industry. The idea is to keep you informed.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:42]:
And so that's what I'm going to do. And when I woke up this morning and I saw this news, it just, it's crazy. And so, car shield, just for a little overview, if you've been watching broadcast television for the last 510 years, like I have, you've seen a lot of commercials from like Chris Berman or Ice T about car Shield. And if you're a car owner and you had an expensive repair, that's a pain point. And car Shields company was designed to have a car owner pay a monthly subscription so that whenever their car would go into the repair shop, that would be covered. Kind of like insurance for your car or one of those, like, I think home shield is popular, too, where if your fridge goes out, your h vac or, you know, some sort of appliance like that, they'll help you cover, you know, that appliance, replace it for you up to a certain percent. Same kind of idea for Carshield. You're probably familiar.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:45]:
If you're a repair shop owner or a technician, you've probably ran into some customers in the past who have talked to you about car shield, asked about it, or maybe even used Carshield. And so if that's you, I want to get your thoughts. Let me know in the comments what you think about Carshield. If you've read this, if you kind of saw this coming, if you had in the past experienced something like this, if you're a car shield user, if you had a, tried to use Carshield and your service got declined by Carshield, in fact, one of the false advertisements, and we'll get into this a minute in a minute, was they promised like loaner vehicles or rental cars to Carshield customers, and many times that was declined or they would only pay a certain percentage of that cost. And so this is really crazy. And I'm learning this kind of, as we go here. So I'm just kind of break down what I've learned so far. I've taken some notes.

Braxton Critcher [00:03:44]:
I'm going to go through these. And as we go, let me know in the comments if I misstate something, because, you know, most of this, I'm just learning in the moment right now. And so I'm going to try and attribute what I know and tell you that this is what I'm reading, but I don't know if that's absolute fact. So keep me, correct me if I'm wrong on some of this stuff. But, so we talked about vehicle service contracts. That's what Carshield does. They offer vehicle service contracts to customers who own a car and want protection on expensive repairs. That's kind of the bottom line.

Braxton Critcher [00:04:28]:
What the FTC, the Federal Trade commission is digging into is that they had a lot of car shield customers say, you know, this is false advertising because they said they would give me one thing and I didn't get that. When I took my car to the repair shop. One of the things that I saw in the press release that I mentioned, the loaner vehicles or rental cars. But the another thing was Carshield promised to its customers that you could choose any repair shop. Right? But if you're a repair shop owner, you have the right of refusal. If you've dealt with a vehicle service contract before and companies like that, I'm sure payment might be a hassle sometimes and getting payment from Carshield, but then also having to get payment from the customer, that can get kind of sticky. And so if you just chose to not take vehicle service contracts, that's your decision. And Carshield promised that you could choose any repair shop.

Braxton Critcher [00:05:30]:
But repair shops also have the choice to not accept vehicle service contracts. So that's false. Advertisement so if you experience that as a car shield owner, let me know. Tell me what happened. What was your experience like with Carshield? What was your experience like with the repair shop? I want to know because I want to learn and I want to keep people like you informed about what's going on in the automotive industry and the automotive repair industry. Let's see. So FTC, they, some of the complaints were car shield customers would pay $80 to $120 a month. Can you imagine? Can you imagine that? Like, I mean, my car is fairly reliable and I've seen the commercials and I've always thought, you know, that seems interesting.

Braxton Critcher [00:06:24]:
I'm kind of intrigued by that. Curious, because if you have a car that, you know, the engine goes out and you want to try and replace it because it's a newer vehicle or something like that and it's not under warranty, then, I mean, I can see that. But for the most part, my car's been out of the shop. It's not had to go in there. So I cannot imagine wanting to sign up and pay for $80 to $120 a month for my car, not even being in the repair shop. But I guess that's just me. But apparently a lot of customers signed up for Carshield. So Chris Berman and Ice T were the two celebrity actors that were supposedly customers of Carshield.

