Fake discounts are when the dealer advertises a deal that looks cheaper, but the savings aren’t real. The final price can end up being about the same—or worse—once everything is added.
Add-ons are extra items the dealer tries to sell on top of the car. They can make the deal more expensive, even if they weren’t part of the original price you were quoted.
Impossible rebates are discounts the dealer advertises, but you can’t actually get them in real life. Usually it’s because the fine print makes them hard or impossible to qualify for.
“Bullshittery” is the host’s word for when a car dealer’s pricing or offers are shady or misleading. It’s the kind of stuff that makes you feel like you got tricked after you thought you were getting a fair deal.
Bait-and-switch is when a dealer gets you interested with one deal, then changes the deal once you’re already there. You end up being pushed toward something else that’s usually more expensive or worse.
The Ford Transit is a big van made to move people or cargo. A “15 passenger” version is set up to seat a large group, which is why it fits the host’s client’s situation.
MSRP is the sticker price number the manufacturer starts with. When someone says they’re discounting under MSRP, they mean the sale price is lower than that sticker number.
A military rebate is a discount program for people in the military. It’s not always automatic; you usually have to qualify and the rebate may only apply to certain vehicles or deals.
Sales tax depends on where the buyer is considered to live for tax purposes. For military families, the state they’re stationed in may not be the same as their tax home, and that can change whether an exemption applies.
A sales tax exemption means you might not have to pay sales tax if you qualify under specific rules. Usually you have to submit proof—otherwise the exemption won’t be accepted.
Transport quotes are prices you get from companies that ship cars. If the car has to be delivered to another state, those shipping costs can be a big part of the final price.
A friends and family program is a special discount that’s only available to certain people and sometimes only on certain cars. The problem here is that the dealer advertised the discount, but it didn’t actually apply to that exact vehicle.
This is a marketing deal that’s supposed to make the car cheaper, like an employee discount. The host is saying that even with a program like this, dealers can’t advertise a low price while leaving out required fees.
Government charges are fees and taxes you pay to the DMV or the government, not the dealer. The FTC rule the host is describing focuses on dealer-added charges that can’t be hidden in the advertised price.
“Hidden fees” are charges that dealers include in the final transaction price but don’t clearly disclose upfront in the advertised price. The host ties this to the FTC rule about advertising a price that’s less than what the consumer must actually pay (excluding government charges).
A dock/admin fee is an extra charge the dealer adds for things like handling and paperwork. If it’s basically required, the FTC expects it to be clearly disclosed rather than left out of the advertised price.
The destination charge is the cost to get the car from the factory to the dealership. The episode’s key point is that dealers can’t advertise a price that ignores this part if it’s normally included in the sticker price.
A doc/admin fee is what the dealer charges for handling the paperwork. The FTC angle here is that dealers have to clearly say it as part of the price you’re paying, not sneak it in later.
DMV charges are the fees the government collects for registering the car and handling the paperwork. The host is saying the FTC rule doesn’t require dealers to include these in the advertised price the same way it requires disclosure of dealer fees.
Rebate stacking is when a car ad adds up several discounts together to make the price look way lower. The catch is that you usually can’t get every discount at the same time because the rebates have different rules.
A loyalty discount is a discount for people who already have a car from that same brand. You typically have to prove you qualify based on what you currently own (or owned recently).
A lease is like renting a car for a few years with rules about mileage and what you owe at the end. Lease deals can look cheap in ads, but the real price depends on details like down payment and terms.
Material terms are the key conditions that determine whether you can actually get the advertised price or payment. In car ads, this often includes required down payment, credit qualifications, and other eligibility requirements.
This is when an ad hooks you with a super-low monthly payment, but the fine print makes it hard or impossible to get that deal. The real requirements (like down payment or credit) are what change the outcome.
A down payment is money you pay upfront when you start financing a car. If the ad doesn’t mention it, the low monthly price might only be possible if you put a lot of money down.
A trade-in is when you use your current car to help pay for the new one. The advertised payment may assume your trade-in is worth a certain amount, so it might not work out the same for everyone.
A credit score is a number lenders use to estimate how likely you are to repay debt. Many “qualified buyer” promotions require an unusually high score (like 800+) to get the advertised rate or payment, meaning most shoppers won’t actually qualify.
