TXEN Partners: If They Can’t Scam You, They’ll Have You Thrown In Jail

The field of extended automotive warranties is full of douchebags out to scam you out of your hard-earned money, but TXEN Partners takes its douchebaggery to a level above and beyond its scum-sucking peers.

One would suspect that something was up when then Missouri Attorney General (now Governor) Jay Nixon filed lawsuits against Service Protection Direct, owned by TXEN Partners, and several other extended warranty companies in March of 2008.

A settlement was reached between the AG’s office and Service Protection Direct, but questions still remain. TXEN Partners changed the name of Service Protection Direct to Protection Direct, a company the St. Louis BBB had received 80 complaints about by May of this year.

The complaints allege high-pressure and rude sales tactics, misleading and inaccurate mailers, difficulty canceling contracts and an inability to obtain payments on repairs that consumers said they believed should have been covered.

A call to Geof Reusch [pictured], the company’s chief operating officer, was not immediately returned.

The agreement, reached Oct. 29, 2008, followed a state investigation into eight sellers of extended auto service contracts, including Service Protection Direct.

Missouri sued six of those companies, including Service Protection Direct, over their sales practices in March 2008 over “misleading notification letters to pressure, confuse and intimidate consumers” into purchasing service contracts “they did not need,” according to the BBB.

As part of the agreement, Service Protection Direct, 300 N. Tucker Blvd. in downtown St. Louis, promised help consumers better understand what it was selling.

But consumers still feel they are being misled, said Michelle Corey, president and CEO of the St. Louis BBB.

“While the intent of the (agreement) may have been noble, it simply does not go far enough in protecting customers and potential customers,” she said.

Enter Charles W. Papenfus,  43, a self-employed Ohio mechanic.

Tracie Papenfus said her husband called a St. Louis telemarketing firm — she didn’t know the name — after getting a mailer stating that the factory warranty had expired for the 1996 Ford Taurus driven by his 23-year-old son. The car, bought as-is for $3,000, hasn’t had a factory warranty for years.
“He wanted to know, ‘Why are you sending this when we’ve never had a warranty?’” Tracie Papenfus said.
In fact, Charles Papenfus asked that same question several times. He called the firm after receiving the mailer, then he called the company back to complain some more, said Douglas Forsyth, a local attorney representing Papenfus. The call during which Papenfus allegedly made a terrorist threat was initiated by the firm, in a response to a voice-mail message left by Papenfus, Forsyth said.
“They insulted each other,” Forsyth said, adding that Papenfus called the company “a scam” and the telemarketer called Papenfus “a jackass or (an expletive) or both.”
Forsyth said that, several minutes into the call, Papenfus said something about burning down the firm’s building.
Tracie Papenfus said the outburst was unusual for her husband, who she described as “a cool-headed guy.” However, she said, he hadn’t quite been himself after taking prescription painkiller medication for a compound wrist fracture he received in a motorcycle accident a few days before the call occurred. Irritability can be one side effect from those drugs, Forsyth said.

Of course, when the police in Fostoria, Ohio got word that the man who worked on their cruisers had had a verbal altercation with St. Louis’s more notorious scam artists, they immediately set forth on a quest for justice.

Papenfus’ wife, Tracie, said she hasn’t seen her husband since his arrest on June 27, when he was lured to a Fostoria, Ohio, police station with a false story about being suspected in a tavern fight there. Charles Papenfus, a self-employed mechanic who sometimes works on the department’s police cruisers, dropped by the station to clear his name, she said.

Tracie Papenfus said she still can’t understand why her husband is held 450 miles from home at the St. Louis workhouse on a $45,000 bond she can’t afford to pay. (That amount could be lowered at bond-reduction hearing scheduled for Monday.)

That’s right.  Not only are the scammers at TXEN Partners rude liars, they’ll also get you thrown in jail in St. Louis.  If you’d like to let these guys know what douchebags they are, feel free to give them a call at 1-877-987-PDGO. Just don’t tell them that you’re going to burn the place down…