In Glassmanor, National Harbor, Fort Washington and neighboring Suitland, you will find Volvo, Kia and Infiniti dealers. While not every dealer lies and cheats, there is always a risk that a new or used dealer will use any one of a number of illegal schemes to deceive you.
Common auto fraud schemes include:
- forgery,
- hidden damage,
- salvage titles,
- failure to disclose a used car’s rental or commercial use history,
- keeping down payments or selling trade-ins when financing is not approved,
- spot delivery violations,
- false low price advertising and
- stealing LoJack and other after market product payments.
Whitney, LLP’s auto fraud and consumer lawyers have experience unwinding bad deals and recovering compensation for unfair dealer practices. Our attorneys sue car dealerships to help car buyers.
If you have been the victim of any one of these or other schemes, call the lawyers at Whitney, LLP.
Here are reviews from what some of our past clients have said about us, and here are some of our past settlement results in claims and lawsuits against car dealerships. We offer legal consultations. Call us at (410) 583-8000, or use our online form to request your free initial consultation today.
Car Dealership Forgery Glassmanor, MD
It does not matter what the dealer’s motivation is when it engages in forgery. The second that you suspect “the dealer forged my signature” call Whitney, LLP for a Legal Consultation.
When you hire a lawyer with Whitney, LLP to sue a car dealership for forgery, we can discover if your suspicions are correct.
Red flags for forgery include the monthly payment, interest rate and loan amount being different, either higher or lower, than what was agreed to on the buyer’s order, lease or finance contract you originally signed.
Once a dealer is found to have committed auto fraud by signing a customer’s signature or initials without permission, it can be made to pay a lot more than it took from you in the first place by overcharging through forging signatures.
Stealing Down Payments and Selling a Trade In when Financing Is Not Approved
A spot delivery violation is when the dealer has you drive off the lot with the car without financing being approved or finalized. Then, if financing falls through, it may request a higher monthly payment or larger down payment, or higher interest rate.
Maryland law requires dealers provide written notice within four days when financing is not approved. Read more about Maryland Spot Delivery in our blog.
Suing a car dealership could be your only option when the dealer has stolen your down payment and is ignoring your attempts to get it back. Dealers often sell trade-ins before financing is approved, which causes a car buyer to feel as if paying an increased price for the new car is their only option.
Whitney, LLP can help car buyers in spot delivery violations when financing is not approved and the dealer tries to force unfair terms, steal down payments or sells the trade-in.
Car Dealer Fraud in Glassmanor, MD
Lying, misrepresentation and overcharging can be grounds for suing a car dealership. There is no one set way of committing auto fraud. In fact, dealers often get creative with their schemes.
Some of the more common scams that they pull can include odometer fraud. The dealer may roll back the odometer to take miles off the car. However, there are ways to detect this, and the dealer can be held responsible for this both civilly and criminally.
Moreover, once the dealer advertises the car online, it must sell it for the listed price. A dealer may try various ways to inflate the price, including increasing the price at the dealership, charging more than MSRP if advertised as being sold for MSRP, and bogus “inspection” or “reconditioning” charges, all making it potentially liable for false online advertising. Maryland has truth-in-advertising laws that our auto fraud lawyers can use to hold the dealer accountable.
Glassmanor, Fort Washington or Suitland dealers may also force worse payment terms on you if your financing has fallen through after you drove away with the car. They intentionally put financing in the contract that they know you would never qualify for and then raise the monthly payments when the inevitable rejection comes.
These dealers are taking advantage of the fact that they know you will not want to return the car. You may need a lawyer to sue a car dealership if the salesperson is not returning your calls or refusing to give back a good-faith deposit that you put down.
Finally, a dealer is not allowed to run a credit check on you without you giving your express permission. Federal law allows you to sue a dealer for an unauthorized credit check because hard credit pulls hurt your score.
Misrepresentation does not necessarily have to be something false that the dealer told you. It is obligated to tell you various things about the car that could impact your decision to buy the vehicle and how much you would pay. A dealer’s silence could be the same as lying in some cases and could be grounds for a civil lawsuit against the dealer for fraud.
Car Dealership Fraud Attorney Near Me in Glassmanor, MD
A dealer will likely not make things right even a customer calls and complaints. They often ignore car buyers who try to resolve these issues themselves. However, they are unable to ignore lawsuits filed by Whitney, LLP’s experienced auto fraud attorneys.
At Whitney, LLP, we can fight for you if you were the victim of a corrupt and dishonest dealer, and can work to unwind a bad deal and recover compensation for unfair practices.
Call us today at (410) 583-8000 to request your free initial consultation.
Watch our YouTube Channel and read our Auto Fraud blog for more information on dealer fraud cases.