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NC files charges against Nissan dealership employees

35 points by ourmandave 3y ago

justin66 3y ago
[flagged]
no_wizard 3y ago
It’s just a shame that dealership grift has to get this bad until the government enforces regulations properly. I know on a smaller scaler that these things mentioned in the article happen all the time. In college I had classmates who worked at a dealership and they talked about all kinds of shenanigans they pulled. For instance, it wasn’t all that uncommon for a relative percentage of the cars sold on the used lot to be from other states like Texas where they would buy low integrity vehicles and fix them to a minimally viable state before bringing them to California. This had something to do with how they could get a certificate from TX saying the car was okay for resale without conditions applied (IE they didn’t have to report the previous / original condition) and that was enough leeway to get it past state regulators if you didn’t do it to often new cars had a bit less of this nonsense going on I recall because the manufacturers are more concerned and keep a closer eye on this sort of thing, though I’ve heard that often cars would come in from the factory with paint scratches and stuff from travel and dealers would just patch over it as quickly and cheaply as possible to get it on the lot without car for longevity
- LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
  > It’s just a shame that dealership grift has to get this bad until the government enforces regulations properly. Enforcement costs money, and one of the easiest ways to attack the government budget is to argue that enforcement "isn't working" because it isn't yielding offenses. A perfect enforcement regime with zero offenders starts look like major government waste.
- ChuckMcM 3y ago
  "There's no business like car business I know" :-) In my first startup we hired a guy who had been IT at a large chain of dealerships in the Bay Area and he was chock full of stories like this.
  - DANmode 3y ago
    Car dealership is one of the few businesses I know where I've heard more than one instance of the owners being effectively held for ransom by their (single) admin, for multiple years running.
marklubi 3y ago
Nissan of Shelby. Not to be confused with the Shelby brand of aftermarket vehicles.
FredPret 3y ago
Tesla’s best innovation: buy direct from manufacturer
- no_wizard 3y ago
  Every manufacturer would love this. Unfortunately dealerships are enshrined into law and Tesla had to go and get exceptions by law in each state it has dealerships
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    What is stopping the other manufacturers from applying for the same exceptions?
    - JimtheCoder 3y ago
      The pre existing dealers.
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Do you mean existing dealers lobby against the exception? How would that survive a lawsuit? A state government giving one car manufacturer an exception and denying all the other ones?
        fbdab103 3y ago
        Car dealerships are a huge revenue generating entity for state governments. It is possible doing away with dealerships would net out to similar incomes, but short term would most likely lead to a net negative for the balance sheet.
        ghaff 3y ago
        Dealership owners are probably one of the most successful "small" local business owners in most places. Also, a lot of what people dislike about dealerships is at least somewhat orthogonal to the fact that they're dealerships rather than something owned by the manufacturer. Any dealership can institute "no haggle" sales, you're going to have to take your car to a local authorized place for service/warranty work/etc. in any case, and a lot of people need financing. The last few years of shortages notwithstanding, to the degree you can walk into a dealership, point at a car and say I want that one (or I've come to pickup the car I've ordered), I've got my checkbook--a lot of the hassle disappears. Yes, there will be various annoying upsell attempts but that mostly involves just saying no a bunch of times. (Yes, there are some incentives that dealerships have that a manufacturer-owned entity might not. On the other hand, the inverse is probably true as well.)
munchler 3y ago
The legal charges don’t seem to match the quotes from customers, so it’s a bit difficult to tell what’s actually going on here.
tennisflyi 3y ago
Overall, it’s telling that you have to explicitly walk through the contact.
seattle_spring 3y ago
Every dealership employee should be in jail. There's 0 practical reason that cars need to be bought through a middleman. Every car buying experience I've had over the last 2 decades has been an absolute grift, except when buying directly from Rivian. Toyota, Kia, Audi, Honda, Ford: they've all tried to scam me.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- QuarterReptile 3y ago
  Have you ever sold a car personally? It's a gigantic pain. I understand why dealers exist. source: I've sold 2 cars on Craigslist, bought 2 others using the same.
  - drewtunes 3y ago
    It's a massive pain and why I founded www.keysavvy.com. We don't solve ALL the headaches (no-shows, low-ballers, undisclosed issues), but we eliminate payment and title fraud in private party transactions.
  - seattle_spring 3y ago
    I sure have! What I haven't done is advertise a car I'm selling as X, and then tell the person when they drive 2 hours to my place that it's actually X + $5k, oh and they have to buy $1500 "underbody protection", $2k "window vin etching", and a $3k extended warranty before they can drive it off my property.
ourmandave 3y ago
Maybe if some of these clowns saw prison time for fraud instead of just slapping the dealer with a fine and then it's back to business as usual. See also: To Big to Fail Banks.
SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
What’s the exact fraud happening here? It’s implied in the article but not explicitly spelled out. Salvage vehicles are being rebuilt, and the title is doctored so as to not make it appear like it’s a salvage title?
predictabl3 3y ago
> This isn’t the first time that Kazran has run into trouble with the law, either. Back in 2010, the Federal Election Commission filed a complaint against him alleging that he illegally reimbursed employees of his Florida dealership for close to $70,000 in political donations. I'll give you two guesses, but you're only going to need one! To save you the work, it was for Vic Buchanan's campaign.
0986314427 3y ago
[flagged]
0986314427 3y ago
[flagged]

