Latest / Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News / 97 groups warned over deceptive pricing as FTC cracks down on auto dealers

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97 groups warned over deceptive pricing as FTC cracks down on auto dealers · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:09
  You're listening to the Hidden Lightness on America Out Loud Talk Radio.
• 0:12
  I'm your host, Jimmy Hinton.
• 0:14
  Well, well, well, folks, we begin the week, and the hammer is coming down.
• 0:20
  I like whenever accountability exists, and accountability is existing in one area where I especially get annoyed, and that is in the auto industry.
• 0:31
  This is different, though.
• 0:33
  I talked about all the recalls on cars, and and you know my opinion.
• 0:38
  I think that car companies should in fact fail.
• 0:42
  General Motors right now has one million vehicles that are on the road currently that are absolute disasters.
• 0:54
  They have major engine problems, major transmission problems, and these are brand new vehicles.
• 1:00
  These are vehicles that have been produced in the last four years.
• 1:04
  They're absolute utter garbage, and they're on the road, and a lot of these are hundred thousand dollar vehicles.
• 1:12
  And so people have really stuck their necks out there financially to buy what they thought was a good quality vehicle.
• 1:20
  Well, come to find out, they're complete trash.
• 1:26
  And that's a shame.
• 1:30
  Well, in addition to that, part of the reason why people are paying so much for cars is the auto dealerships are ripping people off.
• 1:41
  Now imagine how scammy that is.
• 1:43
  I mean, it's absolutely terrible.
• 1:46
  In my wildest dreams.
• 1:49
  I can't imagine ripping somebody off, even for a penny.
• 1:54
  Let alone thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.
• 1:59
  This is a very big frustration of mine.
• 2:01
  It's part of why I absolutely loathe dealerships.
• 2:05
  Um I had bought my only brand new vehicle a few years ago, which is paid off.
• 2:13
  I wanted to get that stupid thing paid off because I didn't want to give the dealership any more, their finance department any more money than what I already was.
• 2:23
  So we aggressively paid it off.
• 2:25
  It's it's paid in full, it's it belongs to us.
• 2:30
  And along with that, you get your two free oil changes, which I did, your tire rotations, which I did, and once the freebies were up, I started doing my own.
• 2:48
  And I get phone calls from them, and I get uh I get scheduling emails from them, and they're like, You're you missed your appointment.
• 2:57
  Uh no, no, I actually didn't.
• 2:59
  I don't have an appointment, and I'm not going to because I'm not going to pay that kind of money.
• 3:05
  I have my own dealership story.
• 3:08
  And I'm sure every single person here has a nightmare story from the dealership.
• 3:14
  Now think about that.
• 3:15
  Statistically, that literally every person who's ever bought a car has a nightmare story, at least one.
• 3:25
  Some people have ongoing, it's like an ongoing nightmare.
• 3:28
  They have these stories from the dealerships because the dealerships are absolute con artists.
• 3:35
  Not all of them, but I would say the majority of them.
• 3:41
  So at any rate, I'd gone in and just for funsies.
• 3:49
  I needed new tires because the the tires that came from the the uh factory, they were absolute garbage.
• 3:59
  Yeah, it's it's interesting.
• 4:00
  You pay so much for all these vehicles, and they they put junk tires on.
• 4:06
  They're like, yeah, we could we could save 30 bucks here.
• 4:10
  Let's just put let's put absolute garbage around the wheels and uh you know, hope for the best for the customer.
• 4:20
  So at any rate, I'm not a fan of the tires that they put on, and it's I I get it.
• 4:26
  Uh, you know, uh their name brand, it's just a tread, the tread on them, tread type.
• 4:32
  It's not very aggressive for the climate where I live.
• 4:35
  So at any rate, I had to get new tires, and I asked the dealership, I'm like, can you give me a printo?
• 4:41
  I'm just curious what the quote is for tires from here.
• 4:47
  So they print it off, and they hand it to me.
• 4:51
  They didn't even try because they knew they knew how outrageous their prices were, so they didn't even try with me to convince me to buy tires off of them.
• 5:01
  I looked at it, and it was five thousand with a Thousand dollars to get four tires and to balance them.
• 5:18
  Five thousand.
• 5:19
  That was not a typo because they gave me two estimates.
• 5:24
  I was like, you people are out of your mind.
• 5:28
  You are absolutely out of your mind if you think anybody's gonna pay that.
• 5:34
  And sadly, there are people who who probably do five thousand dollars for a set of tires for an average economy car.
• 5:47
  Just for reference, the last set of tires that I bought, which were a really good set from a local tire dealer, tire shop.
• 5:58
  I paid somewhere in the ballpark of 120 something attire for four tires, and that includes the mounting and balancing and all that.
• 6:09
  It's like 120 something, 130 bucks a tire, which I thought was a really good price.
• 6:17
  So, you know, it cost me 500 as opposed to 5,000.
• 6:23
  This is how much they're marking stuff up for people, and they do it on everything.
• 6:27
  They constantly upsell people.
• 6:29
  I know because I'm a I'm I'm a mechanic, I work on my cars, I've been working on my cars my entire life.
• 6:37
  And so when you go in the shop and they start talking their gibberish, thinking that you don't know anything about cars, and then I start using terminology to make them realize really quickly that I know what I'm talking about.
