David Tabb...

... remember that name. This serial robo-marketer is clearly operating outside the law here. I myself have received more than ten unsolicited calls.

Millions of Americans have gotten the call.

"This is the second notice that the factory warranty on your vehicle is about to expire," says the recorded voice at the other end of the line. Most people hang up. The machine calls again later.

Michael Silveira decided to strike back. The 22-year-old laboratory technician, who doesn't own a car, says he was getting unsolicited sales pitches as often as twice a day on his cellphone

Millions of Americans receive calls with pitches for extended auto warranties. Lawsuits are pending but one Internet community already took matters into their own hands, Geoffrey Fowler reports.

So last week, Mr. Silveira began calling back an auto-warranty company that has become the focus of an Internet crusade. He left it voice-mail messages that contained nothing but a recording of Rick Astley's 1987 hit song "Never Gonna Give You Up."

Using phone numbers for Auto One Warranty Specialists Inc. that users posted to a Web site called Reddit.com, Mr. Silveira joined dozens of activists who have peppered the warranty company with messages including elevator music, threats and offers of rude services.

"I thought, if you get a bunch of people together, you could blow up their voice-mail boxes," says Mr. Silveira.

The recipient of their efforts is David Tabb, the 42-year-old president of Auto One, an Irvine, Calif., warranty company with 60 employees. He says Reddit users overloaded his phone lines with computerized calls, changed voice-mail greetings on his company's system, and even threatened arson. People have been conspicuously honking outside his home, he says. To cope, he redirected some of the numbers that activists had been calling.

All of this happened, he says, with no evidence that his company had done anything wrong. "Ninety percent of the people complaining about my company have never been contacted by my company," he says. He hires third-party marketing firms to call consumers -- but says he pays a premium to ensure they call only people who have opted in to receiving solicitations. Many warranty calls come from so-called "ghost" phone numbers that make it nearly impossible to determine their origin. Mr. Silveira can't be certain Auto One is behind the calls he got, but he says he came to believe it was responsible for some of them after reading the Reddit postings.

Like most vigilantes, consumers who decide to take matters into their own hands with auto-warranty touts are in legally murky waters. Leaving harassing messages could be considered a threat, and might be prosecuted by authorities in some states.

[...]

All of this happened, [David Tabb] says, with no evidence that his company had done anything wrong. "Ninety percent of the people complaining about my company have never been contacted by my company," he says. He hires third-party marketing firms to call consumers -- but says he pays a premium to ensure they call only people who have opted in to receiving solicitations.

I'm calling shenanigans on Davie here. I didn't "opt in" for anything you have to sell. What I got was unwanted calls.