EvilCorporations.com • FTC v. American Vehicle Protection Corp., Case No. 0:22-cv-60298-RAR (S.D. Fla. Feb. 8, 2022) • 19 min read

Your “Extended Warranty” Was a Lie: How American Vehicle Protection Corp. Stole $6 Million From Car Owners

The Non-Financial Ledger: What Money Cannot Measure

Picture this. You get a phone call. The person on the other end says they are from Ford. Or Toyota. Or Chrysler/Jeep Dealer Services. They know what kind of car you drive. They are polite, professional, and they are calling about your vehicle’s warranty coverage. For millions of Americans, this is exactly the kind of call you have been told to expect when your factory warranty runs out. So you listen.

They tell you that you can get full coverage, bumper-to-bumper, for everything on your vehicle. They tell you it is comprehensive. They name your specific car. When you ask if struts are covered, they say yes. When you ask about the oil pump, they say yes. They speak with the authority of your dealership. They are not from your dealership. They are not from your manufacturer. They never were.

You pay between $2,800 and $3,400. You do not see the fine print until after the money is gone. The warranty booklet arrives and names companies you have never heard of: American Vehicle Protection, Palmer Administrative Services. The coverage list has a page of exclusions. The struts are not covered. The oil pump is not covered. The “bumper-to-bumper” promise evaporates into paper.

You call to cancel. Nobody answers. You leave a message. It is not returned. You call again. You are told your refund is on the way. Weeks pass. Nothing arrives. You file with the Better Business Bureau, and only then, under the pressure of a formal complaint, does anyone respond. By this time, the money has been out of your account for weeks via a check that AVP’s staff created using your bank account information, without your signature, a method specifically designed to move faster than consumer protection systems can catch.

This was not a one-time mistake by a small-time operation. This was a scripted, systematic enterprise. Daniel Kole personally reviewed and rewrote the deceptive sales scripts. Tony Gonzalez personally supervised the telemarketers making the false claims and personally re-routed Do Not Call consumer files back into the dialing queue to be called again. The BBB gave AVP an “F” rating, and the company did not change its practices. Consumer complaints came in directly to the defendants. They did not change their practices.

Then there is this: the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation had already ordered Tony and Charles Gonzalez to stop operating an illegal auto warranty business before all of this. Their response was to create a new company. Charles Gonzalez personally registered CG3 Solutions Inc. with the Florida Secretary of State to continue running the same operation under a different name. The state told them to stop. They filed paperwork and kept going.

The people who lost money to this scheme were not naive. They were acting on a reasonable assumption: that someone calling from your car manufacturer, knowing your vehicle, using your dealership’s name, was who they said they were. That assumption is the target these operators deliberately aimed at. The fraud did not work despite consumers being careful. It worked because the defendants engineered it to exploit the exact moment of reasonable trust between a driver and their car’s brand.

Legal Receipts: Straight From the Court Filing

“Without mentioning AVP or MPP, the telemarketers follow a script in which they introduce themselves to consumers by saying: ‘Hi, this is Joe [or other name] with [__________] dealer services.’ In the blank, the telemarketers use the name of the manufacturer or dealership of the car owned by the consumer.”

FTC Complaint, Paragraph 17 — Case 0:22-cv-60298-RAR

• This confirms the identity fraud was scripted, not improvised. The blank in the script was filled with whatever brand the consumer owned, making the deception personalized and consistent across thousands of calls.
• AVP’s own name was deliberately withheld during the pitch. Consumers had no way to verify who was actually calling or research the company before engaging.

“Tony actively takes the files of Do-Not-Call (‘DNC’) consumers and dumps them back into the computer for AVP telemarketers to call again, illegally reusing DNC-registered consumer information.”

FTC Complaint, Paragraph 30 — Case 0:22-cv-60298-RAR

• This is not a compliance failure or an oversight. An officer of the company personally and actively recycled the numbers of people who had legally registered their desire not to be called.
• The Do Not Call Registry exists specifically to give people legal recourse against this kind of harassment. Circumventing it is a federal violation of the Telemarketing Sales Rule, 16 C.F.R. §310.4(b)(1)(iii)(B).