• 6:55
  They uh they back down pretty quickly.
• 6:58
  But the sad thing is a lot of people don't know because they're not mechanics and they don't know, and that's not putting any blame on the customer.
• 7:05
  In fact, the customer should never be at fault.
• 7:09
  They're not to blame for the high prices.
• 7:12
  Well, why don't you just pay and just don't pay it?
• 7:15
  Well, a lot of people don't know.
• 7:16
  They don't know, they believe that whenever the dealers are telling them that there's a major problem and it's life or death, they take their word at it because they're they're the professionals.
• 7:29
  So it's really scammy and very dishonest.
• 7:33
  But the federal government is coming down hard on these car dealerships, and I'll share that story in a little bit.
• 7:41
  But that's just as of this month.
• 7:44
  They really came down hard on 97 auto dealers across the nation.
• 7:50
  Like they're coming down, the federal government is coming down hard on them.
• 7:55
  And I think it's good.
• 7:57
  I think it's long overdue.
• 7:59
  I think every dealership that that scams people out of money, they ought to, they ought to be hanging a for sale sign on the dealership.
• 8:08
  They ought to go out of business permanently.
• 8:12
  I just have zero tolerance for it.
• 8:14
  I think it's dishonest, it's it's terrible.
• 8:16
  People are already strapped super tight, and when you take advantage of people in these kind of economic conditions, and then people end up getting their cars repossessed or whatever.
• 8:28
  They're left without transportation, they're left with with payments, and they have a repossessed vehicle.
• 8:36
  That's not cool.
• 8:38
  So here's some of the things that they do, just so that you're aware, and I think it's important for everybody to know about these these little gimmicks.
• 8:47
  Because they're so slimy, and I'll tell you too.
• 8:49
  I'll I'll tell you how they tried to upsell me when I bought my car, and I just said no to literally everything.
• 8:57
  So there's the conditional advertised price.
• 9:04
  Dealers often list a price online that includes every possible rebate, but they don't tell you that.
• 9:11
  So they'll list the military rebate, student loyalty, first-time buyer, on and on and on.
• 9:17
  They have a whole list of rebates that that they add them up, and they subtract that from the actual price of the car, and that's what they put online.
• 9:29
  Since virtually nobody qualifies for all of them, the actual price is thousands of dollars higher.
• 9:38
  It's a very scammy thing that they do and dishonest and should be illegal.
• 9:46
  All right, then there's the market adjustment or the addendum.
• 9:52
  You'll see a sticker next to the official MSRP that'll say something like dealer prep or.
• 10:00
  Market adjustment or protection package or some combination of those.
• 10:08
  These are all of these are 100% profit for the dealer.
• 10:14
  And they include things like this.
• 10:16
  You ever hear of the nitrogen filled tires?
• 10:19
  That's the biggest scam.
• 10:20
  There were, I worked at a place where they were trying to sell people on the nitrogen filled tires, and I was like, I won't be a part of it.
• 10:29
  They're like, yeah, but there's so much money in that.
• 10:31
  Can you imagine how much money we can make if we start going to nitrogen, nitrogen filled tires?
• 10:38
  Like I personally will not, you can fire me.
• 10:41
  I'm not going to sell nitrogen filled tires to people.
• 10:45
  So for those of you who don't know, the nitrogen filled tires, you'll you'll see a green cap on them instead of a black cap on the valve stem.
• 10:55
  Green indicates that those are nitrogen filled tires.
• 11:00
  And nitrogen, the the reason they fill them with nitrogen is that nitrogen is more dense than the regular compressed air that they put into your tire.
• 11:14
  And so because it's more dense, it doesn't escape as quickly through the pores in the tires.
• 11:20
  Because you ever notice when the weather changes, especially when it gets colder outside, all of a sudden those those low pressure lights start coming on.
• 11:30
  Well, that's because the less dense air kind of escapes through the pores in the rubber through the fibers of the rubber tires.
• 11:43
  So when you put nitrogen in, supposedly they don't go down as fast.
• 11:49
  They're not supposed to at all.
• 11:51
  That's how they advertise them.
• 11:53
  I've seen this advertising, they're like, you you won't lose any air pressure whatsoever, which is a total lie.
• 12:00
  But here's the thing.
• 12:03
  Tires are already 78% nitrogen anyway.
• 12:09
  The air that you put them put in them is 78% nitrogen.
• 12:14
  So they're literally putting a little bit of nitrogen in and um news flash for you, because I know how this works.
• 12:24
  Most people are not actually putting nitrogen in your tires.
• 12:30
  You know what they're putting in?
• 12:33
  Regular compressed air.
• 12:38
  The same exact thing that you put in your tire when you roll up to a gas station and you pump air into it.
• 12:46
  Well, how can they do that?
• 12:48
  How do they get away with that?
• 12:49
  Easy.
• 12:50
  They just do it.
• 12:53
  So dealerships, uh I'm positive of this because I know how they work.
• 12:59
  Uh they'll take off the black, you know, the black caps on the valve stems, and they'll replace them with green ones, and they'll say that they're filled with nitrogen.
• 13:10
  Nobody's going to test them.
• 13:12
  How can you test them?
• 13:14
  No customer is going to go home, take some of that quote unquote nitrogen out of the tire, have it tested to see what the nitrogen content is.
• 13:23
  It's just not going to happen.
