Texas suing online used car dealer for deceptive trade practices

Texas suing online used car dealer
Texas suing online used car dealer Photo credit clean_fotos/GettyImages

The Texas Attorney General's Office has filed a deceptive trade practices lawsuit against Vroom Automotive LLC. The company does business under the name "Texas Direct Auto" and sells used cars to customers online.

The lawsuit claims the company has repeatedly told customers the cars they were buying were in good condition when they actually had hidden damage.

In one case, the lawsuit claims in one case, a customer had to take a vehicle to a repair shop just a few hours after purchasing it - and an inspection found that it had a radiator leak and needed new filters and spark plugs.

The Texas Attorney General also claims that the company has not consistently transferred the title and registration of vehicles it sold in a timely fashion. Texas car dealerships are required to process the title and registration for customers within 30 days of purchase, or 45 days if the vehicle is being financed.

The lawsuit claims that hundreds of consumers have complained that the company failed to properly register the change in ownership, leaving them with expired temporary tags and with no evidence of ownership.

The Texas Attorney General's Office links those problems to the company's rapid growth starting in 2020, as more transactions shifted online because of COVID-19 and demand for used cars increased because of problems that manufacturers faced with the supply of computer chips for new vehicles.

The company has been the target of 5,000 complaints with the Better Business Bureau and Office of the Attorney General of Texas in the past three years, with 4,000 of those in the past 12 months.

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Featured Image Photo Credit: clean_fotos/GettyImages