June 2019
2019 RUTH HART-STEPHENS & BOB BEATTIE GOLF TOURNAMENT
The 4th Annual Ruth Hart-Stephens & Bob Beattie Golf Tournament was another huge success this year! We’d like to send a big thank you to our participating UCDA Members, Sponsors and UCDA staff who are always there bright and early to make sure registration runs smoothly. A very special thank you also goes out to Shannon Newman of Cox Automotive for her tremendous organizational skills and to the staff from Cox Automotive and Manheim who were there to assist her.
UCDA Member Service providers generously stepped up to sponsor our tournament, so much so that every sponsorship available was completely sold out! Desjardins was once again our Title Sponsor, NAPA was our power cart sponsor and donated their player spots as a Manheim Auction draw prize. Baird MacGregor Insurance Brokers were once again the sponsor of the Post Golf Reception, where drinks and hors d’oeuvres were enjoyed by all.
So, a big thank you to all of our new and returning sponsors – we couldn’t have done it without you:
The primary focus of this fundraiser is always the Bob Beattie and Ruth Hart-Stephens Scholarship Awards at the Automotive Business School of Canada. The successful applicants will receive their scholarships in September.
Anti-Spam Update
2019 has seen a number of Canadian dealers receive citations from the CRTC under Telemarketing Rules (Part 3, Section 3, https://tinyurl.com/y5d2lw6q) for breaches of the National “do not call registry” system. A citation identifies alleged violations and sets out the specific corrective action to be taken within a certain time frame. The names of individuals and organizations that receive citations are published on the CRTC’s website: https://tinyurl.com/y3se28wz
This should serve as a timely reminder about rules restricting how businesses may contact consumers to promote their products.
The CRTC also polices anti-spam communications, and it’s not just businesses that need to be concerned. It is also the officers and directors of the companies behind those communications.
In April, the first decision by the CRTC came down levelling a fine of $100,000 against an individual for off-side communications by a corporation he owned or controlled (the maximum fine is one million dollars).
The CRTC issued the fine, under the Canadian AntiSpam Legislation (CASL), against Brian Conley, the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of a group of businesses known as the “nCrowd” companies.
The business activities of these companies involved promoting the products and services of merchants on various websites, including by the sale of electronic vouchers for these products and services.
In this case, the companies sending the messages quickly dissolved or otherwise ended, so the CRTC decided that any enforcement actions directed towards these companies would have no deterrent effect. As a result, the CRTC pursued the corporate directors through vicarious liability in order to encourage future compliance with CASL.
The CRTC investigation lead to Decision 2019-111, which found that between September 25, 2014, and May 1, 2015, nCrowd, Inc. sent Commercial Electronic Messages (CEMs), or caused or permitted any of its subsidiaries to send CEMs, to electronic addresses without consent, and without a functioning unsubscribe mechanism, contrary to CASL. The CRTC found that Brian Conley acquiesced in these violations, while he was the president and CEO of the nCrowd companies.
A dealer-focused Preparedness Guide has been designed for more information on anti-spam laws:
This document is used with the kind permission of SCI MarketView, NortonRose and Canadian Auto Dealer. More information on all of this available from SCI at https://tinyurl.com/ya85zefd or call 888.919.8084.
The CRTC is tasked with enforcing CASL and also has a useful website with more information at https://tinyurl.com/obb5tr7.
Why Keep It Secret?
As our readers know, the number one reason consumers call us for mediation help is to request cancellation of their purchase. Unfortunately, customers often change their minds after signing the “sales final” bill of sale or lease agreement and then want help getting their deposit back from the dealer.
As members also know, UCDA bills of sale and leases are designed to address this with clauses and protections for both dealers and consumers contained within the contract.
For example on the front of all UCDA New and Used Vehicle Bills of Sale the words “SALES FINAL” are written. On the back, is Clause #4, ACCEPTANCE BY PURCHASER, a blueprint for how to proceed with deposits in these cases. On the UCDA lease, the Clause is #17.
More and more often, we are finding that customers who call us do not actually have a copy of their contract in their hands. Why? It seems some dealers will not provide a copy of the signed contract until the day of delivery which may not come for days or even weeks after it is signed. This is not a good practice and does not help the dealer.
When we try to help the customer read the various provisions that apply to their question, they have nothing to refer to and we have to suggest they call the dealer to get a copy of the front and back of their contract. Not only is this a nuisance, but it can also jeopardize the deal.
