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COMPLIANCE

Regulatory Compliance Should Top Every

Dealer’s Mind, To-do List

By Arlena Sawyers, Correspondent
Regulatory compliance is every dealer’s some vehicles’ advertised prices were differ- “Finance or lease advertisements that con-
business. ent from their actual prices. The actions and tain certain trigger terms such as monthly
allegations involved vehicles that had add-on payment and APR must also include certain
That means issues such as advertising compli- products installed on them, she said. other additional disclosures required under
ance, data and cybersecurity and making sure federal rules,” Miller said.
consumers know or can find out when the ve- Brad Miller, director of legal and regulatory
hicle they purchase has an open recall, should affairs at the National Automobile Dealers Also helpful to dealers is NADA’s Regulatory
be near the top of every dealers’ to-do list, ac- Association, agrees that dealers should take Maze, its annual updated list of major federal
cording to dealer trade groups, attorneys, and advertising compliance very seriously as does regulations, Miller said.
others that represent dealer interests. the Federal Trade Commission. He too, has
seen “literally dozens” of advertising enforce- Released in March 2018, the 12-page docu-
And if you think changes at the Consumer ments brought by the FTC and other regula- ment contains brief descriptions and guide-
Finance Protection Bureau will give dealers a tors. lines of dozens of federal laws such as IRS
little breathing room, take a deep breath. treatment of demonstration vehicles, employ-
NADA recently issued an advertising compli- ee drug testing and the Fair Credit Reporting
Then consider this: ance guide that highlights things that raises Act.
red flags with the FTC, Miller said. Continued on page 32
States are stepping-up their scrutiny of fi-
nancial services companies and dealers, and
if the CFPB finds a violation of law make no
mistake about it, the agency will do its job,
said Shaun Petersen, senior vice president,
legislative and government affairs at the Na-
tional Independent Automobile Dealers As-
sociation.

“The acting director (Mick Mulvaney, who is
also director of the Office of Management and
Budget) has said, we’re not going to push the Sunsets are beautiful, unless
envelope, not going to overstep boundaries or
limits, creating things that aren’t there, but if it’s your GPS network.
there are things that need to be addressed, we
are going to address them,” Petersen said.

“One other thing we’ve seen with the CFPB Switch now to 4G LTE.
and the acting director is that he has come out
and said ‘state attorneys general, you need to 4G LTE is the only cellular network that will be growing, leaving
take a bigger role, a lot of this you should be behind older technologies. If you are looking for a long term
doing.’ It’s not just specific to dealers.” solution, look at our 4G LTE GPS trackers.
Patty Covington, a partner at Hudson Cook, Find out how much more SVR Tracking can do for you besides
agrees that state attorneys general have basic locate. You’ll be amazed at how far we’ve come!
stepped-up their scrutiny of financial services Call, Email or Text. We pride ourselves on providing the best training and
which includes dealers and “in New York and support in the industry supported by a 3 year hardware warranty.
New Jersey, I’ve seen several enforcement ac-
tions against dealers.” More actions against
dealers Visit us online at www.aragps.com
The New Jersey attorney general brought Call or text 770-871-0051.
actions against dealers amid allegations that E-Mail aragps@mailga.net ARA GPS

GIADA Independent Auto Dealer JUNE 2018 | 11