CarMax has agreed to pay $1.1 million to settle a consumer protection lawsuit prosecuted by multiple district attorneys\u2019 offices, including Los Angeles County, alleging the company failed to timely transfer ownership of used vehicles to buyers, it was announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The case, brought by prosecutors in Los Angeles, Santa Clara, San Francisco, Ventura, Sonoma and Riverside counties, alleged that since 2019 the company repeatedly failed to submit required registration and title transfer documents to the California Department of Motor Vehicles within mandated deadlines.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis judgment sends the clear message that car dealerships must follow California law or pay the price,\u201d Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said in a statement. \u201cConsumers who buy a used car rightfully expect the dealership to comply with California law and transfer registration and ownership on time.\u201d<\/p>\n
CarMax said it resolved the matter without admitting wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe timeframe covered by this matter includes periods during the COVID-19 pandemic, when vehicle title processing was impacted industrywide by disruptions, including DMV closures and process changes, third party processing backlogs, and reduced staffing, which were outside of CarMax\u2019s control,\u201d the company said in a statement to City News Service. \u201cDuring and since that time, we have strengthened our systems, processes, and oversight to better support timely title delivery, and we remain focused on continuously improving the systems and processes that support our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the settlement, approved Tuesday by a Santa Clara County judge, CarMax must implement new compliance measures, including ensuring it has proper documentation before selling vehicles and sufficient staff to process registration paperwork.<\/p>\n
The company will pay $900,000 in civil penalties, $150,000 in investigative costs and $50,000 in restitution, according to Hochman.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors alleged CarMax delayed transferring ownership in thousands of cases, leaving buyers without timely legal title to their vehicles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CarMax has agreed to pay $1.1 million to settle a consumer protection lawsuit prosecuted by multiple district attorneys\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[106737,106738,1436,23990,53258,48,52,51,47,50,49,8189,105572,106739],"class_list":["post-236401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-1-1","tag-carmax","tag-case","tag-das","tag-including","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-million","tag-multiple","tag-prosecuted"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}