• 13:25
  All right, another one, the $900 paint protection.
• 13:31
  You know what the paint protection is?
• 13:34
  Wax.
• 13:38
  It's literally wax.
• 13:41
  It's not a paint protection.
• 13:43
  And then they have the uh the underbody spray.
• 13:47
  Well, we'll protect your underbody from the salt and and road grime and the chips from little rocks and things like that.
• 13:58
  They offered that to me for like $1,400 or $1,600, something like that.
• 14:02
  I was like, no, thanks.
• 14:05
  And the guy who sold the car to me was like, really?
• 14:10
  I was like, yep, really.
• 14:12
  He's like, aren't you worried about your car rusting?
• 14:16
  Nope.
• 14:18
  Because I know, I know how Toyota, how they do their metal, how they process their metal.
• 14:28
  They have a very, very good process.
• 14:33
  And I've had I've had Toyotas my whole life.
• 14:37
  They don't rust.
• 14:39
  I mean, it takes a long, long time.
• 14:42
  And I live in the north where there's just tons of salt, they don't rust.
• 14:48
  And I know that that protection underneath doesn't do a whole lot.
• 14:55
  It just doesn't $1,600 worth.
• 14:58
  I can I can assure you of that.
• 15:02
  It's not worth it.
• 15:04
  So they do those kinds of things on and on.
• 15:08
  It's the it's the charging now for for the mats.
• 15:12
  Well, if you want uh floor mats, that's an extra $500.
• 15:17
  Wait, what do you mean if I want floor mats?
• 15:21
  Didn't every single car ever made ever come with floor mats?
• 15:26
  Nope, not anymore.
• 15:28
  That's considered a luxury.
• 15:30
  That's an add-on.
• 15:32
  And on and on and on it goes.
• 15:34
  And they they just keep adding on these things that your car's supposed to come with anyway.
• 15:41
  And they they rack up thousands of dollars for garbage for stuff that like none of this stuff is necessary.
• 15:51
  It's absolutely not.
• 15:52
  It's a total joke.
• 15:55
  They do it with the financing.
• 15:58
  It's the bait and switch on financing.
• 16:00
  They advertise a low price, but only if you use their high interest in-house financing.
• 16:07
  So if you bring your own check from a credit union, the price of the car jumps up by thousands of dollars.
• 16:15
  All right, the monthly payment trap.
• 16:19
  Salespeople focus entirely on what you can afford per month.
• 16:22
  They'll say, How much can you afford per month?
• 16:25
  That allows them to hide the total cost of the car.
• 16:29
  Extending loan, the loan to 72 or 84 months while packing expensive junk fees that you don't notice in small monthly increments.
• 16:41
  It's a total scam.
• 16:44
  Total scam.
• 16:47
  So, yeah, uh, the government is not having it anymore.
• 16:53
  They're coming down hard on these dealerships.
• 16:56
  We'll talk more about that after the break.
• 16:58
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• 19:04
  Do you ever get tired of uh car dealerships ripping you off?
• 19:09
  Well, relief is in sight.
• 19:13
  I never thought I'd be saying these words.
• 19:16
  But the government is coming to the rescue.
• 19:20
  They're cracking down on dealerships that rip off the customer.
• 19:25
  Now think about that phrase for a minute.
• 19:29
  Ripping off the customer, the very people who keep you in business, you're getting ripped off.
• 19:38
  And I can assure you, if you've ever bought a car from a dealership, chances are pretty good that you've been ripped off.
• 19:46
  I was talking before the break, some of the scammy things that they do, like the conditional advertised price.
• 19:55
  They put a price online that includes every possible rebate.
• 20:00
  Military student loyalty first time buyer, they'll even do things like they'll put a price online that's actually the down payment price.
• 20:08
  They do that on used cars all the time.
• 20:11
  They'll put a price, and you're like, wow, that's a really good price.
• 20:16
  I had a dealership do that to me before.
• 20:20
  It was a used dealership.
• 20:23
  And I found a price that actually I looked at the Kelly Blue Book value for the car that I was buying, the used car, and I drove two hours one way to go check this car out.
• 20:36
  I got there, and all of a sudden they were like, oh, it's and it was it wasn't much.
• 20:42
  I mean, I I buy virtually all of my vehicles I've I've ever bought were bought used.
• 20:50
  And like used a lot.
• 20:52
  I just don't care.
• 20:55
  Um I bought this, uh went to buy this car, and I'm gonna say it was like five, five or six thousand.
• 21:04
  You know, it wasn't listed for a whole lot, and it had had a good many miles on it.
• 21:12
  And uh I looked at the Kelly Blue Book value, it was right in the ballpark.
• 21:16
  So I was like, yeah, it looks good, did the car fax on it, it all checked out.
• 21:21
  I was like, cool.
• 21:23
  So I drive two hours and I go in there, and this like let's say it's $5,000 car, all of a sudden it's 9,000.
• 21:34
  And I looked at the salesman and I was like, you gotta be drunk if you think I'm paying that for this vehicle.
• 21:40
  And he started getting testy with me.
• 21:42
  He's like, Well, you didn't tell me that you drove all the way here just to to not buy a vehicle.
• 21:48
  I'm like, I guarantee I did.
• 21:50
  I said, unless you sell it for what you actually advertise it for, I'm out the door.
