Companies that sell extended auto-service contracts frequently are accused of deceiving consumers, violating telemarketing laws, peddling worthless products and failing to give refunds owed to customers upon cancellation.

Those allegations tend to dominate news coverage of the industry, and they rarely…

Charles Papenfus, the Ohio man accused of making a terrorist threat against a St. Louis auto service-contract broker, was released from custody over the weekend. A lot of readers have been posing questions about the strange case, and many want…

US Fidelis Chief Executive Chris Riley

More than three months after the new chief executive of US Fidelis told the Better Business Bureau he planned to make sweeping, consumer-friendly reforms at the Wentzville firm, the watchdog group says the number of consumers filing…

If you missed Saturday’s paper, you probably didn’t see the letter to the editor from US Fidelis CEO Chris Riley. The letter addresses what Riley considers to be shortcomings of a recent article about marketing and sales tactics that former employees…

I’ve been out of the office for several days, and I’ve been swamped for the last few hours following up with the readers who called and e-mailed about last week’s story about U.S. Fidelis. That’s the Wentzville company that is accused of…

In case you missed it, I wrote a story in today’s paper and online now about Wentzville-based U.S. Fidelis, one of the nation’s largest seller of extended-service contracts.

The company is one of several auto warranty brokers based in the St. Louis…