In the state of Georgia, as in the rest of the United States, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) serves as a crucial safeguard for both consumers and creditors. Because used car dealers sometimes collect payments from their customers [...]
Check out the video below for a discussion on Electronic Title Registration Fees. In this video, I talk about how much a dealer can charge a customer and what it can cover. Don't overcharge for ETR or you might face serious [...]
My wife and I went to a franchise dealer to look at a vehicle we wanted to purchase. The advertised price was within our budget, but when we sat down to hash everything out, the dealer tacked on an arbitrary "dealer fee" to the advertised price. [...]
If you run credit, you have additional requirements (lucky you). One of those is to notify a customer if they have been turned down and why. Watch this video for more info. Below is a transcript of the video: For those [...]
The Fair Business Practices Act was established to protect consumers from predatory business practices and give businesses an ethical framework to follow. As with any statute, consequences for violating it result in penalties. And let me tell you, [...]
If the Secretary of State opens up a Fair Business Practices Act violation against you, you will likely receive a Notice of Investigative Demand in the mail. In this video, we discuss what that is and how to handle it. Below is a [...]
The elephant in the room - The Fair Business Practices Act. This may be the most important video in the entire program - about 5 minutes devoted to the Georgia Fair Business Practices Act. Did you know that an as-is sale doesn’t get you out of [...]
What can the government do? Investigate and penalize. One of the last things you may think about when running your business, and likely your biggest surprise, is receiving a notice of investigation from the government. The State and Federal [...]
WOAH! That’s a lot of government authorities! In this video, we discuss the most common government entities that you may see or run into in operating a motor vehicle business. Those include federal entities like the FTC and the CFPB and State [...]
Lot locations - a case study. Zoning issues arise regularly in the dealership world. In this video, we use a real example of a dealership zoning case handled by Lefkoff Law to explain some of the issues that may arise in zoning and land use for [...]