Equity is how much value you have in your current car after you subtract the loan balance. Dealers may assume you have enough equity to make the advertised payment possible.
It means the advertised price is just the starting point, and then more required charges get added on. Those extras can make the final cost much higher than the ad suggests.
These are the government fees that usually get added on top of the car’s sticker price. They include sales tax, registration plates, and the cost to transfer the car’s title to you.
Sometimes the “special price” only works if you finance through the dealer’s preferred lender. If you pay cash or use your own financing, the price can jump—so you need to check the fine print.
“Financing with us” means the advertised deal only works if you get the loan through the dealer. If you finance elsewhere, the advertised price may not apply.
When you trade in your old car, the dealer gives you a credit for it. A “trade allowance” is that credit amount, and sometimes the advertised deal assumes you’ll get a certain number for your trade.
A protection package is a bundle of extra add-ons the dealer tries to sell you. It’s usually added to the bill after you thought you were getting the advertised price.
Low Jack is an aftermarket system meant to help track and recover a stolen car. Dealers sometimes bundle it into a pricey “protection package” after the fact.
Paint protection is anything meant to keep the car’s paint from getting damaged or scratched. Dealers may bundle it into an add-on package to raise the total price.
Ceramic coating is a protective layer put on the paint to help it look nicer and be easier to wash. It’s usually an extra-cost add-on, and quality matters a lot.
Some dealers offer to fill your tires with nitrogen instead of normal air. It’s mostly about marketing and minor pressure stability—what matters most is keeping the tires at the right pressure.
This describes a practice where the dealer advertises a vehicle at a certain price and/or under certain terms, but the customer can’t actually get that deal when they arrive. It’s closely related to bait-and-switch behavior and is often what regulators focus on in pricing transparency cases.
“Per violation” means the fine can be charged multiple times—once for each separate problem the regulator finds. So the total can grow quickly if there are many instances.
A “friends and family discount” is a special price deal that’s meant for certain people. The host is saying the dealer’s website may have applied that discount to everyone, which can make the advertised prices misleading.
The host is talking about the website’s automatic pricing rules—basically the computer math that decides what price gets shown. If that math is wrong (or applies a discount incorrectly), it can lead to lots of misleading listings.
“Stacked” here means the dealer is adding multiple discounts together to make the price look lower. The catch is that you might not qualify for all of them, so the real price ends up higher.
The “Cars Act” is a law/rule the FTC tried to use to crack down on misleading car-dealer pricing. The host says a court rejected it because the government didn’t follow the correct steps when making the rule, not because the goal was wrong.
Transparent pricing means the dealer shows you the real price and the extra fees up front. That makes it easier to compare cars and avoid “surprise” add-ons at the dealership.
A dock fee is a dealer-added charge for moving the car to the dealership. The key is that it should be shown clearly in the advertised price so you can compare offers without surprises.
Cars.com is a website where you can browse car listings from dealers. The host says it’s adding warnings when fees aren’t shown so you’ll know to ask questions.
Auto Trader is a website where dealers post car listings. The host is saying these sites are trying to push dealers to show fees clearly so buyers don’t get surprised later.
An advertising platform is the website that shows car listings. Even though it’s not the dealer, it still has to be careful about how dealers present prices and fees.
Here, “car shopping” means how you compare dealer offers and make sure you understand the real total cost. Even if ads get more transparent, you still have to double-check the numbers and incentives.
An out-the-door quote is the full total you’ll pay at the end of the deal. It includes the car price plus the extra taxes and fees, so you can compare offers fairly.
Monthly payments are what you pay each month for the loan or lease. Focusing only on the payment can make it harder to see the real total cost, so you should check the full deal details too.
LIVE
Hey everyone and welcome back to The Straight Shift.
I promise I was not planning to start this episode with a rant, but here we are.
Because I am still so ticked off at something that happened last week when I was shopping
for a vehicle for one of my clients. Therefore, there will absolutely be some colorful language
in this episode, so if you are listening in the car with your children present,
you might want to save this episode for later. But the timing is perfect because very recently,
the FTC sent out warning letters to over a thousand car dealerships across the country
regarding six advertising and pricing practices that they believe are illegal.
