 |
|
|
|
|
DA's office files action against dealership
By Jana Seshadri
The Consumer Protection Unit of the district attorney's office of Santa Clara County filed a civil law enforcement action against Sunnyvale Mazda on El Camino Real in Sunnyvale on Jan. 7.
According to Supervising Deputy District Attorney Al Bender, a superior court judge signed a ruling in which the dealership consented to not engage in specified illegal conduct and agreed to pay civil penalties and costs totaling $45,000 plus filing fees. The business has 30 days to pay the penalty, but according to Bender, it has already paid restitution to the two customers whose complaints initiated the investigation. Bender said the judicial process did not entail a formal hearing or any type of mediation by a third party.
Bender said the lawsuit was based specifically on two consumer complaints filed with the district attorney's Consumer Protection Unit against the auto dealership.
"We received several complaints but some didn't hold any merit," Bender said. "We focused on two complaints in particular and investigated those."
According to Bender, the complaints stemmed from inaccurate print advertisements by the dealership that misled the public with false statements and inappropriate disclosures.
"We didn't feel we did anything wrong," Sunnyvale Mazda's General Manager Sandy Heller said.
According to the statement from the attorney's office, the dealership agreed to an injunction prohibiting them from illegal activity, such as changing the terms of a contract without the customer's consent, using false or misleading credit information supplied by a customer on an application if known to be false or misleading, repossessing a car, when the buyer is not in default under the contract and promising in advertisements that financing is guaranteed for everyone.
Bender provided scant details about one complaint that his department investigated. A customer with bad credit responded to a print ad by Sunnyvale Mazda and came in to buy a car. Knowing the customer's credit history, the dealership sold him a used car with a verbal agreement that the customer would bring in a co-signer. Bender said the co-signer agreement was never in writing and even before the first payment was paid, the dealership repossessed the car claiming that the customer was under breach of contract for not bringing in a co-signer.
"It's from a long time ago, and we wanted to settle it and move on," Heller said.
|
|
|
|
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
