Car dealer pays $1.4 million after hurting customers’ credit ratings, security clearances
The owner of a Jacksonville Chevrolet dealership paid $1.2 million in restitution and will pay a $235,000 civil penalty after not paying off outstanding liens on customers’ trade-ins.
And Andrew Ferguson, Jr., former owner of Riverside Chevrolet, can no longer own, operate or manage an car or truck dealership in Florida.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office announced the consent judgment and permanent injunction Monday morning with the kickoff of the #SteerClearOfFraudOAG campaign, a week of warning Floridians about automotive fraud in its many forms.
According to court documents, consumers complains to the attorney general’s office started an investigation. That state discovered that Riverside Chevrolet began suffering business losses and cash shortages in 2017. Light on cash, Riverside began to bounce checks, skip paying some employees and got $400,000 behind in paying state sales tax, the complaint filed by the AG’s office said.
That’s in addition to not paying the liens within the required 10 days of trade-in and not transferring titles. From August 2017 through April 2018, Riverside piled up $1.2 million in unpaid liens on cars traded in by 71 customers.
“First, the lienholder would continue to hold the consumer accountable for the debt and would invoice or bill the consumer accordingly,” the complaint said. “If the consumer did not continue to make payments on the traded-in vehicle (which the consumer no longer owned), the lienholder often reported the default to credit bureaus, thereby adversely affecting the consumer’s credit.
“In some instances involving armed forces service members who held security clearances, the adverse credit reporting affected the service member’s security clearance.”
Beaver Chevrolet took over Riverside Chevrolet’s operation in May 2018, then bought all Riverside’s assets in August 2018. Beaver paid the outstanding liens and took the $1,215,219.03 off the asset purchase price from Riverside.
As for a civil penalty, Riverside is being fined $235,000 or about $3,309.86 for each of the 71 violations, 18 of which happened against senior citizens Riverside is also being charged $15,000 for the attorney general’s office’s attorney’s fees and costs.
Florida corporate records show that Andrew Ferguson, Jr., of Monteverde, who owned Riverside, is now the manager for Silver Lining Marine LLC.
