WASHINGTON, D.C. — West Virginia-based Ramey Motors Inc. has agreed to pay an $80,000 civil penalty to settle a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit filed last year. The FTC charged the dealership with violating the terms of a 2012 consent order that barred it from deceptively advertising the cost of buying or leasing cars.

The civil penalty settlement resolves charges that Ramey Motors’ ads violated the consent order by concealing important terms of sale and lease offers, such as a required down payment, and failing to make credit disclosures clearly and conspicuously, as required by federal law.

In 2012, Ramey Motors was among five dealerships required to stop running ads that promised to pay off a consumer trade-in no matter what the customer owed on the vehicle. Two years later, the FTC found that Ramey Motors and three of its affiliated dealerships located in Virginia and West Virginia were charged with failing to make credit disclosures clearly and conspicuously, among other violations.

The FTC determined at the time that Ramey Motors was subject to $16,000 in civil penalties for each alleged violation of the FTC administrative order.

 

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