When I read this list, I thought, wow, the FTC is finally listening to my podcast because
I've only been ranting about these things for years. I'm talking about those hidden fees,
the fake discounts, all the add-ons, impossible rebates, even advertising vehicles that don't
actually exist. In other words, what I call bullshittery. For those of you who are newer to
my podcast or any of my content, I did not invent that word. I have to give full credit to one of
my clients who happens to be a marketing professor at Clemson University. She coined the term
bullshittery several years ago to describe the kind of sketchy, misleading, bait-and-switch
behavior that unfortunately so many dealers still engage in and leave consumers feeling like they
totally got screwed. So it's the perfect word, especially because a lot of what the dealers do
is technically not illegal, but it's shady as fuck. So we use the term bullshittery. And last week,
I caught a dealer red-handed. So that's what we're going to talk about today. I will give you that
full story and tell you about the six illegal pricing practices that the FTC is starting to
crack down on with car dealers. So let's get into it. So here's what happened last week.
I was shopping for a Ford Transit 15 passenger van for a military client with a large family.
This is normally a vehicle that is a commercial van used for business purposes. It's the same
type of thing. They shuttle you to the rental car counters at the airport, but this is a large
family and they had outgrown their minivan and needed a 15 passenger van. But these things are
hard to find, especially when you don't want a white one. Some other color, please. So I have
been searching for quite a while for this vehicle and I found one listed on a dealer's website in
Michigan and they advertised a near $6,000 discount under MSRP. Most dealers are not
discounting these at all unless you really, really push them and even then it's not anywhere near that
much. So I got really excited and it was blue. It was not any other color. It was their favorite color
of blue. So I called them. I talked to the sales manager there. We had a great relationship,
gave her the information, got a quote back. We went back and forth over the quote a few times
because I wanted to make sure that the pricing was exactly correct. I wanted to make sure that the
military rebate would apply to this vehicle since it's a commercial vehicle. So I specifically asked
that question, can we get that extra $500? I went back and forth with her over the Florida sales
tax because this client has their permanent residence in Florida, but they are stationed
in a different state and therefore under Florida's laws, they are exempt from the vehicle sales tax
in Florida. But there are of course some hoops you have to jump through to get that. So we were
going back and forth. We were reading the paperwork. We were making sure that we both understood what
would be needed to prove to the state of Florida that this family qualified for the sales tax
exemption because on a $75,000 vehicle, that's a lot of money. So we spent about three days going
back and forth, going over the paperwork with a fine tooth comb, down to every penny. We got
transport quotes so that the vehicle could be transported them in New York, where they are
stationed, got everything together. The client was super excited. We secured the vehicle.
And then the general manager calls me late Thursday night and said, that discount doesn't apply.
I can't sell that van to you at that price. I said, excuse me? You advertised that price
on your website. It's like, yeah, but that's the friends and family program that Ford is offering
right now, but it doesn't apply to that vehicle. Oh, was I mad? He said, I'm sorry, we just made
a mistake. No, no, no, no, no. We have been discussing this with your manager for three days.
You had every opportunity to correct that supposed mistake, but it wasn't a mistake
because it was explicitly listed on the website as a discount. There were no qualifications,
said nothing about the employee pricing for everyone program that Ford is in fact running.
It simply said MSRP and then discount and your price. And that is exactly
what the FTC has been cracking down on. So I mentioned that and I got a lot of side stepping.
So this is why I was so incredibly pissed because I had to go back to my client
and tell them what had happened. We can't get this van for this price. And of course,
they were angry too, especially since she's pregnant with another child and really is on her
last, you know what? But this really went over the line from, oh, it was an honest mistake to,
no, this is really shady because you know the new rules and because we went back and forth for
three days of me verifying that everything was correct. So I was furious, needless to say it
blew up the whole deal. But it did give me great information for this podcast because I want to
share with you what these six illegal practices are from the FTC that they are cracking down on.
The first one is advertising a price that is less than the full price that a consumer has to pay
for the vehicle, excluding government charges. So let me translate that FTC legalese for you.
They're talking about hidden fees. This is things like their dock or administration fee,
something that they always charge that you don't have any choice necessarily but to pay.
