Car Dealer Shady Tactics

[TracGunny]

Friday, May 7, 2004
Story last updated at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, May 7, 2004

Car dealer accused of pressuring service members faces hearing

By SONJA BARISIC
Associated Press Writer

NORFOLK, Va. - The owner of a Virginia used car dealership accused of pressuring at least eight young North Carolina soldiers and Marines into buying overpriced cars is facing a hearing by state regulators.

The Motor Vehicle Dealer Board sent a letter Friday to Carland owner Ronnie Neff informing him that the board wants to convene an "informal fact-finding conference" to determine if there were violations of law.

The letter, obtained by The Associated Press, outlines allegations including using deceptive acts or practices and defrauding retail buyers.

Penalties could include suspension or revocation of the dealer's license and $1,000 in civil penalties for each violation if the allegations are proved, the letter said. The board's hearing officer will contact Neff soon to schedule the conference.

Neff did not immediately return a message seeking comment Friday. A woman answering the telephone at the York County dealership said he was not in the office. Neff's attorney, Robert Byrum, declined to comment Friday.

"We take a very rigorous enforcement (approach) when someone, it appears to us, does not want to play by the rules," Bruce Gould, the board's executive director, said in an interview Friday.

A North Carolina congressman who had called for state and federal officials to investigate Carland after he was approached by two Marines at Camp Lejeune said Friday that he hopes the military members will be able to recover their money.

"I was quite frankly incensed that anyone would take advantage of our young men and women in the military," U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones said. "I would think any dealers that are interested in doing business with our men and women in the military would be very respectable and treat them as fairly as they would any other citizens."

Gould decided to convene the hearing after reviewing sales and other records from the dealership and statements made by service members who bought vehicles from Carland.

Board staffers audited the dealership on April 22 after the board initially received several complaints from Marines at Camp Lejeune and soldiers at Fort Bragg.

The board also met with Neff, and a board staffer went to North Carolina this week to interview a total of eight young service men and women stationed at Lejeune, Bragg and Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station, Gould said.

Gould declined to give details of the statements. But he said the service members said they called a toll-free number on cards left near base and that Carland offered them rides to the lot and then threatened to strand them there, hours away from base.

"I'm not convinced that he would have stranded them," Gould said. "We're not even going to go there. I didn't see enough (evidence). These guys might have surmised that, but no one has given us the names of anyone who got stranded there."

However, the board is pursuing allegations that the dealership did not fully explain details within the sales contracts and did not properly identify itself in advertising, Gould said.

"Those ads say 'Call Kim.' There is no Kim," Gould said. "We suspect that was how they knew where the advertising was seen. We think it would be a deceptive practice."

"These are substantial claims made in this letter," said 1st Lt. Lee Kindlon, a Marine legal assistance lawyer representing two Marines at Camp Lejeune and two at Cherry Point who bought cars from Carland. "They are founded in the testimony of my clients and other service members."

Kindlon declined to give his clients' names. He described them as low-ranking enlisted personnel, ages 18 to 19, who are "new to the real world" and trust adult authority figures.

According to Kindlon, the Marines paid about $23,000 for a 1997 Honda Civic with 80,000 miles on it and a book value of $4,000, $17,900 for a 2000 Dodge Intrepid with more than 63,000 miles on it and a book value of about $8,000, $14,500 for a 2001 Pontiac Grand Prix with 78,256 miles on it, and $16,496 for a 2000 Pontiac Sunfire with 41,350 miles. He did not know the book value of the last two cars.

"My clients obviously are a little embarrassed about this whole thing," Kindlon said. "No one likes to be the victim of a scam. The Marines have come forward in an effort to help other service members not be the victims of Carland."

Associated Press writer Michael Felberbaum contributed to this report from Raleigh, N.C.

On the Net:
Virginia Motor Vehicle Dealer Board: http://mvdb.vipnet.org/home.html

Copyright Associated Press.
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/apnews/stories/050704/D82DTEO01.shtml

[TracGunny]

Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Story last updated at 7:19 p.m. on Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Dealer accused of pressuring service members denies wrongdoing

By SONJA BARISIC
Associated Press Writer

RICHMOND, Va. - A Virginia used car dealer accused of pressuring young enlisted military members stationed at North Carolina bases into buying overpriced cars said Tuesday that he has done nothing wrong.

Ronnie Neff, owner of Carland in York County, testified briefly at the end of a four-hour informal fact-finding conference before the Motor Vehicle Dealer Board. The testimony included complaints from nine service members who described feeling pressure to buy cars after they were given rides several hours away from base and arrived at the dealership as late as midnight.

"We've never pressured anybody to buy a car," Neff told reporters afterward. He denied inflating car prices and also said the hearing before state regulators was unfair.

"We are already nailed. They do not think it's right that we're selling to young military," Neff said.

Neff also said that the dealership did not specifically target military members.

"We target anybody that wants to buy a car," he said.

The dealership is accused of using deceptive acts or practices and defrauding retail buyers by not fully explaining details within the sales contracts and not properly identifying itself in advertising. If the allegations are proved, the dealer's license could be suspended or revoked and the dealership could pay up to $1,000 in civil penalties for each violation of law.

There was no immediate ruling in the case.

A sailor now stationed at the Navy hospital in Portsmouth testified Tuesday that he bought a car from Neff last November when he was stationed at Camp Lejeune.

Christopher Anderson said he found a card on top of a pay phone in the barracks that listed a phone number and offered a $1,500 discount but did not give the company's name. He said he called the number at about 3 or 4 p.m. and was told that a driver was already at Lejeune and would pick him up.

He said he and another passenger repeatedly asked the driver how far away the dealership was.

"He keeps telling us, `Five, 10 minutes down the road - we're almost there,'" Anderson said.

