Source: http://carlawyer.com/blog/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 00:28:56+00:00

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Ever wonder why the deck is stacked in favor of the car dealer? Payola!
October 2017 Fourteen teams of National Independent Automobile Dealers Association’s (NIADA) dealers and industry partners took to Capitol Hill and met with more than 110 members of the Senate and House of Representatives.
FIGHT THE BAN on sales of unsafe recalled vehicles.
CFPB has been the representative of YOU the CONSUMER and Banks and Car Dealers are angry that such a watchdog agency exists. They are targeting the CFPB to have Congress stop funding this important agency.
ARBITRATION – CFPB has written a rule banning arbitration provisions in car sales contracts to address the problem of YOU being forced to give up your right to have your day in court – and have disputes resolved by arbitration companies. These arbitration companies are bought and paid for by the Car Dealers and Banks. Arbitration is bad for consumers.
UNSAFE VEHICLES – Consumer groups are demanding safety recalls be completed before you buy a used vehicle. NIADA wants to continue selling unsafe vehicles to consumers with NO DISCLOSURE.
While you are busy with your everyday life, these Banks and Car Dealers are donating money to your legislators to pass laws that hurt you. Let your Representative know you support the CFPB and are against any effort to get rid of the little protection we consumers have.
How Much “Interest” Am I Being Charged For My Lease?
You have the right to have the dealer disclose to you in writing, ALL of the finance terms of your purchase BEFORE you agree to buy a car – and then you are able to walk out with the written disclosure and compare financing rates. Then you may return to purchase the car.
(a) Informed use of credit The Congress finds that economic stabilization would be enhanced and the competition among the various financial institutions and other firms engaged in the extension of consumer credit would be strengthened by the informed use of credit. The informed use of credit results from an awareness of the cost thereof by consumers. It is the purpose of this subchapter to assure a meaningful disclosure of credit terms so that the consumer will be able to compare more readily the various credit terms available to him….
I am posting this because this issue has come up several times in the last week.
The scam works like this: You go into a dealership and pick out a car you are interested in. The salesperson soon realizes you do not know the car is an advertised special. So, as soon as she realizes it, she goes onto the computer and changes the price to match she is quoting you.
The law states you are entitled to the sales price even if you are unaware of the advertised price. To protect yourself, ask the dealer if the car is being advertised and at what price. Then Google® the VIN and check for yourself and/or go to the dealer’s website and look up the car.
Also, a good place to check is Craigslist® as Craigslist® ads seem to disappear almost immediately.
Remember- the dealer cannot charge you more than the advertised price because she says “You do not qualify” because of your credit. They do this to add bank fees, etc.
A client called in with a problem with her dealer. She had been asked to co-sign for a friend who did not qualify for financing. When she hesitated to sign, the car dealer told her “Don’t worry, after six months, you can return to the dealership and have your name removed from the loan”. The client fell for this lie and found out when she returned to the dealership that this was a lie. Worse, the car dealer denied telling her this.
Don’t fall into this trap. A dealer signs a contract with you to purchase a car and you agree to make payments to the dealer. The dealer sells the contract to a finance company. You then start making payments to the finance company. The dealer has nothing more to do with that contract and has no authority to make changes to the contract that is now owned by the finance company.
This happens all the time. A dealer will tell you anything to get you to sign the documents and drive the car away. You are then stuck with the consequences.
Trading in Your Car to a Dealer? Watch out! The 10 day payoff rip-off.
Trading in your car and you owe money on it? Be prepared to get ripped off.
The typical dealer will add a 10-day payoff meaning he will add ten days of interest to your payoff thereby charging you for his carrying costs.
On must distinguish between a consumer asking for a payoff and a dealer asking for a payoff. A consumer who is quoted a payoff has the luxury to decide if she wishes to pay this amount immediately, or allow interest charges to accrue. In that instance, a 10 day payoff quote, while technically unfair as some would interpret that as a grace period, without a contemporaneous disclosure that interest or finance charges would continue to accumulate during this ten day period. A decision to pay immediately, even if the quote was a 10 day payoff, would result in a refund of excess finance charges. The scenario is completely different when one puts an automobile dealer in the middle.
When a dealer takes a vehicle in on trade (Trade-in), as part of the down payment, the dealer is purchasing the trade-in that day. Historically and without even asking the consumer, the dealer calls a trade-in lien holder and ask for a 10 day payoff and inserts that amount on the RISC as the “prior credit or lease balance”. This means even though finance charges are beginning to accrue on Day 1 for Vehicle 1 ( the newly acquired vehicle) finance charges are continuing to accrue on the Trade-in for 10 days. This is hardly fair for the consumer.
