You’re really not shocked to your core by the above blog headline, are you? In fact, and as a seasoned Pennsylvania consumer used to being a bit skeptical regarding major purchases, you might have even stifled a yawn while reading it.
Still, you have a right to be angry while considering the sad — and dangerous — reality that some dealerships across the country are letting customers drive off their lots with shiny new automobiles that are subject to a safety recall and just might have an unremedied fix that could be deadly.
That’s fraud, right? And there’s no question that it’s flatly unethical.
An investigate news team recently went undercover to examine the true dimensions of the problem, and found that many hundreds of new vehicles with safety recalls were sold unfixed to unsuspecting buyers by dealers.
And, alarmingly, the practice was observed at more than 100 dealerships nationally.
Any auto dealer who happily signs a purchase agreement on a new vehicle and watches a buyer drive off the lot without knowing — as does the dealer — that a recall has been issued on that vehicle and that a necessary fix has not been made is, of course, violating the law.
“There is no excuse for dealers to sell new vehicles while under recall,” states the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Some critics think that the NHTSA should be engaging in less talk and more action; reportedly, the agency fined only two dealerships across the whole country last year for breaking federal laws addressing sales of new vehicles under recall.
Once again, we repeat a mantra we have cited in past select posts that is always centrally germane to any consumer protection blog.
That is this: Caveat emptor. Buyers need to always be cautious and to do a bit of research before making major purchases.
And when they are victimized by bad-faith acts of business actors, they might want to consider engaging the services of an experienced consumer protection attorney, who can take purposeful and aggressive action to protect their legal interests.