Braxton Critcher [00:07:09]:
That turned out to not be true as well. They never used their services and said they did on the advertisements. I mean, this is just everywhere, or what's that movie? Everything everywhere, all at once, all the time. Bad for car shield right here. They promised peace of mind and protection from breakdown costs. They promised coverage for all repairs where in the fine print they didn't actually cover all repairs. There were some, excluding that. If I, you know, of specific repairs, because I'm just seeing this report, it's not showing me specifics.

Braxton Critcher [00:07:45]:
If you know of specific repairs that were not covered, let me know in the comments. Um, let's see. So this has been a long time investigation by Sam Levine and the FTC, the Bureau of Consumer Protection. Um, and I just, uh, Carshield left many consumers with a financial headache. So where the pain point for a car owner was financial headache for expensive repairs. In fact, signing up for Carshield gave a financial headache is what I'm learning here. So the FTC, obviously, what they're designed to do is to hold advertisers accountable for things just like this false advertisement promising something and not coming due on, uh, or not coming true on what you promised. So this is exactly what the FTC is here for, and we're seeing it come true today.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:47]:
So, in conclusion for Carshield, uh, they have reached, um, or they, I guess they're getting fined or there's a $10 million settlement from the FTC to Carshield to refund customers for false advertising. If they promised repair shops, you can choose. If they promised loaner vehicles and they didn't give them that. Whatever the case may be, if there was a promise that was not granted to a customer, that customer is going to be refunded $10 million from the FTC to Carshield. And so this is big news for the automotive industry. This is big news for the repair industry, for auto shops, and also car users like myself, because, like I said, home shield and other services like that I've considered before. I never really considered car shield, but I think this makes home shield and places like that, you know, their antenna go up to make sure that they're actually doing what they say they're gonna do. So that's the news for today and automotive repair and the automotive industry.

Braxton Critcher [00:10:05]:
Let me know your thoughts, your experience, your, your expertise. I'm sure that you know more than I do about this topic, but I want to learn. I want to grow. I want to know more about automotive repair, and you can help me get there. So let me know in the comments what you, what you know, what you know about this topic. And so it's crazy news. And one more time, that quote from Sam Levine, the director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. He said instead of delivering the peace of mind promised by its advertisements, Carshield left many consumers with a financial headache.

Braxton Critcher [00:10:42]:
Ouch. Now, car shields and a headache. $10 million from the FCC or the FTC to give out to its consumers to refund them for failed and broken promises. Crazy stuff today in automotive repair news. Oh, and I almost forgot. I do think it's important to say if you're a consumer in any sort of industry, it is important. This is a good reminder to make sure you do your research, your homework, ask around if you're interested in something like this where you have to sign up for, you know, a monthly commitment of $80 to $120. Make sure you do your homework.

Braxton Critcher [00:11:22]:
Make sure you know that the provider that you're signing up with is a reputable company that's going to follow through on their promises, because many customers of Carshield today are wishing they had done the same. So whether that's for your home, for your car, anything with a vehicle service contract or a contract to protect your home, even your family, anything like that. Be sure, make sure you know that they're going to give you what they say they will because, I mean, there's a lot of people wishing they had done that today. From Carshield. So thanks for watching this video. Be sure to subscribe, share this video, give it a like, if you would, please, and follow along on social media, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook x, YouTube, of course, follow along on your favorite social media, and if you want to hear the podcast, go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and a bunch of other podcast platforms as well. Subscribe there. Appreciate you listening and following along on this video on automotive repair news today.

Braxton Critcher [00:12:29]:
Hey, if you're still here, thank you so much for listening to this episode of automotive repair news today. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment. Like share subscribe to the podcast. That'll help us out a big deal and help grow the show. And you know what? While you're at it, slap on a review, too. If you feel like this content is helpful for the industry, don't forget to follow us on all your favorite social media platforms. We're on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. Stay connected and be the first to know about new episodes, behind the scene content, and more.

Braxton Critcher [00:13:00]:
And until next time, let's make the industry better together.