The NEW 15-20 day payoff.
What is most egregious is the hidden reason for the 15 and 20 day payoffs that have become pervasive in the last 3 years. As a result of the financial crisis of 2008, many dealers went out of business. On their way out, many took trade-in vehicles and failed to pay off the trade-in lien leaving thousands of Californians with two car payments despite having sold their trade-ins to the dealers.
In 2008, the California legislature created the Consumer Motor Vehicle Recovery Corporation to compensate these consumers funded by a $1.00 DMV fee for every car sold in California. In 2010 added Vehicle Code §11709.4. requiring dealers to pay off the trade-in lien within 21 days from the date the vehicle is traded in and prohibit the dealer from selling, or transferring ownership until the trade in is paid off.
Instead of asking for the common, yet illegal 10 day payoff, some unscrupulous and inefficient dealers began asking trade-in lien holders for 15 and 20 day payoffs as they misread the new law to allow for charging consumers for finance charges on trade-in liens for up to 20 days. Did the finance companies comply? Of course, they readily quoted 10, 15, and 20 day payoffs to these dealers and in order to make it even easier, changed their own policies of quoting 10 day payoffs to 15 day payoffs as standard. Some, like Westlake Financial and Wells Fargo Bank refuse to quote a same day payoff with a per diem amount for a consumer to decide when and how much to pay, and will only quote a 15 day payoff.
Your protection is to demand a same day payoff for your trade-in lien – and if they refuse – sue them. By the way, this fraud allows you to sue the dealer and the banks and you may be able to cancel your contract, return the car, get a full refund and all of your attorney’s fees.
I know most of you would not believe this, but I just got off the phone with a new client. According to the client , an Infiniti dealer near Fairfield beat him up (mentally) because of his credit score and prior bankruptcy and increased the price of the car $2,000.00 over the sticker price on a used car.
In this scenario the only way to make the monthly payment drop while increasing the price of the car is to lengthen the term (say 60 months to 72 months). Or, ask for a larger down payment, but that is not what happened here.
So, what the dealer did in effect, (smell any FRAUD?), is to charge a credit customer more than they would have charged a cash Customer. They also charged him for a service contract using the same logic (lie).
Here is a Franchise BMW Dealership in the Bay Area pulling an old scam and then attempting to throw the consumer to the wolves.
A potential client went with a friend who wanted to buy a new BMW about a year ago.
The friend negotiated a monthly payment that she could afford only through a lease – as opposed to a purchase. Even with this lowered payment, she did not “qualify for financing”.
According to this potential client, she was told by the salesperson if she agreed to sign the lease in her name, she would be able to transfer the lease to her friend within a year. Of course, this little twist is nowhere on the lease agreement.
The Rule: Once you leave a dealership having signed a contract for sale or lease, it is nearly impossible to change the terms.
She went back to the dealer several times in the past 6 weeks to speak with someone in charge – of course there was no one who would help.
The salesperson gave her advice to contact “Swap a Lease”. Swap a Lease is where you give up your car to a company who finds a replacement lessee. See any problems with this “solution”?
Once you turn over your car and it comes up missing, and that replacement lessee stops making payments, you cannot report it as stolen, since you voluntarily gave up possession. The police will not provide any help and will tell you it is a civil matter.
The potential client came to our office with her problem and we emailed the dealer and BMW Financial with this scheme. To its credit, BMW Financial put pressure on the dealer to repurchase the lease contract and take back the vehicle. This process took a little over a week, and we provided our services with no charge.
The lesson: a straw purchase (lease) violates the terms of the contract BY YOU. And if you find yourself in a similar predicament, NEVER give up possession to a third party. Get yourself a good lawyer.
This is a short legal overview of some of the consumer protection laws that are there to protect you.
Your sales agreement is a Retail Installment Sale Contract (“RISC” or “CONTRACT”) between you and the dealer. You have agreed to buy your vehicle and make payments to the dealer. The dealer may sell that contract to a finance company in order to “cash” the RISC. You will be notified by that finance company to make payments to it. The finance company will typically tell you something like “You have been approved”. This is a lie. The finance company merely purchased the RISC from the dealer and is now enforcing the terms against you. The also refer to the financing as a loan. This is also a lie.
A RISC is a conditional sale contract or a credit sale, NOT A LOAN OF MONEY. California law has long distinguished between credit sales and loans. Loans are subject to constitutional and statutory provisions on usury; a bona fide credit sale is not subject to the usury law, because a credit sale does not involve a loan or forbearance of money. (Boerner v. Colwell Co. (1978) 21 Cal.3d 37, 45).
