There are all sorts of car showrooms for people on the market for a new ride. Many of these dealerships cater to people who have low credit scores. In many cases, these are buy here, pay here dealerships. Sadly, one dealership network is coming under fire after one of its Georgia locations wrongfully disabled thousands of vehicles despite the customers having paid their car notes. 

Some car showrooms can disable cars due to customers failing to pay car notes

According to CarScoops, US Auto Sales, based in Georgia, has a judgment against it for illegal practices toward customers. As other car showrooms do, this one was known for disabling vehicles for those who didn’t pay their car notes. The problem is that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says this network of dealers did so about 5,200 to drivers who were up to date on payments. That’s not all. There were also 1,500 instances of them shutting off cars after promising customers they would not. 

This network of car showrooms admitted to more instances of disabling vehicles. In total, representatives for the dealership said they did so about 7,500 times. A collections manager said, “I can recall numerous customers telling me that they were stuck at Walmart or couldn’t pick up their kids because their car was improperly disabled.”

The lawsuit against this network of car showrooms doesn’t end at disabled vehicles. They sent out 71,000 “false warnings” to customers. From the sound of it, their notification system had a glitch that the company felt would be too expensive to fix. Additionally, the company is accused of double billing customers. This illegal activity led to a $46 million judgment against the company in November. Sadly, it had shit down by that time, which means impacted car owners may never be paid back. 

Check out this recent article on buy here, pay here dealerships and why many think they aren’t the best option.