Law Office of Dana L. Manner, PL - Miami, Florida
Consumer Advocate Attorney - (305) 285-9495

February 7, 2013 USA Today “Confident Consumer” reporter Jayne O’Donnell published an article on Yo-Yo car financing entitled “Don’t Take Car Until Loan is Final” (pdf copy of article). The article highlights many of the problems surrounding spot-delivery of cars to consumers (i.e. cars are delivered “on the spot” with a promise from the dealer [...]

On February 5, 2013 – County Court Judge Sharon Zeller entered an order denying Wow Auto Deals, LLC Motion to Compel Arbitration in a case where a Pembroke Pines, Florida car buyer complained that Wow Auto Deals fraudulently sold them a car with defective or missing airbags. In response to the complaint filed in Broward County by Dana L. Manner, [...]

Portions of this post were originally published in the Florida Bar Journal November, 2012 Volume 86, No. 9, “Lender Liability for Merchant Misconduct in Consumer Transactions” and are excerpted here with the permission and generosity of the author Ian Forsythe of Hilyard, Bogan & Palmer, P.A. Example: Car buyer purchases a vehicle from a motor vehicle dealer, and finances the [...]

After a year-long investigation into auto fraud by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, 9 suspects (including a Miami Beach police officer) were arrested last month on September 7, 2012   related to a scheme to defraud Miami-area car dealers, for nearly a half-million dollars. George Robert Navarro, 26, a Miami Beach police officer, was charged [...]

Car buyer Garrietta Vereen sued dealer Lou Sobh Automotive of JAX Inc. d/b/a Honda of the Avenues in Jacksonville, alleging that the dealer violated the Truth in Lending and Equal Credit Opportunity acts, Uniform Commercial Code and the state’s retail sales financing law, in a spot delivery case. Buyer also alleged that the dealer violated Florida’s [...]

A recent research report published by the Center for Responsible Lending entitled “Deal or No Deal: How Yo-Yo Scams Rig the Game against Car Buyers” examines the yo-yo scam used by car dealers.   “In the yo-yo scam, the dealer allows the customer to leave the lot on a spot delivery but pulls the consumer [...]

The Federal Trade Commission recently released an FTC Consumer Alert entitled “Ads for Auto Loan Modifications: You May Be Able to Drive a Better Deal with Your Lender“ There have been several companies advertising on TV and the internet promising car loan modifications, like mortgage loan modifications, and the FTC has filed lawsuits against several [...]

The maximum amount of interest, or the highest interest rate (APR) allowed by law in Florida on used car loans is governed by Florida Statutes 520.08 – “Finance charge limitation.” The statute provides for a sliding-scale of increasing interest rates allowed, depending on the age of the car at the time that it is sold or [...]

Florida Senate Bill (SB 1660) entitled “Contracts for the Sale or Lease of a Motor Vehicle” died in the Transportation Committee on March 3, 2012 leaving the Florida Automobile Dealers Association (FADA) who introduced the bill to ask themselves: ”Where Do We Go From Here?“ In the 2012 session of the Florida legislature, FADA introduced a [...]

Washington, D.C. – U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle ruled in her opinion that car dealers that charge high interest rates to buyers based upon negative credit information in their credit report, must give notice to the buyers under Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA). The practice of offering higher rate loans to [...]