It's really just a part of the selling price of the car. It's not a part of MSRP necessarily,
although it does prevent dealers from the practice of listing a new car at the
pure MSRP before the destination charge, which is just part of the MSRP and screaming about that.
So they have to list the full MSRP with the destination charge rolled in like it is on the
window sticker and then they have to specifically list their dock fee or they have to say this is
the price of the car and it includes a documentation or admin fee of 799-599, whatever that is.
They do not have to include the government fees. So your tag and title fees, the DMV charges,
electronic filing fees that the government may charge and your taxes. But if it is the price of
the car, they have to disclose. They cannot hide fees. Now, that doesn't mean that that is the
lowest price that they could sell the car for. You still need to negotiate to see if you can get
it even lower than that. But if they list a discount, that discount has to be available
to everyone. And that is a part of practice number two that they're cracking down on.
Advertising a vehicle price that includes rebates or discounts not actually available to all consumers.
Fake discounts. This is what they violated at the dealership in Michigan. They listed that almost
$6,000 discount simply as discount under the price of the car, which legally means it should be
available to anyone for that specific vehicle. And dealers have been doing this for a long time.
One of the things that I really, really hate seeing are things like rebate stacking. That's
the term that we use in the industry. And that's where they would list a price. Hey, this is the
price of the car, but it secretly includes all of the rebates that are offered on that vehicle,
none of which any one person can actually qualify for because one, not everyone is military.
First responder, a college grad has a loyalty discount, meaning that they have a vehicle of
the same brand that qualifies under that program or a conquest rebate where they have a vehicle that
is from one of the competitors that they have decided to offer a rebate to try to steal you
away from that competitor. Rebates always have a lot of conditions on them. And I've honestly never,
ever seen a case in 20 years where one human being actually qualified for all of those rebates at the
same time to all be taken off the price of the car. But that has not stopped dealers from advertising
the car at that price stacking those rebates, even though we all know it's complete and utter
bullshittery. Well, this is what this particular rule from the STC says. Uh-uh, not cool. You cannot
do that. Apparently the dealer in Michigan didn't get that memo. Another practice that they are
cracking down on is advertising payments on a vehicle that do not clearly and conspicuously
disclose the material terms to get that price, such as a required down payment, any other conditions.
So this really applies strongly to leases, but also loan advertising because dealers like to pull
what I call low monthly payment catfishing. They'll advertise, get into this car for $199
a month. I mean, I know you've heard the crazy radio ads, but there are so many caveats to that.
There's microscopic print. So if they say, for example, oh, you can lease this SUV for just $299
a month, if you get out your magnifying glass or possibly your microscope and read, oh, but
they're $7,500 do it signing. Oh, that's a super low mileage lease of only 5,000 miles per year,
which most people would go way over that. If it's for a payment, they might be saying, oh,
you can get into it for $199 a month, but again, it doesn't disclose a huge down payment. It assumes
you're trading in a vehicle that has a certain amount of equity. It might be an 84 month loan
term, or it might be only for buyers that have over 800 credit score. These are all hidden terms
that they would hide in this microscopic print. The print is not allowed to be quite as microscopic
anymore. They need to be much more clear about what those conditions are so that people are not
tricked into thinking that they can get into this car for that low monthly payment when they can't.
Now, when it's a lease, that monthly payment that they advertise does not have to include
the state taxes. If the base lease payment is, say, $299 a month, but then you have to add on,
you know, they're $40 a month or whatever for your taxes, that's okay. They don't have to advertise
that because it is different in every state, maybe even different in your locality. If the
government is requiring the fee, then the dealer does not have to explicitly list that in the price
of the car. We all know that it's what we call plus, plus, plus, and the industry is plus tax,
tag, and title. So they get around that and that is perfectly fair, but they have to show you how
they got to that math so that you understand and don't end up signing papers for something
that's really getting you screwed. Another related practice is advertising a vehicle price that is
conditioned on you as the consumer financing the car through that dealer or through a specific lender
without clearly and conspicuously disclosing that. Again, that is, well, you only get that price if
you finance the car with us. If you pay cash or you bring your own financing to the table,
it's $1,000 more. And there is a dealer in the Charlotte area that has done this on a regular
basis and it really makes me mad. It's total bullshittery and I don't think that that's
a right practice to do. It's dishonest. I get a dealer's make money on the financing and so
I understand we might be able to negotiate a lower price if we are going to finance the dealer and I
will use that in my negotiating all the time, but it's not right for them to advertise a price on
their website without telling you this price requires that you finance with us or it assumes
a $1,000 trade allowance, meaning you've got at least $1,000 in equity on your trade.