• 21:55
  I I could care less.
• 21:58
  He's like, Well, you know, let me go talk to my manager and see what I can do, you know, that whole bit, which is a total, it's a total scam.
• 22:06
  So he came back and he was like, Well, we you know, we can my manager said that we can come down a thousand dollars.
• 22:13
  I was like, no deal.
• 22:16
  It's like I don't want it.
• 22:18
  He's like, Yeah, it's it's gonna, it's gonna sell.
• 22:20
  This thing is it's just it's priced right, and look, man, I'm taking a big hit as the car salesman, which is a lie.
• 22:28
  I'm taking a big hit on this, and um, you know, this is my livelihood, like gave me that that whole guilt thing.
• 22:35
  I was like, don't care, not interested.
• 22:38
  Like, maybe you should advertise the right price instead of lying about it.
• 22:44
  And then he tried to explain he went through the whole, well, that was the conditional price that was advertised.
• 22:52
  That's after these rebates, and then he listed all the rebates, and you know, of course, it was the military and student loyalty, first time buyer, all that good stuff.
• 23:03
  I was like, nope, five thousand dollars, or I'm out the door.
• 23:08
  So he goes back, he's like, Oh, talk to my manager.
• 23:10
  This time he's getting like really annoyed because he sees that I'm not budging.
• 23:14
  He comes back out, and he's like, Well, he said he would knock off another thousand.
• 23:18
  He said you can have it for seven thousand.
• 23:23
  Like, nope, not interested.
• 23:25
  I got up, I walked out the door.
• 23:28
  Say, you're wasting my time.
• 23:31
  I just don't know, I don't care.
• 23:33
  Like, don't let people rip you off.
• 23:38
  I know these scammy tricks.
• 23:42
  And what I like, and not all of them are like that.
• 23:44
  I I had a really good experience several years ago, and there was a used car dealership.
• 23:51
  That was another one that was two hours away, and they had the price listed.
• 23:56
  I went in, the guy couldn't have been any cooler.
• 23:59
  Like, he just was super super cool, and let me test drive the car.
• 24:04
  I came back, I loved it.
• 24:05
  I still have it to this day.
• 24:08
  And um, I was like, Yeah, I love it.
• 24:11
  I want to buy it.
• 24:14
  How much are you gonna rip me off?
• 24:16
  He's like, What are you talking about?
• 24:19
  Like, I've gone through the whole bit, you know, you advertise it for this, then you mark it up.
• 24:24
  He goes, Oh no, he's like, What you see is what you get.
• 24:28
  He's like, I don't I don't do markups.
• 24:31
  I'm like, do you negotiate?
• 24:33
  He goes, Nope.
• 24:35
  I was like, cool.
• 24:38
  He said, I'm actually I'm a no-haggle dealer because he's like, I don't, I don't like all those scams, and I don't want it, I don't want people to think that I'm scamming people out of money.
• 24:49
  He's like, it's just not worth the time and the hassle.
• 24:51
  So he's like, I'll take the Kelly Kelly Blue Book value.
• 24:55
  He's like, I actually mark it down just a little bit.
• 24:59
  He's like, it's not much, but I'll mark it down just a little bit from Kelly Blue Book, and that's what the price is, period.
• 25:06
  No tricks, no gimmicks.
• 25:09
  And sure enough, we went through the paperwork, and it was as seamless as possible.
• 25:13
  I told him I actually went on the website and I gave him a good review, and um I I just I praised him.
• 25:20
  I was like, Man, you are the most honest car salesman that I've ever talked to.
• 25:26
  And he said, Isn't that a shame that you have to even stay that like, yeah, it is.
• 25:33
  He said, I I vowed that I would never rip people off.
• 25:38
  So not all of them are that way, but a lot of them are.
• 25:43
  So many of them are.
• 25:50
  Um that's next to the MSRP that'll say something like dealer prep, market adjustment, protection package, and they end up marking it way up.
• 26:04
  They'll mark it up for you know, 500 bucks for nitrogen-filled tires, which is a total scam.
• 26:10
  Don't ever fall for that trick.
• 26:14
  That's a hundred percent scam.
• 26:18
  900 paint protection, it's just a wax job.
• 26:23
  There is no special coding on it, it's literally just wax.
• 26:30
  Then the bait and switch on financing, they advertise the low price, but only if you use the high interest in-house financing, and then the monthly payment.
• 26:40
  How much can you afford?
• 26:42
  You know, though they'll they'll give you this really lousy deal.
• 26:46
  Then they'll be like, Well, how much can you afford a month?
• 26:50
  Well, I can only afford 400 a month.
• 26:53
  Perfect.
• 26:54
  Well, let me go check with my manager.
• 26:57
  We just so happen to be able to extend the loan to 84 months, and that'll actually bring it down to like 397 a month.
• 27:08
  You're like, wow, what a deal.
• 27:09
  Meanwhile, we were paying like eight, nine thousand dollars more for the car that you would have been anyway because of the interest.
• 27:18
  Don't fall for it.
• 27:21
  And then there's a repair shop and service center scams.
• 27:26
  They do the uh what's dubbed the wallet flush.
• 27:31
  Surface advisors recommend transmission coolant power steering flushes well before the manufacturer's recommended intervals.
• 27:42
  So your manual might say 100,000 miles for the first service, and the dealer says, No, that's that's actually 30,000.