35 points by ourmandave 3y ago

[flagged]

It’s just a shame that dealership grift has to get this bad until the government enforces regulations properly. I know on a smaller scaler that these things mentioned in the article happen all the time. In college I had classmates who worked at a dealership and they talked about all kinds of shenanigans they pulled. For instance, it wasn’t all that uncommon for a relative percentage of the cars sold on the used lot to be from other states like Texas where they would buy low integrity vehicles and fix them to a minimally viable state before bringing them to California. This had something to do with how they could get a certificate from TX saying the car was okay for resale without conditions applied (IE they didn’t have to report the previous / original condition) and that was enough leeway to get it past state regulators if you didn’t do it to often new cars had a bit less of this nonsense going on I recall because the manufacturers are more concerned and keep a closer eye on this sort of thing, though I’ve heard that often cars would come in from the factory with paint scratches and stuff from travel and dealers would just patch over it as quickly and cheaply as possible to get it on the lot without car for longevity

LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
> It’s just a shame that dealership grift has to get this bad until the government enforces regulations properly. Enforcement costs money, and one of the easiest ways to attack the government budget is to argue that enforcement "isn't working" because it isn't yielding offenses. A perfect enforcement regime with zero offenders starts look like major government waste.
ChuckMcM 3y ago
"There's no business like car business I know" :-) In my first startup we hired a guy who had been IT at a large chain of dealerships in the Bay Area and he was chock full of stories like this.
- DANmode 3y ago
  Car dealership is one of the few businesses I know where I've heard more than one instance of the owners being effectively held for ransom by their (single) admin, for multiple years running.

marklubi 3y ago

Nissan of Shelby. Not to be confused with the Shelby brand of aftermarket vehicles.

FredPret 3y ago

Tesla’s best innovation: buy direct from manufacturer

no_wizard 3y ago
Every manufacturer would love this. Unfortunately dealerships are enshrined into law and Tesla had to go and get exceptions by law in each state it has dealerships
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  What is stopping the other manufacturers from applying for the same exceptions?
  - JimtheCoder 3y ago
    The pre existing dealers.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      Do you mean existing dealers lobby against the exception? How would that survive a lawsuit? A state government giving one car manufacturer an exception and denying all the other ones?
      - fbdab103 3y ago
        Car dealerships are a huge revenue generating entity for state governments. It is possible doing away with dealerships would net out to similar incomes, but short term would most likely lead to a net negative for the balance sheet.
        ghaff 3y ago
        Dealership owners are probably one of the most successful "small" local business owners in most places. Also, a lot of what people dislike about dealerships is at least somewhat orthogonal to the fact that they're dealerships rather than something owned by the manufacturer. Any dealership can institute "no haggle" sales, you're going to have to take your car to a local authorized place for service/warranty work/etc. in any case, and a lot of people need financing. The last few years of shortages notwithstanding, to the degree you can walk into a dealership, point at a car and say I want that one (or I've come to pickup the car I've ordered), I've got my checkbook--a lot of the hassle disappears. Yes, there will be various annoying upsell attempts but that mostly involves just saying no a bunch of times. (Yes, there are some incentives that dealerships have that a manufacturer-owned entity might not. On the other hand, the inverse is probably true as well.)

munchler 3y ago

The legal charges don’t seem to match the quotes from customers, so it’s a bit difficult to tell what’s actually going on here.

tennisflyi 3y ago

Overall, it’s telling that you have to explicitly walk through the contact.

seattle_spring 3y ago

Every dealership employee should be in jail. There's 0 practical reason that cars need to be bought through a middleman. Every car buying experience I've had over the last 2 decades has been an absolute grift, except when buying directly from Rivian. Toyota, Kia, Audi, Honda, Ford: they've all tried to scam me.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
QuarterReptile 3y ago
Have you ever sold a car personally? It's a gigantic pain. I understand why dealers exist. source: I've sold 2 cars on Craigslist, bought 2 others using the same.
- drewtunes 3y ago
  It's a massive pain and why I founded www.keysavvy.com. We don't solve ALL the headaches (no-shows, low-ballers, undisclosed issues), but we eliminate payment and title fraud in private party transactions.
- seattle_spring 3y ago
  I sure have! What I haven't done is advertise a car I'm selling as X, and then tell the person when they drive 2 hours to my place that it's actually X + $5k, oh and they have to buy $1500 "underbody protection", $2k "window vin etching", and a $3k extended warranty before they can drive it off my property.

ourmandave 3y ago

Maybe if some of these clowns saw prison time for fraud instead of just slapping the dealer with a fine and then it's back to business as usual. See also: To Big to Fail Banks.

SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago

What’s the exact fraud happening here? It’s implied in the article but not explicitly spelled out. Salvage vehicles are being rebuilt, and the title is doctored so as to not make it appear like it’s a salvage title?

predictabl3 3y ago

> This isn’t the first time that Kazran has run into trouble with the law, either. Back in 2010, the Federal Election Commission filed a complaint against him alleging that he illegally reimbursed employees of his Florida dealership for close to $70,000 in political donations. I'll give you two guesses, but you're only going to need one! To save you the work, it was for Vic Buchanan's campaign.

0986314427 3y ago

[flagged]

0986314427 3y ago

[flagged]