Without a contract dealers have no legal protection, so why wouldn’t a dealer want the customer to have that important bill of sale or lease from the moment the deal is struck?
There’s another good reason.
It’s the law! The Motor Vehicle Dealers Act requires that the purchaser or lessee be given a copy of the contract “immediately after signing it”.
Why risk having a customer or a court challenge the legality of a binding contract where you did everything right except the easy part – sliding a piece of paper across the table to the customer?
How Secure is Your DMS?
A story reported on by U.S. media, concerns a DMS (Dealer Management Service) provider out of Ohio who failed to properly protect consumer data stored by 130 or so dealers using their platform.
The result was a catastrophe in terms of a privacy breach, allowing upwards of 12.5 million consumers’ personal information to be accessed by hackers in 2016.
Needless to say the fallout for the company since has been severe, but what about the dealers … and their customers? Only time will tell where, when or if that data might land.
Meanwhile the DMS has settled issues with the Federal Trade Commission.
What safeguards does your DMS have in place? How secure is your DMS?
If you don’t know the answers to these questions … ask your DMS.
Misleading Advertising And The Competition Tribunal
Our readers may recall we previously reported on a Competition Tribunal case against the Hudson’s Bay Department Store (HBC).
It was alleged that HBC engaged in deceptive marketing by offering sleep sets at grossly inflated prices (prices so high no one ever, or hardly ever, will buy them at that price point) then drastically lowering the price to actually sell them at a more normal market price, while claiming huge resulting savings in their advertising to consumers.
It was also alleged that HBC falsely advertised “clearance” or “end of line” sleep sets, implying in the minds of the public that these are inventory priced to move while, during these periods, HBC continued to order new sleep sets to meet the demand.
As is not uncommon in such matters, the whole affair has been settled by way of a “consent agreement” in which HBC does not admit the allegations, but agrees to a series of corporate improvements and fines.
HBC will update its advertising practices and pay a fine of $4 million, plus $500,000 in costs, to the Competition
Bureau! This took over two years to resolve and you can only imagine the legal bills for both sides had to have been massive.
You can read the whole decision here: https://tinyurl.com/y47cgulf
The take away message for dealers?
Take these allegations and substitute cars or trucks for “sleep sets”.
If dealers did the things alleged here, they could face similar action by the Competition Bureau. When you think about it, you can see why it matters.
How could there ever be a level playing field between vendors or confidence in the public perception of any industry that engaged in false advertising such as was alleged in this case?
Indeed that is why OMVIC’s Standards of Business Practice, https://tinyurl.com/y6y4mrrz, which have been in place now for almost two decades, specifically contains sections to prevent:
1. Misleading price advertising; and
2. Language that falsely suggests inventory “must go”, “fire sale” pricing, “last chance” and that kind of thing … if untrue.
Some of this is common sense really, but it bears repeating, and keep in mind, it’s not just OMVIC that’s watching!
Appraisals – Clarification
In our last issue we mentioned that dealers are able to appraise used vehicles for tax value on private transactions.
The Ontario Government will accept a dealer’s appraisal of value to apply provincial sales tax at a licence office when private sellers and buyers are doing a deal.
As a point of clarification, and as the form itself makes clear, this service can only be performed by General (Retail) dealers, not, for example, Wholesale dealers.
Thank you to the alert readers who pointed this out to us.
An “Other” Identification Card
We have written many times about the “Certificate of Indian Status” card, issued by the Government of Canada, which is the only form of identification acceptable to exempt a Status Indian from taxes on a vehicle sale or lease. This is what the card looks like https://tinyurl.com/y3yjaj6f
Métis and other such Aboriginal ID, membership or association cards are not issued by the Government of Canada and do not exempt the holder from paying HST.
Recently, a new card has come to our attention. It is not being offered by a First Nations person, or a Métis, Inuit or other Indigenous person, but rather a card whose origins might be best described as quasi-religious in origin.
On at least two occasions, the holder of this card has tried to convince dealers that this card entitles them to a tax exemption on the purchase of a vehicle. It doesn’t, for the same reasons other cards that are not a Certificate of Status Indian Card issued by the Canadian Government do not qualify.
The card styles itself as “Allodial American National Identification” and as you can see, it is quite ornate, colourful and full of information, none of which has any relevance at all to the tax payable. We have removed the picture, name and address of the user of this card.
Be aware, if a dealer does not properly collect and remit HST on the sale of a motor vehicle, CRA may look to the dealer to recover it.