This is why we see interest rates of 11% – 20% – 30% on car contracts when usury laws would limit interest rates to 10% on a loan.
NEVER PAY CASH FOR A CAR.
This language appears on the back of the RISC near the bottom.
THIS MEANS IF THE DEALER DEFRAUDED YOU, SO DID THE BANK. If the dealer is out of business, you still are able to get your damages from the bank.
BUT I WANT TO PAY CASH? OK, let the dealer provide financing and when you get your first payment notice from the finance company, pay them off in full. YOU STILL HAVE ALL OF YOUR RIGHTS AGAINST THAT FINANCE COMPANY and if there is a problem later, you can sue the finance company for the dealer’s fraud.
The Consumers Legal Remedies Act (“CLRA”), Civil Code Section 1750 et seq., the Automobile Sales Finance Act (“ASFA”), Civil Code Section 2981, et seq., the California Unfair Competition Law (“Unfair Competition Law” or “UCL”), Business and Professions Code Section 17200, et seq., and various provisions of the California Vehicle Code.
THE CLRA – The Consumers Legal Remedies Act, Civil Code Section 1750 et seq., promotes honesty in consumer transactions by precluding SELLERS of goods and/or services from engaging in various enumerated unfair or deceptive acts or practices, including misrepresentations, which are intended to result, or which do result, in a transaction with a consumer. The legislative intent of the CLRA is to alleviate social and economic injustice stemming from the use of sharp business practices.
THE ASFA Since 1961, the Automobile Sales Finance Act, Civil Code §2981, et seq., has required transparency in consumer transactions by requiring DEALERS to truthfully disclose and separately itemize each of the enumerated charges comprising the amount financed.
The legislative intent of the ASFA is to enable consumers to guard against the imposition of false, hidden, excessive or otherwise improper charges. The required itemizations enable consumers to know all charges included in the purchase price, the cost of financing, all amounts owed for the vehicle and the dates when payments are due. The required itemizations also enable financial institutions to fully evaluate the risk of purchasing the contract from the SELLER.
Legislative studies reveal that seller fraud in consumer transactions is accomplished by a wide variety of methods and most often involves only modest amounts of money in any given transaction. The studies go on to conclude that simply requiring that the seller reimburse that modest amount of money to the consumer and otherwise enforcing the transaction is ineffective at promoting the legislature’s interest in preventing future unfair and deceptive business acts and practices by the seller. Therefore, the legislature provided that, in addition to traditional damages, seller fraud in consumer transactions, no matter how small, shall be subject to full and complete rescission and restitution. The harshness of the remedies provided, each of which are intentionally calculated to deter careless violations by otherwise honest DEALERS, and, to chase unscrupulous DEALERS from the marketplace altogether (See Assembly Final History, 1970 Regular Session.), underscores the high degree of importance assigned by the legislature to establishing a marketplace free of unfair and deceptive business acts and practices.
Enforcement of the remedies provided is critical to implementing the legislature’s interest in establishing an environment of honesty and transparency in consumer transactions. Individual consumers themselves, rather than governmental agencies, are entrusted and empowered with the critical task of enforcing the legislature’s esteemed social policies. However, the Legislature discovered that many wronged consumers had been dissuaded from prosecuting meritorious actions because the modest amount of money at issue presented difficulties in obtaining and paying for legal representation. That circumstance worked to frustrate enforcement by emboldening DEALERS to disregard consumer protection statutes, secure in the knowledge that the risk of financial loss arising from their disregard of these laws was small.
Rather than create state and/or local bureaucracies to enforce the state’s interests, the expense of which would be borne by taxpayers, the legislature sought to remove the obstacles to enforcement while holding wayward DEALERS themselves responsible for the cost of prosecuting their transgressions. Therefore, to ensure the uniform implementation of its policies, especially in cases involving relatively modest amounts of money, the Legislature substantially increased the risk of financial loss to DEALERS who fail to strictly adhere to the mandatory requirements of these consumer protection laws by eliminating the seller’s historical right of offset, and, by requiring DEALERS to pay the reasonable attorneys fees incurred by a prevailing consumer in the prosecution of a legal action pursuant to those laws. (See, e.g., Final Report, Assembly Interim Committee on Finance and Insurance, December 1960, pp. 29-34).
By all of its actions, the Legislature has gone beyond merely making the courts available to wronged consumers and actually intendedthem to participate in the implementation of the state’s interest in establishing an environment of honesty and transparency in consumer transactions by taking action in the courts.
