Checks are on the way to more than 18,000 consumers of a Washington D.C.-area auto dealer charged with adding illegal junk fees to car prices and discrimination. The Federal Trade Commission made the announcement on May 16th. The payments will total more than $3.3 million and they're being sent to customers of Passport Auto. Last October, the FTC charged Passport with adding hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars in illegal junk fees to car prices and for discriminating against Black and Latino consumers by charging them higher fees and financing costs.
The FTC says check recipients should cash them within 90 days - as indicated on the check. If you have questions you can contact the refund administrator, Epiq, at 1-877-701-3692. You can also visit the FTC website to view frequently asked questions about the refund process. Note, the FTC says it never requires people to pay money or provide account info to get a refund.
The FTC says its suit against Passport Auto, its president, Everett Hellmuth, and its vice president, Jay Klein, charged that the defendants’ junk fees caused consumers to pay more than the advertised price or lose any discounts they had negotiated. Passport, based in Maryland, owns car dealerships around the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.
Read the FTC's press release here.
Interested in looking at refund data in FTC cases? You can check out the Commission’s interactive dashboards for a state-by-state breakdown of refunds in FTC cases. Last year alone, the Commission says its actions led to more than $392 million in refunds to consumers across the country.
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