Repair / Tow Truck SCAM
When we discuss what we can write about for the next issue of Front Line, scams are fertile ground, because they come in endless varieties, are often fascinating in their silly complexity and they never, ever, go away.
Why is that? Sadly, because they work for the scammer. They work at least often enough to make it worthwhile for themselves, anyway.
We last wrote about the old repair / tow truck scam in 2013 and enough of our members have, or are, repair facilities that a recent email received by one of our members bears talking about.
The story goes like this …
A hearing disabled man from Manitoba needs his car fixed. He asks for a quote for a complete brake job and explains he has just moved to Ontario, but the vehicle is still in Manitoba (which is convenient because the dealer can’t run the VIN to see if it is even in this guy’s name). All of this by email, of course, due to his disability.
Anyway, he gets the quote and now things get interesting. You see, he is going in for surgery (for his hearing disability). He needs a huge favour, he has to pay by credit card (read fake or stolen). He plans to pay you $4,000. You are to take the $1,000 from that for your repair quote and send $3,000 by interac e-transfer (or cash, or wire transfer, it doesn’t matter really) to the tow truck company.
If you agree, he will helpfully provide all the contact details and the only real money in this whole fantasy will be what you send the “tow truck company”. You will, of course, never see the vehicle because there isn’t one and you will never, ever, see your money again.
The sad story used by the so-called “customer” can vary, but the idea is the same. He or she are in a tough spot and need a favour from you. Please, before you send thousands of dollars to people you don’t know … just don’t do it. If you’re in any doubt, call the UCDA for advice.
May
May 2019
Ontariocars.ca
The numbers are in for Ontariocars.ca and they show a dramatic improvement over the first four months of this year compared with the same period in 2018. The number of Users, Leads and Pageviews are all way up. Organic traffic has shown a huge improvement; a direct result of the UCDA’s ongoing digital marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns.
If you’re not listing on the site now, you may not know how easy it is. Ontariocars.ca offers syndication from most major listing sites, DMS systems and aggregators.
In addition, the Ontariocars app, available at no charge for both iOS and Android operating systems, allows you to upload vehicles to the site in minutes.
Step By Step
- Download the Ontariocars app to your android or iPhone
- Add a vehicle
- Scan the VIN with your phone
- Add listing price, mileage and other details
- Add photos
- Review and list your vehicle
Click below to see just how easy it is:
https://www.ucda.org/ontariocars.aspx
The mobile and desktop apps are perfect for smaller dealers who may not have enough vehicles or the proper listing package with other sites to syndicate.
Once your vehicles are on Ontariocars.ca, you can manage your inventory and track leads as they come in.
Listing your vehicles on Ontariocars.ca is Free.
There are no curbsiders or private sellers to taint and compete against your listings.
And the site is generating free leads for UCDA members with listed inventory.
Watch for more features coming to the site soon!
Email support@ontariocars.ca for more information and to get started.
Canadian Tire Gas+ Contest
During May, 30 lucky visitors to Ontariocars.ca will win free gas from Canadian Tire. Each day, site visitors will be asked to find Otto, the Ontariocars icon.
Each visitor who finds Otto will be eligible to win $100 in gas from Canadian Tire Gas+.
One winner will be drawn each day until May 30th. All the daily winners will be entered into a random draw at the end of the month for Free Gas for a Year.
Up to $2,500 worth!
Appraisals
Dealers may know that they can appraise used vehicles for value on private transactions. The Ontario Government will accept a dealer’s appraised value to apply provincial sales tax at a licence office when private sellers and buyers are doing a deal.
The required form can be obtained at a Driver and Vehicle Licence Office and can also be found here:
Be aware, that the Government expects your honest opinion. If you artificially report low valuations or otherwise act improperly, the Ministry of Finance may take issue with you.
Recently, we have heard of dealers being asked to conduct appraisals based on photographs. Members should obviously refuse to provide this service without seeing the vehicle. You need to inspect the vehicle as if you were taking it in on trade and provide your best good faith estimate about the wholesale value.
The Form states that anyone who knowingly makes a false or misleading statement is guilty of an offence under the Ontario Retail Sales Tax Act. For the sake of your reputation and the small fee you’re probably receiving for the service (a fine would likely be higher), doing any less than your best is not worth it!
OMVIC Nabs Curbsider Advertising On Kijiji
In a press release in late March, OMVIC described sales made to unsuspecting consumers by one Szymon Kozlowski, “acting as a dealer without reigstration”, otherwise known as a curbsider. OMVIC successfully prosecuted him.
