In the fall of 2007, I purchased an extended warranty online through a Ontario Ford Dealership as the original warranty was due to expired in April 2008. The Ford ESP Plan and the dealership deal with an American Company called Budco for their financing arrangements. The contract required me to give the dealerships 10% down or $124.92 and the remaining $1124.29 was to be handled through the finance company at 0% interest. The contract stiplulated that the finance company was to take five equal monthly payments out of my bank credit card account starting in September 2007 and end in January 2008. The finance company did not start taking out the payments however until May 2008. The annual renewal of my credit card in June of every third year. 2008 was the third year. I noticed in May and June 2008 that payments were starting to come out abeit a little bit late on the finance companies part. After this I never really paid attention to my credit card statement, I would just shred it when it came in the mail and make the credit card payment online. When the finance company tried to take out the third payment in July they couldn't because by credit card had expired. The finance company had all my contact phone numbers but did not call me or the dealership for an updated credit card information and ***** nilly cancelled my ESP protection without giving me notice. Two years later, 22 March 2010 I called my dealership to enquire about the length of time left on my extended warranty only to find out that I had no extended warranty.

So I called the dealership and they were not suprised as this has happened to a lot of their other customers. The dealership still sells the ESP plan but uses a Canadian Bank for the financial arrangements. The dealership called the finance company a lit a fire under Budco's butt and low and behold I got a call from some female service rep with a southern drawl trying to explain to me that the policy could have occurred for several reasons, but she never explained the reasons to me. She did indicated that there was a problem in July 2008 with my expired credit card. After she tried to explain this to me I told her that I would have been in pretty poor shape if I was on a road trip and had a problem which required servicing at a dealership. The rep tried to explain "Oh they would have told you that your warranty had expired because of a credit card issue and we could have reinstated it over the phone with your new credit card info from the Ford Service Desk. The rep tried to explain that they sent me three letters notifying me of the problem....problem is I never got a letter. I got a little hot with her at the time and explained that I rather doubt that such reinstatement would have occurred.

Anyways thanks to the dealership the warranty issue has been resolved with the finance company taking the remainder of the balance out of my credit card today. The unfortuante thing is that I am paying for 19 months of no esp coverage. For any of you that have financed your extended service protection via credit card you might want to call your dealership and see if your esp protection is active or been cancelled because of credit card expiry dates.

Below is the letter I sent to the ESP dealer in Ontario;

First of all thanks for your help. I'd buy you a beer but it is hard to send one over the Internet. I talked to a Budco rep this afternoon. She explained that the warranty could have been canceled for a number of reasons (all of which where never explained to me at the time of the cancellation). There main concern apparently was that my VISA expired in June 2008 and they were unsure if a new one had been issued.

I explained to the rep that if it was a concern then Budco should have called Barrie Ford for my updated card information or called me directly like they did today. I further explained to them that if they had followed the payment information in the contract then the payments would have all been made by January 2008. What is amazing is that when the Budco rep called me this afternoon she called me on my cell phone. This makes me wonder if there was a credit card expiry date problem in June 2008 Budco reps could have looked at the contact information in the contract and called me directly. I told the rep it was not very comforting thinking I had coverage when in fact the policy was canceled, this remark got the response that if I went to a dealership for repairs they would have told me that the policy is canceled and it could have been reinstated over the phone. This I rather doubt.

I am very particular about the 05 Mustang and how it is looked after, you can be sure that if I ever got a letter from Budco inquiring about an expired credit card I would have called them right away or yourself. It would be interesting to see one of these three letters they supposedly sent me. They probably got Alberta confused with Alabama or Alaska after all both states have the same first initial as Alberta.

I told the rep to bill my credit card for the total amount that is owing. No more payment crap. She told me that my warranty will be reinstated today. Can you check your department's service screen in the next day or two to see if in fact it shows my mustang has the extended warranty? If you want to send Budco a copy of this email go ahead. Maybe they can read North American map a find out where Alberta is! Its a good thing I checked my mustang esp warranty coverage!

Thanks again,

Ray Spencer
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