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 leave much room for another of the industry’s alleged sins — the widespread misuse of the word “warranty.”

Government regulators and sticklers for language often point out that only a manufacturer can offer a warranty — extended or otherwise — and marketers of extended service contracts don’t make anything. What’s more, the thinking goes, you don’t usually buy a warranty. You buy a product and it either has a warranty or it doesn’t.

One would assume that, given the thousands of consumer complaints about the service-contract industry and multiple government investigations into it, correcting this semantic transgression wouldn’t be a top priority.  Yet the industry seems to be backing away from the word “warranty,” and here’s some recent examples:

• Last month, the Automotive Warranty & Service Contract Association, which I wrote about in the Aug. 1 Savvy Consumer column, changed its name to the Vehicle Protection Association.
• Wentzville-based US Fidelis, which claims to be the country’s leading seller of vehicle service contracts, used to mention “extended warranty” in its television commercials but, now, its ads don’t refer to that troublesome phrase.
• Dealers Warranty, a big service-contract broker based in St. Charles, now does business under the name Mogi. Its commercials don’t mention the word “warranty,” although its slogan “Life warrants more” may allude to it.

I’ve talked to others who follow the service-contract industry, and they’ve also noticed a pull-back from the word “warranty.” One theory is that dropping the word from solicitations is a demand of the 40 or so state attorneys general that are investigating several prominent service-contract brokers. The AGs are believed by industry insiders to be negotiating a legal settlement with the companies.

Mary Lobdell is the assistant attorney general for Washington state that is leading the multi-state investigation. She wouldn’t say whether the AGs would seek to prohibit the use of “warranty” to describe service contracts. She did, however, say “that’s one of the issues that all of the states have had with these companies.”

The Post-Dispatch generally calls the vehicle-protection products sold by these companies “extended auto service contracts,” or just “service contracts” for short. The odd “extended warranty” or “aftermarket warranty” sometimes slip in stories, but not that often.