OMVIC said he used Kijiji to advertise vehicles he bought from private citizens during a two-year period from 2016 to 2017.
He also, apparently, tampered with some of the vehicles’ odometers and, in one case, sold a 2008 Toyota with 56,753 kms on the odometer to an innocent consumer. In truth, it had actually traveled well over 300,000 kms.
The court viewed this behaviour seriously, sentencing Kozlowski to 30 days in jail, even though it was his first offence.
Kijiji is not the only site where these miscreants lurk. Curbsiders can be found on most any listing site that allows private ads. You won’t find any on Ontariocars.ca.
This is why we promote our vehicle listing site, as a dealer-only advertising site.
At Ontariocars.ca UCDA members can display their vehicles to consumers without these distractions. Guaranteed!
OMVIC reported that Kozlowski was convicted on four counts of curbsiding (Motor Vehicle Dealers Act) and four counts of committing an unfair business practice (Consumer Protection Act). After his sentencing in Mississauga Provincial Court, he was taken into custody to begin serving a 30-day jail sentence. He was also placed on probation for two years.
You can read the full press release here:
Personal Liens
More often than not, when a customer wants to buy a vehicle, they need financing to pay for it. Sometimes, as part of that financing, the customer wants to borrow more money to pay off household debts or other loan obligations, such as lines of credit or credit card debts.
Some dealers are adding these loans to the price of a vehicle and funding it as any other vehicle sale. For example, a vehicle is being sold for $35,000, but the customer wants to take away $5,000 to pay off debts, so the purchase price of the vehicle is shown as $40,000 on the bill of sale. When the funds arrive from the bank, the customer is given a cheque from the dealer for $5,000.
This has become known as a “personal lien”, probably because it is similar to what happens when a vehicle is taken in trade with a lien on it that needs to be paid out as part of the financing.
But, in reality, that’s not what it is. When you take a trade-in with a lien, part of the loan is advanced to clear the lien and part of the loan is advanced to pay for the vehicle you are selling. It’s not added on top of the sale price of the vehicle you are selling.
The “personal lien” practice increases the sale price beyond what might be considered a fair value for the vehicle, and in the case of a new vehicle, certainly beyond MSRP.
Is it legal?
When we are asked this question we tell dealers it is not legal unless the customer and the bank agree to it. What we mean by this, is you cannot assume the customer and the bank understand what is being done just because they “say” they understand. As the months and years pass by, people have a tendency to “forget” such understandings when it is convenient for them to do so.
If the customer or the lender become disenchanted with the deal they agreed to, then they may start questioning why the vehicle was so grossly in excess of fair market value, why so much HST was paid on the sale and why the vehicle is worth so much less today than what is actually owed (negative equity).
Our advice if you are doing a deal like this (and we don’t recommend you do), is to spell out on the bill of sale exactly what is being done and why, so everyone is clear what is being agreed to and what is being financed by the bank.
Most contract disputes happen because of what is left unsaid in agreements. Try to avoid that fatal error.
Cautious About Leasing
Regular readers of Front Line will know that we have written plenty about leasing in the past. Often our articles are cautionary, not because we don’t like leasing, but because many dealers don’t fully consider the downsides and other pitfalls involved.
Leasing is an amazing way to put metal on the road for people who can’t afford to buy a car outright, or don’t qualify for purchase financing. Some simply don’t want to own a car for years and years. There will always be a place for leasing in our market, because it is very popular with Canadians.
As noted, however, dealers who lease need to think about many things: lessor’s insurance, liens, liability, end of lease safety hassles, and so on. Now, we can add insurance settlements to the list.
A dealer puts a vehicle on the road as an “in-house finance”, at the end of which the customer becomes the “owner”. Sounds like a “sale” right? Well the dealer kept the vehicle in their name “like a lease”, even though the contract is really a lease to own or conditional finance sale agreement.
So what?
Well, in our example, after making two payments the customer writes off the vehicle.
If it’s a sale, the customer would be treated as the owner and receive a settlement from the insurance company that reflects what it would cost the consumer to replace the vehicle. In other words, they would get the retail replacement value. If it’s a lease, that vehicle is owned by the dealer and the settlement will reflect a wholesale replacement value.
In a case recently brought to our attention, the difference meant thousands of dollars; all because the vehicle was in the name of the dealer. It would have been better for our dealer in this instance to put the vehicle in the customer’s name and secure his financing by registering a lien.
Leasing is great, as long as dealers go into that business model with their eyes wide open to both the benefits and the downsides.