“Charles Gonzalez created MPP by registering the company with the Florida Secretary of State, even after he and his brother, Tony, were ordered by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation to cease and desist from operating an illegal auto warranty business.”

FTC Complaint, Paragraph 30 — Case 0:22-cv-60298-RAR

• A state regulatory body specifically ordered these two individuals to halt this exact type of business. The response was to create a new legal entity and continue.
• This documents a direct, knowing violation of a government order, establishing that the defendants were fully aware their conduct was illegal and proceeded regardless.

“Defendants’ scheme has bilked consumers of over $6 million since 2018.”

FTC Complaint, Paragraph 3 — Case 0:22-cv-60298-RAR

• At a price point of $2,800 to $3,400 per warranty, this represents roughly 1,765 to 2,143 consumers who paid for a product that did not do what they were told it would do.
• The scheme ran for at least four years before the FTC filed suit, meaning this volume of harm accumulated while complaints mounted, a BBB “F” rating was issued, and a prior state cease-and-desist was already on record.

“As recently as November 22, 2021, even after learning of the Commission’s investigation in August 2021, Defendants were continuing to make misrepresentations to consumers about affiliation, warranty coverage, and refunds; continuing to make telemarketing calls to telephone numbers on the Do Not Call Registry; continuing to place outbound telemarketing calls without downloading the Registry; and/or continuing to use remotely-created checks.”

FTC Complaint, Paragraph 31 — Case 0:22-cv-60298-RAR

• The defendants knew a federal investigation was underway in August 2021. They did not stop. They continued every documented illegal practice for at least three more months.
• This removes any defense of ignorance or negligence. The FTC’s complaint establishes a pattern of deliberate continuation after known regulatory scrutiny.

Societal Impact Mapping: Who Gets Hurt and How

Public Health

A car warranty is not an abstract financial product. It is what stands between a driver and a vehicle that may not be safe to operate. When coverage is fraudulently denied, the consequences land on the vehicle and the body.

• Consumers were denied coverage for specific mechanical parts, including struts and oil pumps, after being explicitly told those parts were covered during the sales call. Driving with a failed oil pump or compromised suspension is a direct safety risk to the driver, passengers, and others on the road.
• The population most likely to be targeted by auto warranty telemarketing schemes is disproportionately older adults and people in lower-income brackets, demographic groups who may depend more heavily on a single vehicle for medical appointments, essential work, and daily survival, and who have less financial cushion to absorb a $2,800 to $3,400 loss.
• The psychological burden of being deceived, having refund calls ignored, and having to escalate to government agencies to recover money paid in good faith constitutes a documented pattern of consumer harm that goes beyond the dollar amount. That stress is real, even if it does not appear on a balance sheet.

Economic Inequality

More than $6 million was extracted from ordinary Americans by a small group of operators in South Florida. The mechanics of how that extraction worked expose a deliberate targeting of economic vulnerability.

• The $2,800 to $3,400 price point for a single warranty is a significant sum for most working households. Losing that amount to a product that does not perform as described is not a minor inconvenience; for many families, it is a month’s rent, a semester of community college, or an emergency fund wiped out.
• AVP used Remotely Created Checks to withdraw money directly from consumers’ bank accounts without a signature. This payment method is specifically banned in telemarketing because it bypasses consumer consent mechanisms and is difficult for banks to monitor or intercept, giving the operator a structural advantage over the consumer.
• Refunds were effectively rationed based on a consumer’s ability to escalate, either through the Better Business Bureau or a government agency. Consumers without the knowledge, time, or resources to pursue formal complaints got nothing. This means the people least equipped to fight back lost the most.
• AVP never paid the required annual registration fees to access the Do Not Call Registry, meaning it was making illegal calls in multiple area codes simultaneously, maximizing its reach into protected populations at zero regulatory cost, until enforcement finally arrived.
• The corporate structure, using consulting group pass-throughs (Tony Gonzalez Consulting Group and Kole Consulting Group) to funnel payments to the individual defendants, was designed to insulate personal assets from liability and complicate enforcement. Ordinary consumers harmed by this scheme had no such protective structure.

