Irvine Mitsubishi Fined, Placed on Probation for Anti-Theft Kit Sales
The Irvine Mitsubishi car dealership has been fined $45,000 and placed on two years’ probation for charging car buyers $89 for an anti-theft device which salesmen told customers was required by the state, the Department of Motor Vehicles said Monday.
Complaints by the DMV and the Orange County district attorney’s office against the dealership, one of several owned by Los Gatos-based Country Association Inc., were settled last month when the dealership agreed to the probation and paid $20,000 in penalty fees to the DMV and $25,000 in penalties to the county. An additional $2,500 was paid to the DMV for investigative costs, senior investigator Randy King said.
A 55-page report completed by the DMV last May reveals that during a three-month period in 1985, salesmen at Irvine Mitsubishi added the $89 charge to contracts after telling customers that state law required purchase of the anti-theft kit, which uses a chemical and stencil to etch a vehicle identification number into the windows of a car.
“Most of the purchasers didn’t even know they had bought them,” said King, who estimated that the dealership sold as many as 210 of the anti-theft kits between August and October, 1985.
Many of the customers then were mailed materials with instructions on doing the etching themselves, King said.
Representatives of Irvine Mitsubishi declined to comment on the complaints. “We have no comment. We’ve taken care of it, and we have nothing to say,” said Bill Ellerman, the dealership’s general manager.
Of the $89 charged for the kit, $35 went to the Marina del Rey company manufacturing it, and $2.50 went to the dealer’s finance managers. The remaining $51.50 was kept by Irvine Mitsubishi, King said.
The settlement also stipulates that the dealership, along with Country Association’s other concerns in the auto park, Irvine Nissan and Irvine Toyota, issue a letter to customers who purchased cars at the dealership during the three-month period, saying that salesmen may have been misleading about the anti-theft device and that the car buyers are entitled to their money back. King said DMV officials believe that the other two dealerships also were selling the $89 devices but were not named in the complaint because of the agreement to mail notices to their customers.
He said he began the investigation after James Livesey, a San Clemente resident whose wife works for the DMV there, noticed the extra charge while negotiating the price of a car with Irvine Mitsubishi and reported it to the DMV.