These are just practices that the dealers do so they can advertise a lower price
to try and get you in their door. Practice number five is requiring consumers to purchase,
add on products or services that are not included in the advertised price. This is what I call the
dealer added crap or the addendums is the official industry term. This is where you see the advertised
price, you're going, you talk and they give you the final paperwork and all of a sudden there's
this $3,000 protection package. Where did that come from? It's the low jack, the paint protection,
the bin etching, ceramic coating, nitrogen in the tires, whatever crap they want to add on to the car
and try and force you to buy. Now here's the little nuance in this rule. If they force you
to buy that, if that item is non-negotiable, oh we add this to all of our cars, we can't take that
off the price. It's already on the car. One, we know that's bullshittery, but two, they are not
allowed to do that unless they advertise it as part of the car's price. They cannot spring it
on you later when you finally sit down to sign the paperwork. They have to be at least upfront and
honest about their bullshittery, which is helpful because at least you're forewarned and hopefully
you can avoid stepping in it, but you still don't have to pay for that crap. The last practice is
advertising vehicles that are not actually available at that advertised price or on those terms.
This is the old fake car bait and switch. They literally in the past have listed cars that aren't
there or they will advertise that you can get this price on this car, but there was only one of them
on their lot and it sold a long time ago. So you get the, oh yeah, well that price was for this car,
you know, not for this car that you want or, oh I'm so sorry, that one just sold. No, can't do that
if they are advertising a price that they intentionally did not mean to actually sell the car for.
It was obviously a ploy. They cannot do that and a Honda dealership in New York recently got busted
for this and they actually got busted for it by the city of New York because even though these FTC
rules are at a federal level, that doesn't mean that your state or locality doesn't have more
specific rules so that they can enforce these things and this Honda dealership was advertising
used cars at a price that they openly admitted once this investigation came to light that yeah,
we had no intention of selling those cars at those prices. It was all bullshit. So they admitted it
and they ended up negotiating a fine of $130,000 which is a fraction of what it could have been
but they did it and then they sold the dealership to another dealership group and the investigation
didn't happen until after it had sold to the new owners who ended up kind of stepping in it without
them realizing what had happened but the old owners still got busted. The FTC can technically
find dealerships $53,088 for these violations. Don't ask me where they come up with these
wacky numbers. I mean why is it not just $50,000 flat? I don't know. They don't ask me but that
fine can be applied either per violation each instance of that violation or for every day
that violation continues after they have been busted for it. So let's just go back to just the
per violation. Do some math here. That can add up fast to a very painful amount especially if the
dealers are applying that hinky pricing across every car that's advertised on their website
and they tend to do that especially with new cars. It's just built into the pricing structure on the
website so really the computer is doing that and I think that was the mistake that the Michigan
dealer was trying to hide behind. Oh the computer applied the friends and family discounts every
vehicle on their website. Well I'm sorry you're still responsible for what is on your website. If
it was coded incorrectly tough shit. Fix it. Don't hide behind it because you still broke the law
but anyway let's just do the math because you know I love doing math. Let's say a dealership
advertises 200 new cars that are on their lot and they have the computer that applies these
pricing models to every new car on their lot. Well if it's applying a pricing model that violates
one of these rules let's see $53,088 times 200 that's like over $10 million in fines.
That would probably get the dealership to change their practices don't you think?
So why isn't the FTC just cracking down on every dealership and raking in the dough left and right?
I mean I could probably send them a hundred listings just right off the top of my head.
