{"id":5473,"date":"2024-12-24T11:23:24","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T17:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/?p=5473"},"modified":"2024-12-24T11:24:07","modified_gmt":"2024-12-24T17:24:07","slug":"ftc-levies-record-20m-penalty-on-car-dealer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/ftc-levies-record-20m-penalty-on-car-dealer\/","title":{"rendered":"FTC levies record $20M penalty on car dealer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Federal Trade Commission and Illinois Attorney General have levied the largest penalty against a car dealer to date, asking for $20 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/news-events\/news\/press-releases\/2024\/12\/ftc-illinois-take-action-against-leader-automotive-group-overcharging-deceiving-consumers-through\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FTC last week announced the proposed settlement<\/a> with Leader Automotive Group and their parent company Auto Canada. The FTC alleges the company deceived customers about the price and availability of vehicles, charged for add-ons without consent, added unnecessary fees, posted fake reviews and did not disclose some vehicles were imported from Canada. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWorking closely with the Illinois Attorney General, we are holding these dealerships accountable for unlawfully extracting millions of dollars from consumers through a textbook bait-and-switch scheme, and bolstering their poor reputation with fake reviews,\u201d said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC\u2019s Bureau of Consumer Protection in a press release. \u201cWe will continue our work to ensure that consumers are not being overcharged for cars, and that honest dealers do not need to compete with firms that cheat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newswire.ca\/news-releases\/autocanada-reaches-agreement-with-federal-trade-commission-to-resolve-investigation-898656388.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">AutoCanada issued its own release<\/a>, stating it would accept the agreement to resolve the investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAs part of the resolution, the Company will pay&nbsp;U.S. $20 million&nbsp;to the FTC and the&nbsp;State of Illinois&nbsp;in monetary relief, with no civil penalties.&nbsp;The agreement contains no admission of wrongdoing by the Company, brings the FTC&#8217;s investigation to a close, and puts this matter behind the Company,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The FTC said the $20 million will be used to provide refunds to customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the FTC release, Leader Automotive Group operates North City Honda; Crystal Lake Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram; Hyundai of Lincolnwood; Kia of Lincolnwood; Bloomington Normal Auto Mall (Mercedes-Benz of Bloomington, Lincoln of Normal, Volkswagen of Bloomington Normal, Volvo Cars Normal, Subaru of Bloomington Normal, and Audi Bloomington Normal); Autohaus Motors (Mercedes-Benz of Peoria, Porsche Peoria, Volkswagen of Peoria, and Audi Peoria); Chevrolet of Palatine; Hyundai of Palatine; Toyota of Lincoln Park; and Toyota of Lincolnwood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Federal Trade Commission and Illinois Attorney General have levied the largest penalty against a car dealer to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5071,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_appearance_grid":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[39,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-compliance","8":"category-industry","9":"cs-entry","10":"cs-video-wrap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}