The Cost of a Life Metric

What Now: Accountability and Action

The FTC’s complaint names every individual who ran this operation. If you were targeted by AVP or My Protection Plan Inc., here is who was in charge and where you can push for accountability.

Named Defendants in This Case

• Tony Allen Gonzalez, Manager and Officer, American Vehicle Protection Corp., CG3 Solutions Inc. / My Protection Plan Inc., and Tony Gonzalez Consulting Group, Inc. Supervised telemarketers, signed company checks, and personally re-routed Do Not Call files back into the dialing system.
• Charles Gonzalez, Manager and Officer, American Vehicle Protection Corp. and CG3 Solutions Inc. / My Protection Plan Inc. One of two signatories on MPP’s bank account. Registered MPP with the Florida Secretary of State after a prior state cease-and-desist order.
• Daniel Kole, Owner, Manager and Officer, American Vehicle Protection Corp., CG3 Solutions Inc. / My Protection Plan Inc., and Kole Consulting Group, Inc. Provided start-up funds, reviewed and rewrote deceptive telemarketing scripts, and fired employees.
• American Vehicle Protection Corp., 700 E. Atlantic Blvd., Pompano Beach, Florida 33060.
• CG3 Solutions Inc. / My Protection Plan Inc., 700 E. Atlantic Blvd., Pompano Beach, Florida 33060.
• Tony Gonzalez Consulting Group, Inc. / The Gonzalez Group, 249 NW 79th Ave., Margate, Florida 33063.
• Kole Consulting Group, Inc., 13749 NW 22nd Street, Sunrise, Florida 33323.

Regulatory Watchlist: Who Can Act

• Federal Trade Commission (FTC): The agency that filed this lawsuit. File complaints at ftc.gov/complaint or call 1-877-FTC-HELP. Your complaint becomes part of the federal database used to build cases like this one.
• National Do Not Call Registry: If you received unwanted calls, report them at donotcall.gov. This is also where you register your number to legally bar telemarketers from calling you.
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB): Handles complaints about unauthorized bank account access, including Remotely Created Checks. File at consumerfinance.gov/complaint.
• Florida Office of Insurance Regulation: The state body that had already issued a cease-and-desist against the Gonzalez brothers. Additional complaints documenting the continuation of the scheme after that order strengthen the state record.
• State Attorney General (Florida and your home state): Most state AGs have a consumer protection division. A multi-state pattern of telemarketing fraud invites multi-state enforcement action.
• Better Business Bureau (BBB): AVP already holds an “F” rating. New complaints add to the public record. While the BBB has no enforcement authority, the FTC complaint explicitly documents that BBB complaints were one of the only ways consumers got any response from AVP.

Grassroots and Mutual Aid Actions

• Share the FTC complaint directly. The full case document is publicly available through PACER and linked below. When people see the actual scripts used on them, they recognize the fraud. Sharing the source document is more powerful than sharing a summary.
• Warn your community about the call scripts. The opening line, “Hi, this is [name] with [your car brand] dealer services,” is the exact language AVP used. Posting this specific phrase in local community groups, neighborhood apps, and senior center bulletins can prevent the next person from being targeted.
• Help older adults in your circle verify callers. The tactic of impersonating a car manufacturer works best on people who do not know they can hang up and call their dealership directly using the number on their ownership paperwork. That knowledge is free and worth sharing.
• If you lost money to AVP, file with the FTC’s Money Returned program. The FTC’s lawsuit seeks full monetary relief for consumers. Documented complaints tied to specific transactions strengthen the case for restitution.
• Pressure your bank. If your account was accessed via a Remotely Created Check without your authorization, contact your bank’s fraud department and explicitly name the RCC mechanism. Federal banking regulators track RCC abuse. Your dispute adds to the record.