A Timely Reminder
We have received enough calls and complaints on the subject of auto loan insurance to put out a reminder about marketing these products.
When we say auto loan insurance, we are referring to a grab bag of insurance-like products such as life, disability, replacement value, GAP and other similar products related to a consumer loan or lease of a motor vehicle. They are all, in one way or another, designed to offer full or partial payment of the balance owing on a vehicle loan in the event of an unforeseen event like loss of a job, accident or a total loss situation.
There is no doubt these products are good profit centres for dealers. Financial institutions like them too, for the extra security they bring to the loan, especially in the case of nearprime or sub-prime consumers.
The push by dealers and the pull by lenders has resulted in the need for this reminder … it is illegal to describe these products as “required” or “mandatory” on any deal. For example, it’s illegal to tell a customer their loan will not be approved unless they agree to also purchase one of these auto loan insurance products.
This practice, known as “tied-selling” is as illegal for the dealer to engage in, as it is for the lender. Avoid it at all costs.
It’s not illegal to explain the very real benefits of these products to consumers, but there is a line between upselling and insisting … make sure you know where that line is and don’t cross it!
Annual General Meeting
The UCDA Annual General Meeting will take place at 4:00 p.m., Thursday June 13, 2019 in the Bennett Room at the Holiday Inn, Toronto International Airport, 970 Dixon Road in Toronto.
When The Energizer Bunny Stops Marching
In February, the UCDA received our first consumer complaint about a hybrid vehicle’s battery reaching the end of its useful life.
The consumer, a 21 year old woman, bought the best used car she could afford, a 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid last summer for $7,550.
By November, she started to experience strange problems with it. The radio wouldn’t work, the windows stopped functioning properly and her power steering was malfunctioning more often than not. Her concerns went from being merely aggravating to alarming pretty quickly, as the vehicle started to look and feel unsafe to her.
The problem? Her Integrated Motor Assist (“IMA”) battery was dying. Right on schedule it seems based on the 10 year life span predicted for IMAs. The real problem, of course, is
these nickel metal hydride batteries don’t come cheap, and that’s never news a used car buyer wants to hear.
The cost to replace an IMA battery is in the thousands, not hundreds, of dollars. The customer could not afford this and wanted out of the vehicle entirely. Not exactly a “green choice” but one she may have to confront.
Since the dealer she bought the hybrid from offered no assistance, she made a complaint to OMVIC and is hoping they will be able to persuade the dealer that sold her the vehicle last summer to help her out. Honda Canada has already been contacted and has not had much to say beyond telling her the unit is out of warranty.
This is not a surprise. We expected an increase in problems like this when hybrids first came on to the scene. The concern is, of course, not restricted to Honda vehicles.
Most manufacturers offer hybrid and electric vehicles and they are now common in the used vehicle marketplace. There will be more instances like this and our industry needs to be prepared.
Does a dealer selling a used hybrid or electric vehicle that is likely reaching the end of useful working battery life, need to anticipate this and either address it by refurbishing it or by warning the buyer in writing of what is likely soon to come? Hybrid and electric trade-ins need to be appraised with this in mind … same when bidding at auction.
We aren’t aware of any case law in Ontario offering guidance as of the writing of this article … but stay tuned … it’s likely to come soon.
Life After Death
Data and Your Vehicle
Have you noticed how much vehicles today know about you? Bluetooth enabled, bristling with tech and computer power, these vehicles know your email addresses, calendar, contacts, where you drive, how often you drive there, how many people you carry, how fast you drive, GPS locators, even video in some cases, and countless other data pieces as well.
We often joke that the car knows more about you than you do. But it stops being funny when you realize these vehicles don’t unlearn any of this after you stop being the owner, or even after the vehicle gets sent to the scrapyard.
Although the CNBC report linked below focuses on Tesla (because it has as much tech as any car on the road today), it can apply to any modern vehicle:
All this data is stored on computers in the vehicle. Anyone who knows anything about computers knows they can be “hacked”. Sometimes hackers do it for kicks, sometimes they are after useable data. The point is, you don’t know what kind of hacker is poking around your once-upon-a-time best friend.
The best advice? It takes a tech to know a tech, maybe we should start asking questions of manufacturers about how to “wipe” this data from the vehicle’s system prior to sale or scrap.
We certainly need to start thinking about this because plenty of other folks with potentially bad intentions sure are.
Certification Course Classes
We have several OMVIC certification classes coming up.
For more information and to register, please contact Michelle, at education@ucda.org or Val, at v.maclean@ucda.org