I could have you know maybe one half or one percent of those fees that'd be fantastic
but it's a little more complicated than that and unfortunately the FTC is very limited
in what they can do so we need to rewind and explain a little bit about how our government
works and what the laws are. The Federal Trade Commission Act was signed into law way back in
September of 1914 by Woodrow Wilson so this has been around for well over a hundred years
and at its core the FTC Act is very simple they say businesses are not allowed to engage in unfair
or deceptive acts or practices. Yeah clearly there's a lot of businesses across a lot of
industries that didn't get that memo but when you hear me talking about things like these hidden
fees the fake discounts the rebate bait and switch games all the dealership will shuddery yeah
none of that's new they've just been getting away with it for decades and it's not like the FTC
just suddenly decided that this deceptive pricing is bad they've always known it's bad it's
technically violated the FTC Act for over a hundred years and technically they have the authority
to go after the dealerships for this but it's not that easy for them to do so a few years ago
they said you know we are kind of tired of this bullshittery again I hope they were listening
to my podcast but they decided we need some more clear rules specifically aimed at car dealerships
that gives them the ability to enforce those rules so they created the cars rule because of
course they had to call it that it stands for combating auto retail scams and the goal was to
give very specific guidance and penalties for deceptive pricing practices junk fees the mandatory
add-ons even the market adjustments all the things that really came to light under a spotlight
during the pandemic when they were trying to maximize their profit per vehicle because they
didn't have that many cars to sell so why does the FTC care so much we'd like to think it's because
of us consumers and they are trying to protect us from the evils of capitalism but no it's really
more about being unfair to other dealerships because if you think about it the dealers who were
honest about their pricing and don't pull these bait and switch tactics it actually puts them
at a competitive disadvantage and that is what the FTC says is not right I mean they probably
care about us to a certain extent but they're really trying to enforce fair competitive business
practices so if you think about it if one dealer is advertising this car for $30,000 but it's total
BS because they rebate stacked or they have you know put in a bunch of discounts that people don't
actually qualify for basically they're lying about the price of the car but this other dealership
isn't they're being very upfront about their pricing but it's a lot higher then which dealership
do you think most people are going to walk in the door of they're going to see that low price
and be like oh I'm going there because they don't know that that price is bullshittery now the
bullshittery has to be shined a light on so that it's more fair for the dealers that are competing
against each other and I am 100 behind that I believe in fair competition so why can't the FTC
enforce this oh yeah that's right because the car's rule got thrown out by a federal court
last year in 2025 though not because the court disagreed with the contents of the rule they
actually thought that yeah this is probably a really good idea to do but the FTC didn't follow
their own proper processes and procedures when they wrote the rule because yes not only do we
have rules in our society but we have rules about making rules so when they didn't follow the law
about how to make a new law the law gets thrown out yeah so this is like a criminal where all the
evidence is just so clear that they did the thing that they were accused of doing but there was a
technicality and how that evidence was handled the whole case gets thrown out on a technicality
that's what happened with the cars act it got thrown out on a technicality so here we are
making it more difficult for the FTC to enforce this but they still do have that ability from the
original act from a hundred years ago they can investigate they can bring enforcement action
against that dealership but this is civil action it's not criminal action so they can't just send
the owners of the dealership to jail might not be a bad idea but that's not how it works
they can negotiate a settlement for penalties they can obtain a legal cease and desist order
from a judge and that's usually the first step telling hey your practices are not right cease
and desist and require them to change their bad behavior and then if they catch them doing it a
second time or the cease and desist has been ignored then they can start slapping fines but
unfortunately they can't just from day one they see the violation just start handing out $53,000
fines like Oprah hands out cars you're gonna find everybody gets a fine trust
me i would have really enjoyed watching that after what happened last week with the michigan guy
but what they are doing is they're putting the dealers on notice that they will more aggressively
pursue the civil action through the procedures that they can do they're publicly calling out
these behaviors they're warning the dealerships with these letters say hey we've warned you
clean up your act and that's really made a difference what happened last week in michigan
notwithstanding but if you go out to dealer websites now and look at how they've got their cars
advertised in price you will see more transparent pricing you will see their dock fee listed which
helps me tremendously because i don't have to call the dealer and go so what's your dock fee again
it's now there makes my job a little bit faster you know it tells you if they have a package that