THE UNFAIR COMPETITION LAW (“UCL”), Business and Professions Code Section 17200, et seq., promotes fair competition among SELLERS of similar products. The legislative intent is to prevent unscrupulous DEALERS from driving honest DEALERS out of the marketplace through the use of prohibited business acts and practices.
The UCL prohibits “unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business practice and unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising . . . .” (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17200.) Section 17200 is not confined to anticompetitive business practices, but is also directed toward the public’s right to protection from fraud, deceit, and unlawful conduct. Thus, California courts have consistently interpreted the language of section 17200 broadly. The statute imposes strict liability. It is not necessary to show that the defendant intended to injure anyone.” (South Bay Chevrolet v. General Motors Acceptance Corp. (1999) 72 Cal.App.4th 861, 877.) “[T]o state a claim under the [UCL] one need not plead and prove the elements of a tort. Instead, one need only show that ‘members of the public are likely to be deceived.” (Bank of the West v. Superior Court (1992) 2 Cal.4th 1254, 1267.) A UCL cause of action “‘may be based on representations to the public which are untrue, and “‘also those which may be accurate on some level, but will nonetheless tend to mislead or deceive. . . . A perfectly true statement couched in such a manner that it is likely to mislead or deceive the consumer, such as by failure to disclose other relevant information, is actionable under the UCL. (Linear Technology Corp. v. Applied Materials, Inc., (2007) 152 Cal.App.4th 115, 134). “Whether a practice is deceptive, fraudulent, or unfair is generally a question of fact which requires ‘consideration and weighing of evidence from both sides . . . .” (Id. At pp. 134-135).
The VEHICLE CODE. Many times a SELLER’S conduct also violates various provisions of the California Vehicle Code relating to the propriety of certain charges in a consumer transaction for a motor vehicle.
Many dealers negotiate payments in the Sales Department. You haggle for hours and finally agree to a down payment and a monthly payment. You have a deal, right? NO! The payment you have negotiated contains enough additional monthly payment so the dealer can add many thousands of dollars of high profit items and your monthly payment will not change.
This Payment Packing violates the VEHICLE CODE.
[T]he . . .dealerships were engaged in a practice of misrepresenting to the customer the calculated monthly payment that he or she would pay in a deal. The customer would be quoted an inflated monthly payment amount which would assist the finance and insurance managers in presenting and selling aftermarket products based on artificially low, false numbers.
Casella v. Southwest Dealer Services, Inc. (2007) 157 Cal.App.4th 1127, 1138. The inflated price quoted in the sales department includes what is known in the trade as “leg,” that is, deliberate overcharges, to make room for sale of the extra goods and services in the finance department without raising the monthly payment beyond the initial inflated amount. “This conduct certainly falls within the prohibition of Penal Code section 487 which proscribes making false or fraudulent representation or pretense to defraud another of money.” Casella, 157 Cal.App.4th at 1138. Payment packing also violates the California Vehicle Code. See V.C. § 11713.19(a)(1).
THE CODE OF REGULATIONS – a Dealer must sell you the car at the advertised price- whether you know of the advertisement or not and may not be a “Cash Only” price – nor can a Dealer charge you more for an advertised car because you have poor credit.
The failure to sell to you at the advertised price also violates the VEHICLE CODE. Vehicle Code §11713.1(e): … Advertised vehicles shall be sold at or below the advertised total price, with statutorily permitted exclusions, regardless of whether the purchaser has knowledge of the advertised total price”.
California Vehicle Code §11713.1(k): It is unlawful to “Require a person to pay a higher price for a vehicle and related goods or services for receiving advertised credit terms than the cash price the same person would have to pay to purchase the same vehicle and related goods or services. For the purpose of this subdivision, “cash price” has the meaning as defined in subdivision (e) of Section 2981 of the Civil Code.
By violating provisions of the CODE OF REGULATIONS, THE VEHICLE CODE, AND THE ASFA, Dealers violate the CONSUMERS LEGAL REMEDIES ACT AND THE UCL.
The CLRA prohibits the use of “unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices” in sale or lease transactions. (Civ. Code, § 1770, subd. (a)). The underlying purpose of the CLRA is “to protect consumers against unfair and deceptive business practices and to provide efficient and economical procedures to secure such protection.” (Civ. Code, § 1760.) Any consumer who suffers any damage as a result of the use or employment by any person of a method, act or practice declared to be unlawful by section 1770 may bring an action against that person for actual damages, injunctive relief, restitution of property, punitive damages, and any other relief the court deems proper. (Civ. Code, § 1780, subd. (a)).
Copyright © 2016. Liberty & Associates, a Professional Law Corporation. All rights reserved. Disclaimer.

References: §11709
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 § 11713
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 § 1780