• 27:50
  We actually checked with their uh engineers, and they said that it's uh actually 30,000.
• 27:57
  They just didn't update the user manual.
• 27:59
  That's a total lie.
• 28:02
  They're mining your wallet, they're trained to do this.
• 28:07
  So pay close attention to what your service interference intervals actually are and go by the service intervals in the owner's manual.
• 28:18
  And if you can't find it in the owner's manual, then check for it online.
• 28:21
  I'll tell you another one that they do.
• 28:24
  Now they're doing this.
• 28:26
  Um they call it like uh unlimited uh miles or whatever, lifetime.
• 28:34
  That's the word lifetime transmission fluid.
• 28:39
  And you'll say, well, I don't see in my manual what the service interval is for changing my transmission fluid, automatic transmission fluid and filter, emphasize filter.
• 28:52
  And they'll say, well, that's because there is no maintenance schedule because we use lifetime fluid, and therefore we don't recommend that you ever flush it.
• 29:03
  That is 100% a scam coming directly from the car manufacturer itself.
• 29:14
  I've watched plenty of videos on this, what that means by lifetime, and I do say that.
• 29:20
  It it is listed absolutely.
• 29:22
  I have in in my Toyotas, it's called WSF World Standard Fluid.
• 29:32
  It is advertised as a lifetime transmission fluid.
• 29:39
  I just about 10,000 miles ago, changed myself.
• 29:44
  I dropped the pan, I took the pan off on my transmission.
• 29:50
  I drained the fluid, dropped the pan, took the filter off, put a new filter on, put the pan back on with a brand new gasket, refilled it.
• 30:01
  I did the service myself because at the dealership, they say, well, you have lifetime fluids, so you never have to, you never have to change it.
• 30:11
  That is utter nonsense.
• 30:15
  And when I changed it, when I changed the fluid and the filter, it was grimy, it was dirty, it needed change.
• 30:23
  It 100% needed changed.
• 30:26
  And so I make up my own service intervals for that because it's synthetic fluid.
• 30:32
  I come up with my own service intervals based on research that I've done.
• 30:37
  Uh, but they're doing that now with transmissions.
• 30:40
  A transmission, I priced it.
• 30:42
  A transmission for my vehicle, my used vehicle, is about $7,000 to rebuild.
• 30:53
  And so what the dealerships do is they tell you, well, you don't ever have to change it.
• 30:58
  Well, then all of a sudden you have transmission problems, and you will.
• 31:02
  You 100% will.
• 31:03
  If you do not service your automatic transmission, I don't care how nice of a car it is, I don't care.
• 31:09
  Um, I don't care how good you keep up with other maintenance on it, you will be replacing a transmission.
• 31:15
  I promise you that.
• 31:18
  Eventually, you will be replacing a transmission if you never change the fluid and filter.
• 31:25
  So that the the dealerships bank on this.
• 31:30
  And therefore they remove the service interval altogether.
• 31:33
  It's a total scam.
• 31:36
  And all car manufacturers do some version of this.
• 31:41
  All of them.
• 31:43
  All right, then there's the free multi-point inspection.
• 31:47
  That's known as a fishing expedition.
• 31:50
  The technicians are trained to find seeping, not leaking, seeping gaskets, or dirty filters to create a sense of urgency for repairs that could actually wait for years.
• 32:07
  Seepage is perfectly normal to have oil seep, perfectly normal.
• 32:13
  Now a leak is not normal.
• 32:15
  That needs to be addressed immediately.
• 32:18
  The cabin air filter markups.
• 32:21
  They might charge 60 to 100 to change cabin air filters.
• 32:25
  I just replaced one on my new car.
• 32:29
  It was it was time, it was the service interval.
• 32:32
  You know, and I paid less than $15 for that filter.
• 32:36
  It took me 30 seconds.
• 32:39
  The dealership would have charged me about $100 to do a $12 job.
• 32:47
  Uh the brake measure trick.
• 32:49
  They tell you that your brakes are at three millimeters and are dangerous.
• 32:53
  Though even though highlight they'll put it in red, they'll print it off on their little printout, and it'll be red.
• 32:59
  Well, at three millimeters, you still have thousands of miles left on those pads.
• 33:07
  And they mark up the brakes.
• 33:10
  You might have a brake job for $2,000.
• 33:13
  Well, if you take it to a uh a mom and pop mechanic, you can do it for a fraction of the cost.
• 33:20
  A fraction of the cost.
• 33:23
  So all these things have landed dealers in the hot seat.
• 33:28
  2025 and 26, and especially just as much on uh month on March 13th, Friday the 13th, the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC sent warning letters to 97 auto dealership groups nationwide.
• 33:50
  They found that the dealers were advertising prices that didn't include mandatory fees, or they relied on rebates that most customers couldn't get to to set their pricing.
• 34:05
  The FTC explicitly warned that the advertised price must be the total price.
• 34:26
  The state alleged that the dealerships inflated the vehicle prices without customer knowledge and manipulated credit applications to make deals look better to lenders than they actually were.
• 34:39
  This is what we're up against.
• 34:43
  New Jersey.
• 34:45
  An acting attorney general in New Jersey recently obtained a judgment against a dealership for violating a previous 2018 consent order.
