Auto dealer to pay $10M to settle FTC, Illinois charges
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A multistate auto dealer will pay $10 million to settle Federal Trade Commission and Illinois charges that it sneaked illegal fees for unwanted add-ons onto its customers' bills and for discriminating against Black customers, the agency said Monday.
Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois-based North American Automotive Services Inc., which also does business as Ed Napleton Automotive Group, denied the charges in a statement.
The FTC said in a statement that eight of its dealerships and the general manager of two Illinois dealerships illegally tacked on fees for unwanted add-on products such as payment insurance and paint protection.
The complaint said dealerships would wait until the end of hours-long negotiating before adding on the fees to documents that were as long as 60 pages. It said they were often added after consumers specifically declined them or had confirmed prices that did not include them.
The complaint also charged the dealerships with discriminating against Black consumers in connection with financing vehicle purchases, who were charged about $190 million more in interest and paid $99 more for similar add-ons than similarly situated non-Latino white customers.
The company said in a statement that “while we vehemently deny any wrongdoing,” it decided to settle “to avoid the disruption of an ongoing dispute with the government. As a result, we reluctantly determined that it was in our best long-term business interests to resolve these matters.”
It said also, “This settlement is the result of a three-year process where we provided complete transparency to the government. Most of its claims were based on interpretations of statistical data and there was no actual finding of intentional wrongdoing.”
It said in addition, the “unproven claims” related to eight of its 51 dealership locations, and that other dealerships that do not bear the Napleton name were never part of the inquiry.
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