The Federal Trade Commission said it has settled complaints that alleged some of the largest used-car dealers in the United States were selling vehicles with open safety recalls, even while advertising that all of the cars and trucks had gone through rigorous inspections.
Under the agreement, CarMax, West-Herr Automotive Group of New York, and Asbury Automotive Group of Georgia are ?prohibited from claiming that their used vehicles are safe, have been repaired for safety issues, or have been subject to an inspection for safety-related issues, unless they are free of open recalls,? the FTC said Friday.
The dealers are also required to ?conspicuously disclose? if vehicles are subject to safety recalls that have not been addressed and to tell consumers how to know whether a car or truck is subject to such a recall. The settlement follows three separate FTC complaints, one against each dealer group, alleging that the companies were violating the Federal Trade Commission Act by advertising that vehicles had undergone thorough inspections without revealing the cars still had open safety recalls. As an example, an FTC complaint points to a CarMax television spot that feigned sympathy for a used vehicle that had just been subjected to the dealership’s 125-point inspection.
?To the car that just survived hours of reconditioning, sorry, we know that was a bit invasive. But if we didn?t hoist you up in the air and poke around a little, we wouldn?t be CarMax. We expect a lot fro...