Live data from Hacker News

Auto dealer Napleton fined $10M for illegal fees and discrimination

ftc.gov

51–53 of 53 posts

Re: Auto dealer Napleton fined $10M for illegal fees and discrimination

#51
post #49
post #7

>According to the complaint, the dealerships would often wait until the end of the hours-long negotiation process to sneak junk fees for add-on products and services into consumers’ purchase contracts, which often run as long as 60 pages. These junk fees were often added despite consumers specifically declining the add-ons or having confirmed prices that did not include the add-ons. In other cases, the consumers were…

> F&I office NGL I actually laughed at the last one. It wasn't intentional , just as they made a specific comment about part of the drivetrain, I couldn't take them seriously anymore. They didn't really know what to do about that , which helped things out. > Everything else aside, buying a Tesla was refreshing because I was able to buy a new car on the internet like I'd buy a new blender on Amazon. Saturn did this. I…

>I think Scion did too, but could be wrong on that.

Incidentally my first new car was a Scion and the sales process wasn’t nearly as smooth as they’d like you to think it was.

The extent of the ”Pure Pricing” system was that a dealership posted a menu of the vehicle and service prices, and that was the price you paid. It wasn’t a nationally set price — the dealer could price the car as they wished, and everyone who walks in pays that price.

All that really changed about the dealership experience was that once I picked a car on the lot, there was no price negotiation to do, so they handed me right off to the Toyota dealership’s F&I guy and it was the standard slimy F&I experience from there.

It certainly was not an experience where I was able to go to Scion Dot Com, choose the car, arrange financing and trade-in online, and the delivery appointment is a quick thing where you drop your trade and go. That was the experience with Tesla; I spent all of 15 minutes physically at the store on delivery day and 10 of it was just me adjusting the seats/mirrors and logging into Spotify.

Re: Auto dealer Napleton fined $10M for illegal fees and discrimination

#52
post #34
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

18 USC 1001, plus others. Mail fraud would be one vehicle. Also conspiracy.

Does the FTC accuse them of lying to federal authorities? That's what 18 USC 1001 is about. (It's Ken White's archetypical example of a bullshit statute, for what it's worth).

My error. I should have said 18 USC 1001 and the following entries all under Chapter 47. There's quite a few examples there. There are also a bunch under Chapter 63.

Re: Auto dealer Napleton fined $10M for illegal fees and discrimination

#53

I wonder how this is not a felony charge?

Civil enforcement action by federal agencies does not preclude criminal prosecution, which often takes longer when both occur for similar conduct.

But, especially in cases where civil enforcement is on behalf of and recovers money for harmed individuals, it's often higher priority as well as being faster because their is a lower barrier to initiation.

Post reply on HN