• 34:56
  The dealership was caught failing to disclose accurate pricing and selling gray market vehicles that didn't meet U.S.
• 35:04
  safety standards.
• 35:06
  That led to $850,000 in penalties and costs.
• 35:15
  On and on.
• 35:29
  For charging customers an add-on different various add-on products that they never agreed to.
• 35:38
  And for discriminatory pricing practices targeting minority buyers.
• 35:44
  I mean, this you can't make this stuff up.
• 35:49
  We literally keep these people in business.
• 36:06
  Most of them.
• 36:15
  And then they're ripping you off thousands more dollars on top of that.
• 36:22
  And they pocket 100% of it.
• 36:24
  It's not right.
• 36:26
  So I think this is good news for Americans because the government's stepping in and saying, no moss.
• 36:34
  Not gonna keep happening.
• 36:36
  So this is great news for the American people.
• 36:39
  We're coming up on another break here.
• 36:41
  All of our shows, just as a reminder, they do go to podcasts the next day after the broadcasts heard on talk radio.
• 36:48
  You can hear them on Spotify, Stitcher, Pandora, iHeart Podcast, Apple Podcasts, many, many more.
• 36:54
  Be sure you subscribe, rate the show, share it.
• 36:58
  And when we come back, we'll talk more about money going back into our pockets.
• 37:04
  The American people are fed up with getting ripped off.
• 37:09
  Um sit tight, visit AmericaOutloud.news, use the code out loud, and we'll be right back.
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• 38:54
  The Federal Trade Commission is coming down on 97 different auto groups nationwide.
• 39:02
  They're warning them that the prices that they advertise have to be the total price.
• 39:08
  Everything that includes all mandatory fees, literally everything that the customers will be required to pay.
• 39:16
  This is good news for the American people because it's about time that there's some kind of regulation on this.
• 39:28
  But it's been getting worse.
• 39:29
  It's been getting worse and worse.
• 39:30
  And you remember uh Bernie Madoff, you know, Bernie Madoff was like one of the biggest Ponzi scheme scammers of all time.
• 39:42
  And when he was arrested, like people were outraged.
• 39:47
  And celebrating, you know, celebrating the fact that that he got thrown in prison and they locked him up and threw away the key.
• 39:55
  Well, why is this not the same standard for?
• 40:00
  Something that every American has to have.
• 40:03
  I mean, unless you're Amish.
• 40:05
  Like I'm kind of joking a little bit here, but honestly, unless you're Amish or living on some compound somewhere, or you can't drive or whatever, uh, virtually every American has to have a car.
• 40:22
  We have to have them to get to and from work, to transport our kids around to work.
• 40:30
  Think of how many jobs require people.
• 40:32
  I mean, virtually every job in some capacity requires us to have transportation.
• 40:39
  And so we have millions upon millions, hundreds of millions of vehicles that are being sold.
• 40:47
  And imagine that most of the major auto groups nationwide are scamming us.
• 40:55
  Like at some point, the American people have to draw a line in the stand and just be like, you know what?
• 41:02
  Enough is enough.
• 41:04
  And that's why I don't, I don't want to uh talk a dead horse into the ground or anything, but I have only bought one brand new vehicle in my life, and that was during COVID prices when the used cars were absolutely insane.
• 41:20
  And I paid that car off very quickly.
• 41:25
  My wife and I do not like having debt.
• 41:27
  We don't like giving any more money to dealerships or finance groups or whatever than is necessary.
• 41:33
  So we paid it off very aggressively.
• 41:36
  Plus, we just don't like having debt.
• 41:40
  Um we did the same thing with our house.
• 41:42
  We do, you know, we we do not like debt, but that's a different conversation for a different day.
• 41:50
  Uh the point is that we buy used vehicles happily, and I think there's going to be a shift to where Americans stop buying new be new vehicles, whether it's out of necessity because some of the major auto groups are, I think they're gonna go bankrupt.
• 42:11
  I think General Motors and Ford, I I really think they've painted themselves into a corner.
• 42:17
  I just don't see how they're gonna get out of it.
• 42:21
  Now I could be wrong, maybe, you know, maybe they'll find some way to get bailed out by somebody by big banks or government or somebody, but I don't know.
• 42:32
  I think they're in big trouble, and I I say let them fail.
• 42:36
  Let them absolutely fall to their knees and crawl back to the American people and beg for forgiveness.
• 42:45
  That's what I think ought to happen.
• 42:49
  And it's because the quality of their vehicles has gone downhill so rapidly.
• 42:57
  And then on top of that, their dealerships are ripping people off.
• 43:01
  So you're getting ripped off literally every single corner for very expensive vehicles.
• 43:12
  Imagine if you move into a house that's not livable, a brand new house.
• 43:18
  Imagine getting all the permits, you do everything right, uh, literally everything from start to finish.
• 43:24
  You you do it right, only to find out that the contractors cut every single possible corner that they could.
• 43:30
  That actually happened to my mother.
• 43:34
  And uh she had an addition to her house that was built, it didn't last 20 years, and just I think it was two or three years ago, she finally had it completely demolished and everything hauled off and taken away.
• 43:55
  And uh it was the saddest thing.
• 43:58
  It was an all-glass room, and the contractors had lied about their experience.
• 44:05
  And oh, yeah, yeah, we we have experience with glass rooms, and this is this is a super easy build.
