(Sarpsborg Arbeiderblad) Are you one of those who have received an invoice with an offer for car protection from Nordisk Bilgaranti?
Then you are not alone.
More and more car customers receive an invoice where you are made aware that the factory warranty for your car has expired, and at the same time given an offer to extend the protection through a new warranty.
– This does not come from us, and we do not recommend this solution to anyone, says customer receiver Odd Vidar Jensen at Bertel O. Steen in Sarpsborg.
Several car dealers say that they constantly receive inquiries from customers who wonder if it is the dealer who has sent out such an invoice.
Nordisk Bilgaranti AS is the company that sends out the offer. They do not answer specifically how many offers they send out, but write in an e-mail that those who do not have a guarantee and would like to have a guarantee receive offers from them.
Independent guarantee company
The letter from Nordic Car Warranty contains all the technical information about your car and they state that the factory warranty has now expired.
– We get our information from the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, which are public documents. We clear them against the reservation register and comply, says Anna Moen from Nordisk Bilgaranti.
Five year warranty
When the factory warranty has expired, you as a car owner will receive an offer to extend the car’s warranty for a further five years through a new warranty.
A full-year premium costs NOK 2,995 and they promise NOK zero excess, quick claims settlement and that the car will be repaired at a workshop near you.
– As we are an independent warranty company, the customer can choose which workshop they wish to use, it does not have to be an authorized one. So the customer can freely choose the workshops in Sarpsborg, says Anna Moen in an email to Sarpsborg Arbeiderblad.
Well grown people
At Mobile Sarpsborg’s workshop, customers show up wondering what this offer is.
– Most of the inquiries we receive about these invoices are from well-grown people, says customer receiver Charlie Høyås.
He advises his customers to check with their own insurance company whether they want further protection after the warranty period has expired.
– Looks like an invoice
Nordisk Bilgaranti was established in 2021 and in 2022 had just over NOK 13 million in operating income. The company is wholly owned by Dennis Peter Niklas Wellerfors. When the company started, it had a share capital of NOK 30,000.
The Norwegian Automobile Industry Association wrote last year that they were extremely skeptical about whether they have the financial ability to take on such warranty obligations.
Received several complaints
The Norwegian Consumer Protection Authority has previously received several complaints about Nordisk Bilgaranti.
– The biggest challenge in this case is that the letter the car owner gets looks like an invoice – and that it is sent out to car owners who still have several years left of the factory’s new car warranty, says consumer lawyer Thomas Iversen at the Consumer Council previously stated to the website Broom.
Anna Moen at Nordisk Bilgaranti does not understand that NAF, the Norwegian Automobile Industry Association and the Consumer Council are critical of their offer.
– We do not know why they are so negative towards us, none of them have contacted us directly to discuss so it is impossible to answer that question. But we look forward to them contacting us so that we can get answers directly from them instead of from the media, she writes.
Not seriously
Lawyer Mia Cecilie Lindestad in the legal department at the Norwegian Automobile Industry Association (NBF) has written in a comment to Broom that:
– Sending out offers that appear to be invoices is considered unfair business practice and is prohibited.
She warns against “marketing applications that give the impression that the customer is without a guarantee, and must act quickly by signing an agreement with this player”.
– The offers are disguised as invoices, Benjamin Hunt, associate attorney at NAF Advokat, previously stated to the website Motor.no
Both NAF, NBF and the Consumer Protection Authority believe that the guarantee offer does not appear to be serious.
– We have sent this to both the police and the Consumer Council, and hope they will take action, says Magistad to Motor.no
Moen from Nordisk Bilgaranti writes that they have many satisfied customers, 90 percent of those who complain or have an opinion about us are not even our customers, she states.
Is not recommended
The Norwegian Automobile Industry Association has previously warned that this has not been sent out by their member companies, nor is it something recommended by importers or factories.
– Nordic Car Guarantee has itself obtained information about cars and ownership and sent this out on its own initiative, it says on their website.
The Norwegian Automobile Industry Association points out that several of the recipients have up to several years left on their factory warranty, so that the offer itself is misleading.
2023-12-18 21:19:31
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