Anderson said they arrived at the dealership around 11 p.m. the night before Thanksgiving and he bought a Jeep. It was unclear how long the ride lasted. The price of the vehicle was $7,900 but the completed paperwork indicated the cost was $10,500, Anderson said.

The board also submitted statements from eight other military members at Lejeune, Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station and Fort Bragg. Debbie Allison, a field supervisor for the board who interviewed the service members, said a couple told her they thought during the long ride that they were being kidnapped. One said he bought a car from the dealership because "I did not want to be stranded there," Allison testified.

According to Allison, some service members said they called a toll-free number on cards they found in their barracks that said to call "Kim" and did not mention the dealership's name. She said Neff told her the name "Kim" helped the dealership identify that the callers were from bases.

Hearing officer Laurie Riddles asked Neff whether "Kim" referred to "Kid In Military." Neff replied that Kim was a woman who worked for the dealership years ago.

Neff said afterward that he no longer uses "Kim" on advertising cards and that the new cards say "Virginia dealer," as required.

Neff also said that he bought back two or three of the military members' cars.

Allison also testified that some of the military members told her they were under the impression that the cost of full insurance coverage was included in their monthly payment, but that did not appear to be the case.

Neff testified that the buyers were told they had to obtain their own liability insurance.

Board staffers audited the dealership in April after receiving complaints from Marines and soldiers in North Carolina. The board then met with Neff and interviewed service members.

Carland has been in business since 1991. It is on Camp Lejeune's list of "off-limits establishments," which means Marines are not supposed to do business with it.

On the Net:
Virginia Motor Vehicle Dealer Board: http://mvdb.vipnet.org/home.html

Copyright Associated Press.
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/apnews/stories/062204/D83C9H582.shtml

[HardJedi]

nothing like a fine upstanding citizen trying to help out those who are protecting his rights to be an A****le

[DSchmitke]

Should be off limits to all Military Personnel. And if the troops go an buy a vehicle from this slime ball. Shoul go up for Office Hours.

[Chain Breaker]

They should just let the Marines have five minutes alone with the guy, I'm sure they could sort it all out. ;)

[TracGunny]

Wednesday, August 18, 2004 Story last updated at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Virginia regulators yank car dealer's license

By SONJA BARISIC
Associated Press Writer

NORFOLK, Va. - State regulators yanked the license of a Virginia used car dealer accused of luring young service members from North Carolina, then pressuring them to buy cars by playing on fears they'd be stranded. The dealer also faces a criminal investigation, authorities said Wednesday.

Ronnie Neff surrendered his dealer and salesman licenses on Tuesday, about two hours before he received the decision by Bruce Gould, the executive director of the state Motor Vehicle Board. The decision was publicly released Wednesday.

"I'm surprised he turned his licenses in," Gould said. "I'm not sure exactly why he did, but he did, and I gladly accepted them."

Without a dealer or salesman license, Neff no longer can sell directly to the public, Gould said. Typically when a dealer's license is revoked, the dealer is given about 30 days to deplete his inventory, either by taking the vehicles to an auction or consigning them to another dealer.

Meanwhile, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles is conducting a criminal investigation of Carland, agency spokeswoman Pam Goheen said. She declined to give details.

The dealer board looked into Carland after receiving complaints from at least nine service members at Cherry Point, Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune.

Neff, the owner of Carland in York County, has until Sept. 20 to appeal, even though he gave his licenses to a board field representative and an investigator for the Department of Motor Vehicles, Gould said.

The matter eventually could wind up in court.

Neff did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. A woman answering the phone at the dealership Wednesday said he was not in.

Neff has said a fact-finding conference before state regulators in June was unfair.

Last month, Laurie Riddles, the hearing officer, recommended that Neff lose his dealer license, writing in a report that a civil penalty would be inadequate given his "unconscionable actions."

Riddles said Neff deserved to have his license revoked for using deceptive acts or practices; knowingly using misleading language in his advertisements; willfully failing to comply with certain requirements under the Virginia code after receiving written warnings; and issuing dealer license plates to people not authorized to use them.

Neff did not submit a response to that report, despite being granted two extensions of the response deadline.

"With no exceptions or comments to review, and given the fact that you did not put forth a case at the conference, I have no reason to disagree with the hearing officer's findings of fact and the conclusions of law," Gould wrote in his decision.

Gould also imposed total civil penalties of $1,750, even though Riddles had not suggested such action. They included two penalties of $500 for using flyers and business cards that did not indicate the ads were for a dealership and penalties of $250 and $500 for violations of record-keeping requirements.

Military members told investigators they felt pressured to buy cars - often at prices much higher than blue book value - after they were given rides to the dealership, were not initially told they would be crossing state lines and arrived as late as midnight.

Many of the service members also said they were not given copies of all their paperwork and were misled about the insurance they bought.

They learned about Carland after seeing ads around base that did not identify the dealership or say it was in Virginia. Most of the ads said to "Call Kim" at a toll-free number. Investigators think "Kim" was a code word for tracking whether the caller was from a military base.

Carland has been on a list of businesses off-limits to Marines at Camp Lejeune since 2000.

Capt. Lee Kindlon, a Marine lawyer representing some of the Marines who bought from Neff, said he informed the men of Virginia's actions.

"They think it's very fair. They're very proud of what they've done," Kindlon said. "They've gone from victims to vindicated."

Kindlon said three of the Marines are moving ahead with civil claims against Neff for damages and to have their contracts rescinded. Two have had their cars repossessed, he said.

On the Net:
Virginia Motor Vehicle Dealer Board: http://mvdb.vipnet.org/home.html

Copyright Associated Press
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/apnews/stories/081804/D84HOCF00.shtml

[hrscowboy]

Kinda sounds like good old oceanside calif a long time ago huh old timers....