• 44:11
  They built the room and it was gorgeous.
• 44:14
  I mean, absolutely stunning.
• 44:17
  It literally was our favorite room.
• 44:19
  We just loved hanging out.
• 44:21
  We called it the big room.
• 44:23
  We loved hanging out in it.
• 44:25
  Well, it turned out that it was rebuilt twice.
• 44:30
  The floor was rebuilt, the walls are rebuilt.
• 44:34
  She got ripped off too on an electrician who she knew really well.
• 44:40
  And he had ripped out all the wiring, every last inch of it, and said, Yeah, you have to rewire the whole room, charged her thousands of dollars.
• 44:50
  We had another electrician that came back, and he was like, Why would he rewire the room?
• 44:58
  Like when there's water damage, there was a little bit of water damage down at the floor at the time.
• 45:05
  Little did we know there was a bigger problem going on, but anyway, uh, another electrician was like, he didn't have to replace the thing.
• 45:11
  There was absolutely nothing wrong with the wiring.
• 45:16
  So here he made off with thousands of dollars for this big job that he created that never needed done in the first place.
• 45:28
  So the room, what happened was they they they built it completely wrong, just from top to bottom.
• 45:36
  Everything was wrong, and it wicked in water up the walls.
• 45:41
  We tore out um the what happened was the floor finally collapsed.
• 45:45
  It just literally collapsed.
• 45:47
  We're like, wait, what?
• 45:50
  So my brothers and I started ripping drywall off, and behind a drywall, there was no wall, there were no studs.
• 45:58
  They were they had literally turned to dirt.
• 46:03
  I'm not exaggerating.
• 46:04
  I have pictures, it's unbelievable.
• 46:06
  I had never seen anything like it.
• 46:09
  And we're like, well, this is a hazard.
• 46:14
  This whole room is gonna come crumbling down, all these big heavy glass panes.
• 46:19
  I mean, the entire room was glass.
• 46:23
  So it just it was built wrong, and she couldn't file an insurance claim because it was faulty construction.
• 46:32
  So it was a major made.
• 46:35
  I mean, the amount of money I can't even begin to tell you the amount of money that was lost all down the drain because of a crappy lousy, miserable, deadbeat contractor, who built it wrong, didn't care, slapped it together, walked off, and he made off with all of her money, and she's left with absolutely nothing.
• 47:02
  There's like we literally had the entire foundation ripped out and everything, like there, it's just grass, there's grass where this room used to be.
• 47:12
  So imagine having that, that was an addition, but imagine having a house where that's the case.
• 47:18
  Where you build a brand new house, it doesn't last 20 years, and the house is junk, and and you're on the hook for it.
• 47:27
  Well, that's what's happening with cars, and people are getting ripped off at every single solitary corner.
• 47:36
  So the FTC finally finally came back.
• 47:39
  And I'm not gonna praise the government here very much because they they should have done this years ago.
• 47:47
  But listen to this quote here.
• 47:50
  This is on FTC, Federal Trade Commission.gov.
• 47:55
  The Trump Vance FTC is committed to preventing auto dealers from misleading consumers with low advertised prices, and then adding on mandatory fees at the end of the purchasing product uh process, said Christopher Christopher uh uh Mufferage.
• 48:16
  I don't know how you pronounce his name, Mufferage, maybe director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.
• 48:23
  The FTC will remain focused on monitoring auto dealerships to ensure that the market functions efficiently and competitors are transparently competing on price.
• 48:37
  Good idea.
• 48:39
  It's about time.
• 48:42
  The letters are part of the FTC's ongoing work to ensure price transparency across multiple markets, including rental housing, ticketing and hotels, grocery and delivery services, and auto sales and leasing to help support affordability in the marketplace.
• 49:04
  The agency is dedicated to ensuring that consumers only pay the advertised price for products and services and are not subject to undisclosed fees, hidden charges, or other illegal conduct.
• 49:18
  You know who did that for the longest time is Comcast.
• 49:21
  They got busted for doing that.
• 49:24
  I call them Concast because they're a bunch of cons.
• 49:30
  And I have Concast because they're the only con uh internet provider in my area.
• 49:39
  But they were doing that left and I mean they were jacking our bills up like insane, and they'd have all these hidden costs on it.
• 49:46
  Well, they finally got busted for it.
• 49:50
  I think it was the FTC that busted Concast.
• 49:53
  And then they had to uh they had to do like a price transparency.
• 49:58
  They lost, oh man, they lost a ton.
• 50:00
  Of money.
• 50:01
  So many customers left.
• 50:03
  And they still kept doing it.
• 50:04
  In fact, they did it worst.
• 50:07
  And that's part of the problem.
• 50:08
  Like you would think that losing customers would be a big deal to people, but no, they're like, oh, we'll just rip off the remaining.
• 50:14
  It's kind of what Mandoni is doing in uh New York.
• 50:19
  He just made an announcement.
• 50:20
  He's like, well, very clearly, the, you know, the middle class is leaving New York City.
• 50:27
  So that just makes a stronger case that we need to tax the rich even more.
• 50:31
  I'm like, what are you out of your ever loving mind?
• 50:37
  Like the people of New York, the residents are.
• 50:41
  They're your people.
• 50:42
  They're your customers.
• 50:46
  Residents.
• 50:47
  Employers, employees.