they are putting on every car at least they're supposed to and really what they're doing is
i find them not being as strict about saying oh yeah you have to pay for that because they know that
that's really flirting with one of those rules even on sites like auto trader cars.com when
you're searching for cars there those companies are trying to follow the fdc laws as best they can
even though they are technically not the dealer because they are providing an advertising platform
they have to cover their own butts and so they have changed their platforms so that the dealers can
show transparent pricing and if they don't then auto trader and cars.com those sites have disclaimers
that say hey this dealership didn't disclose any fees therefore there might be hidden fees
and you as the consumer need to ask about them so at least they're trying to wave a flag and say
hey heads up we're not sure those dealers follow in the rules pay attention and that really helps
consumers a lot obviously i would love to see way more strict enforcement but we got to start
somewhere and i'm really happy with the better pricing transparency that i am seeing but don't
think that every dealer is doing it of all the dealers that got those letters there are
97 dealership groups that have clearly violated the law according to the fdc but that have gotten
out of paying the penalties because the enforcement is not strong enough so this means that you still
need to do your homework basically nothing has changed in the way that you should approach car
shopping there's just a little more light being shown on some of the bullshittery so again do your
homework and find out what price you should be paying know what rebates you should qualify for
at least you think you should qualify for and which ones you don't be sure you understand the monthly
payments just do all the things that i always preach about get that out the door quote in writing
because remember the advertised price still does not have to show all the government fees
you still need to see that full numbers breakdown for your entire deal before you agree to anything
and if a deal looks dramatically better if the price of the car looks dramatically better for
the same vehicle on one dealer's website then it does on all the others get real suspicious
before you get excited because i made that mistake last week and i promise i will never
make it again i did report that dealer to the fdc if you find a practice that looks kind of shady
to you that you think violates one of these six practices go to the fdc's website and file a
complaint and give them all of the information because the more that we report this behavior
the easier it's going to be for them to actually enforce it especially if the dealers are ignoring
the cease and assist and the warnings i also took it a step further and reported it to the
attorney general for the state of michigan because i was hoppin mad and still a little bit am
i hope you've enjoyed this episode and that it's helped you to understand maybe some changes that
you're seeing in car advertising in the industry if you have not done so already please sign up
for the straight shift newsletter on my website because that is where i go into more details
of what's really happening behind the scenes in the industry and i call out all of the bullshittery
into plain english so you know how it's going to affect your wallet i'm kind of concerned as
your regularly scheduled anti-bullshittery update and you'll also get free access to the car care
survival kit which will help you take great care of your car without getting ripped off on that end
until next time folks drive safely i'm out of here
About this episode
The Straight Shift with The Car Chick breaks down the FTC’s latest warning letters to dealerships and what “bullshittery” looks like in real pricing ads. The host walks through how dealers can advertise misleading discounts, hide mandatory fees, and bury lease/loan terms in fine print—then shows how a shopper’s deal can flip when eligibility claims change. With enforcement complicated by legal process, she still urges shoppers to get an out-the-door quote and verify rebate conditions.
Think hidden fees, fake discounts, rebate games, mandatory add-ons, and vehicles advertised at prices you can't actually get are just part of buying a car?
The FTC doesn't think so.
In this episode, The Car Chick® breaks down the six dealership advertising and pricing practices the FTC says may violate federal consumer protection laws. But before we get into the legal stuff, I share a real-life dealership fiasco that happened while shopping for a military family's Ford Transit van — a deal that took three days to put together before it completely blew up over a discount that apparently didn't apply.
We'll cover:
The six pricing and advertising practices the FTC is targeting
Hidden fees, fake discounts, rebate stacking, and financing games
Why dealer add-on packages may be the next battleground
What the FTC Act actually says
Why the CARS Rule was overturned
Why the FTC isn't handing out $53,088 fines left and right
How dealership pricing transparency is improving — and where the bullshittery has migrated
What consumers should look for before signing on the dotted line
5 Things to Watch for When Car Shopping Right Now
Get an out-the-door quote in writing.
Do your homework on rebates, financing requirements, and add-ons.
Verify the vehicle is actually available.
Don't assume "transparent pricing" means "best price."
If a deal looks dramatically better than every other similar vehicle, get suspicious before you get excited.
Sign up for The Straight Shift newsletter and get consumer-focused automotive news, car buying tips, and industry updates delivered straight to your inbox:
