The Blowhard
08-19-2002, 10:48 PM
Dealership sold 18 cars to mentally impaired man
By Peter Lewis
Seattle Times consumer-affairs reporter
A Vancouver, Wash., car dealership that sold 18 cars in 14 months to a mentally impaired man and ruined his finances will pay $15,000 in civil penalties and $17,000 in attorney's fees.
The settlement, in which Vancouver Mazda/Dodge admitted no wrongdoing, was announced yesterday by state Attorney General Christine Gregoire's office. A separate, private settlement was reached between the dealership and the 70-year-old man, restoring his savings and leaving him with a new vehicle, the office said.
In order to build trust and fool the man into thinking they were his friends, dealership staff members provided him with a personally monogrammed director's chair in the dealership's showroom and treated him to a celebratory dinner, the state alleged. Secretly, they were using the man's own money to pay for everyone's meals, according to the complaint filed yesterday in Clark County Superior Court.
Filed simultaneously was a consent decree that permanently restrains the dealership from selling or leasing vehicles to individuals whose actions or behavior presents clear evidence that they do "not possess sufficient mind to understand, in a reasonable manner, the nature and effect of the purchase or lease of an automobile."
It also bars the dealership from using any sales technique that misrepresents the optional nature of auto-related products. The clause was inserted, said Assistant Attorney General Doug Walsh, because investigators looking into the impaired man's case learned that the dealership was routinely charging customers for a "protective package," including undercoating and a fancy wax on the exterior, that should be treated as an option.
"What they did was unfair and deceptive," Walsh said.
The dealership owner, Ron Anderson, said that he was unaware of the frequency of transactions until hearing from his general manager, who in turn had been contacted by the man's guardian.
He insisted that he took action to rectify the situation, which included a cash payment of nearly $50,000 to the man, before the Attorney General's Office got involved.
"We just didn't react soon enough to the situation, and I feel extremely, extremely bad because of that," Anderson said. "We have made changes in our computer program to call attention to this type of situation."
As for the protective-package issue, Anderson said there is a "side sticker" disclosing the cost in every sale.
But at the attorney general's request, he agreed to change that business practice to make the package a separate item on the purchase order.
Walsh, with the Attorney General's Office, said the state was not naming the impaired man because he has shown he is financially vulnerable. The man's legal guardian, Richard Dall of Vancouver, said the man is a member of the Mormon church where Dall is his bishop.
In the past year, the man, who lives in Vancouver, "happened to come to me on advice from a mental-health counselor because he was somewhat suicidal and in need of financial aid," Dall said.
"When we were going over his finances, I realized he had two humongous car payments, and in working with him on that then discovered that he'd made quite a few car purchases over a fairly short period of time."
Dall said it would soon become obvious to anyone who met the man that he is mentally impaired. "I think most people would realize in a short period of time that he wasn't fully understanding all the things that he was doing," Dall said.
Dall acknowledged the dealership's owner took steps to resolve the problem when he sat down with him.
"They cooperated in getting me transaction information ... ," Dall said. "They realized there were some issues there which I don't believe the owner was aware of completely."
Peter Lewis: 206-464-2217 or plewis@seattletimes.com.
Copyright c 2002 The Seattle Times Company
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By Peter Lewis
Seattle Times consumer-affairs reporter
A Vancouver, Wash., car dealership that sold 18 cars in 14 months to a mentally impaired man and ruined his finances will pay $15,000 in civil penalties and $17,000 in attorney's fees.
The settlement, in which Vancouver Mazda/Dodge admitted no wrongdoing, was announced yesterday by state Attorney General Christine Gregoire's office. A separate, private settlement was reached between the dealership and the 70-year-old man, restoring his savings and leaving him with a new vehicle, the office said.
In order to build trust and fool the man into thinking they were his friends, dealership staff members provided him with a personally monogrammed director's chair in the dealership's showroom and treated him to a celebratory dinner, the state alleged. Secretly, they were using the man's own money to pay for everyone's meals, according to the complaint filed yesterday in Clark County Superior Court.
Filed simultaneously was a consent decree that permanently restrains the dealership from selling or leasing vehicles to individuals whose actions or behavior presents clear evidence that they do "not possess sufficient mind to understand, in a reasonable manner, the nature and effect of the purchase or lease of an automobile."
It also bars the dealership from using any sales technique that misrepresents the optional nature of auto-related products. The clause was inserted, said Assistant Attorney General Doug Walsh, because investigators looking into the impaired man's case learned that the dealership was routinely charging customers for a "protective package," including undercoating and a fancy wax on the exterior, that should be treated as an option.
"What they did was unfair and deceptive," Walsh said.
The dealership owner, Ron Anderson, said that he was unaware of the frequency of transactions until hearing from his general manager, who in turn had been contacted by the man's guardian.
He insisted that he took action to rectify the situation, which included a cash payment of nearly $50,000 to the man, before the Attorney General's Office got involved.
"We just didn't react soon enough to the situation, and I feel extremely, extremely bad because of that," Anderson said. "We have made changes in our computer program to call attention to this type of situation."
As for the protective-package issue, Anderson said there is a "side sticker" disclosing the cost in every sale.
But at the attorney general's request, he agreed to change that business practice to make the package a separate item on the purchase order.
Walsh, with the Attorney General's Office, said the state was not naming the impaired man because he has shown he is financially vulnerable. The man's legal guardian, Richard Dall of Vancouver, said the man is a member of the Mormon church where Dall is his bishop.
In the past year, the man, who lives in Vancouver, "happened to come to me on advice from a mental-health counselor because he was somewhat suicidal and in need of financial aid," Dall said.
"When we were going over his finances, I realized he had two humongous car payments, and in working with him on that then discovered that he'd made quite a few car purchases over a fairly short period of time."
Dall said it would soon become obvious to anyone who met the man that he is mentally impaired. "I think most people would realize in a short period of time that he wasn't fully understanding all the things that he was doing," Dall said.
Dall acknowledged the dealership's owner took steps to resolve the problem when he sat down with him.
"They cooperated in getting me transaction information ... ," Dall said. "They realized there were some issues there which I don't believe the owner was aware of completely."
Peter Lewis: 206-464-2217 or plewis@seattletimes.com.
Copyright c 2002 The Seattle Times Company
<center><img src=http://members.aol.com/rnfpantera/hecksig></center>
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