• 50:50
  Ah, we're going to put the screws to them.
• 50:53
  We're going to make life even harder.
• 50:55
  Anyone that has money, we're just going to pound them into the ground.
• 50:58
  Like, wait, what?
• 51:01
  Like, this is the mentality.
• 51:04
  And it's happening all over the place.
• 51:06
  There's so many businesses that do this.
• 51:09
  And politicians and everyone else.
• 51:13
  I mean, it is crazy what's going on.
• 51:15
  So, yeah, the FTC, they're they're like, uh, nope, time for accountability.
• 51:20
  I just found out there's a federal branch, and I'm not going to say anything because I um kind of have a vested interest in this right at the moment.
• 51:30
  But there is a federal agency that just got hit with the largest number of claims ever in their history because of fraud.
• 51:45
  They were ripping people off.
• 51:49
  And it's it's well, I can say this.
• 51:51
  It's a branch of the DOJ.
• 51:54
  2025 was their most expensive year in payouts.
• 52:02
  Because they're ripping people off.
• 52:06
  So the Office of Inspector General.
• 52:11
  Um, they're coming down hard on these different agencies.
• 52:17
  They're doing audits and investigations, and like it's crazy what's going on.
• 52:22
  So anyway, uh, you know, I'm I'm kind of encouraged by this because this is uh Trump's like, right?
• 52:32
  He's in office.
• 52:33
  This is kind of his thing.
• 52:36
  He said he was going to get rid of waste and abuse, and it appears that that's happening.
• 52:43
  It's happening all over the place, but this is good for the American people.
• 52:46
  I I promise you, this is good for the American people.
• 52:50
  This has been going on for way too long.
• 52:54
  I mean, for decades, this has been going on.
• 52:57
  And nobody has ever stood up to them.
• 53:01
  So here, going on, this is again FTC.gov, the Federal Trade Commission.
• 53:07
  The letters the FTC sent to the auto dealers cite several examples of illegal pricing practices in the auto industry, including number one, advertising a price that does not reflect all required fees.
• 53:22
  Number two, advertising a price that reflects rebates or discounts not available to all customers.
• 53:29
  Number three, advertising a price that fails to take into account the amount of an additional required down payment.
• 53:37
  Number four, conditioning the advertised price on consumers using dealer financing.
• 53:45
  Number five, requiring consumers to buy additional items not reflected in the advertised price.
• 53:53
  And number six, advertising unavailable or non-existent vehicles.
• 54:00
  Crazy.
• 54:01
  Crazy crazy.
• 54:03
  So they get people into the dealerships.
• 54:06
  The vehicles are either unavailable or don't even exist.
• 54:10
  And they're advertising them.
• 54:13
  They got them through the door, and then they're like, oh, well, we don't have that vehicle.
• 54:18
  Let me show you another one.
• 54:21
  And they just put pressure on people and pressure them into buying a vehicle.
• 54:24
  It's a scammy way to get them through the door.
• 54:27
  So yeah, this is crazy, man.
• 54:29
  Absolutely crazy.
• 54:31
  So the FTC is having none of it.
• 54:33
  They're coming down hard on them.
• 54:36
  Here's a Fox News article as well.
• 54:39
  Car dealerships warned by FTC about deceptive pricing practices, hidden fees.
• 54:46
  It's essentially the same thing that I just read straight off of the Federal Trade Commission's website.
• 54:53
  So yeah, what a bunch of con artists, and uh it's just a shame.
• 54:58
  It's a shame when you're spending $50,000 on average, oftentimes a lot more than that.
• 55:05
  And uh they're they're just ripping you off.
• 55:07
  It's not cool, not cool at all.
• 55:10
  So the great news is that the FTC is at least doing something about this kind of a ripoff.
• 55:19
  Uh I'm gonna I'm gonna end by saying who all kind of a couple anyway who are targeted.
• 55:26
  The letters also note several pending actions the FTC has brought against uh to address deceptive pricing practices in the auto industry, including cases against Lindsay Chevrolet, leader automotive group, and Asbury Automotive Group.
• 55:46
  Uh it's too bad.
• 55:48
  It's a shame.
• 55:49
  Like I said, let them fail.
• 55:52
  I'm gonna chant that.
• 55:53
  Let them fail.
• 55:54
  Let them fail.
• 55:55
  They need to fail.
• 55:57
  They need to stop ripping the American people off.
• 56:00
  We all work way too hard for our money to be ripped off on such expensive ridiculous vehicles that fall apart anyway.
• 56:10
  Uh let these businesses fail.
• 56:13
  We don't need to feel sorry for them.
• 56:15
  We don't need to say, oh, what a shame.
• 56:18
  Let them fail.
• 56:20
  And America will start rebuilding its its auto industry.
• 56:24
  Uh, but it's it's it's gonna be some hard years, I have a feeling, but things are getting better.
• 56:31
  That's the hidden lightness.
• 56:32
  You can find we're out about my show and get all the latest podcasts if you go to the menu navigation bar at America Outloud.news under our show's worst schedule.
• 56:39
  You'll be in the know.
• 56:40
  There's a hidden lightness that shines inside of all of us.
• 56:43
  When there's so much darkness that envelops the world, remember that it doesn't take much light to expose that darkness and to ultimately inspire other people.
• 56:50
  Join me in being a light.