“There is no choice but for them to improve. They have to find a way to meet customer expectations.” Those are the words uttered by Steve Center, Chief Operating Officer of Kia America, at this year’s L.A. Auto Show in response to questions about the brand scoring dead last in a sales satisfaction survey about its dealerships.
Well, it seems Dan O’Brien Kia of New Hampshire either didn’t get the memo or is hell-bent on becoming the poster child for Center’s ire. After all, being told to pay $1.25 million in a deceptive practices settlement are unlikely to ingratiate the place to their brand’s COO.
As reported by Automotive News [ ]link], Dan O’Brien Kia must pay that sum to their state’s attorney general in order to resolve allegations of unfair and deceptive practices. Apparently, the bureau found dealership employees “persuaded consumers into purchasing vehicles they could not afford using deceptive sales practices; falsely inflated consumer income information on loan applications; and forged the signature of a customer on loan paperwork.” Fun stuff.
It gets worse. The AG says dealership staff at Dan O’Brien Kia roped customers with poor credit scores into some sort of rehab program which was purported to rebuild one’s financial status so long as they kept up payments for the first six months of the note. However, the AG details this as nothing more than some sort of sales pitch that had no affiliation with a bank, despite suggestions made to the contrary during vehicle negotiations.
Beyond the financial restitution, the New Hampshire Department of Justice also set out a number of terms by which the Dan O’Brien Kia must abide. They include fun activities like hiring an independent compliance monitor for five years to review and report on its business practices plus recording audio and video of financing discussions between employees and customers.
That last decree is sure to frighten the tar out of finance clerks at Dan O’Brien Kia - at least between sessions of posting pics of their fake Rolex on social media, ignoring cash deals on their desk, and ruining the salesperson’s chance of getting a perfect CSI score on the survey.
Automotive News also states the Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau was investigating Dan O'Brien Kia Concord based on a high volume of consumer complaints filed between 2019 and 2021. Good times.
[Images: YouTube]
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via Autobuzz Today
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