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2012 IADA OFFICERS
Chairman
Jim Lombardi
Lombardi Chev Buick
Wilmington
Vice Chairman
Gary Knight
Carmack Car Capitol
Danville
Treasurer
Mike Mangold
Mangold Ford
Eureka
Secretary
Dave Taylor
Taylor Chrysler Dodge, Inc.
Bourbonnais
President
Peter Sander
IADA
Springfield
IADA Staff Contacts:
Ph# 1-800-252-8944
Pete Sander
President
Ext. 103
psander@illinoisdealers.com
Larry Doll
Legal
Ext. 105
ldoll@illinoisdealers.com
Mark Harting
Administrative Services
Ext. 110
mharting@illinoisdealers.com
Mike Healey
Member Services
Ext. 107
mhealey@illinoisdealers.com
Joe McMahon
Legislative
Ext. 113
jmcmahon@illinoisdealers.com
Meghan Sander
Member Communications
Ext. 109
msander@illinoisdealers.com
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Your
IADA
Partner
Moving Vehicle Registration Into The Future
(click logo for more details)
Upcoming Webinars
September 27th
John Fisher & Marc Newman
Affordable Health Care Act Implementation for Car Dealers - What you should be doing right NOW! (12 PM CST)
October 4th
Mark Payne
What Dealers, GMs and Controllers Need to Know About the Parts Dept! And why Parts Mgrs need to keep them informed! (12 PM CST)
September 26th
Brian Pasch
Dealer Budgets Exposed: How to Create and Effective Marketing Budget (11 AM CST)
October 17th
JD Rucker
How to Simplify Analytics to See the Numbers that Make a Difference (11 AM CST)
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September 21, 2012 Vol 2012, Issue 13
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ILLINOIS DEALERS TAKE PART IN NADA WASHINGTON CONFERENCE
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 NADA hosted its annual Legislative Conference with close to 400 dealers from across the country attending to be updated on legislation and various regulations along with meeting with their Members of Congress.
Illinois Dealers attending the NADA Washington Conference included IADA Vice Chairman Gary Knight, Carmack Car Capitol, Danville; NADA Director Jamie Auffenberg Jr., St. Clair Auto Mall, O’Fallon; ATD Next Gen Steering Committee Chair Katie Hopkins, Truck Centers, Inc., Troy; IADA President Pete Sander and IADA Legislative Affairs Director Joe McMahon. Attending from CATA were NADA Directors Desmond Roberts, Advantage Chevrolet, Bolingbrook; Mark Scarpelli, Raymond Chevrolet, Antioch, along with CATA President Dave Sloan.
IADA and our CATA counterparts hosted a Reception of the Illinois Republican Delegation and it was attended by Representatives: Judy Biggert (Hinsdale), Robert Dold (Winnetka), Randy Hultgren (Wheaton), Adam Kinzinger (Manteno), Peter Roskam (Wheaton), Aaron Schock (Peoria), John Shimkus (Collinsville) and Joe Walsh (North Barrington). Meetings were also held with Democratic Representatives Dan Lipinski (Western Springs) and Mike Quigley (Chicago). Also in attendance was 12th Congressional Candidate Jason Plummer from (O’Fallon).
Dealers met with their members of Congress to discuss issues affecting their businesses, such as extending the current estate tax rates, preserving the LIFO accounting method, and concerns with proposals that auto dealers will be required to grant transferable tax credits for alternative fueled vehicles.
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MIKE MANGOLD IADA DEALER NOMINEE FOR 2013 TMQD AWARD
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 IADA is pleased to announce that Mike Mangold, Mike Mangold Ford, Eureka, is IADA’s Dealer of the Year Nominee for the prestigious Time Magazine Quality Dealer of the Year Award, which will be presented at the NADA Convention to be held in Orlando next February.
Mr. Mangold will be honored for his business success, for his leadership and involvement with the local and state associations and for his civic and community activities.
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GOOGLE YOUR DEALERSHIP
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Recently it has been brought to our attention that Google has changed its processes around its business rating systems. There have been some recent news articles regarding this situation and dealers should take the time to determine if these changes have impacted positive reputation referrals on their dealerships. NADA’s Legal Department has also communicated with Google regarding concerns in this area.
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OHIO DOCUMENTARY FEE UPHELD
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An Ohio state appellate court recently dismissed a class action lawsuit brought by vehicle customers against an Ohio automobile dealer and the Ohio Automobile Dealers Association challenging Ohio’s documentary fee. The lawsuit alleged that the dealer’s imposition of the documentary fee, which is specifically authorized by Ohio law, violated Ohio’s consumer protection, deceptive trade practices, and antitrust laws. The lawsuit also alleged that the dealer and the Ohio Automobile Dealers conspired to fraudulently misrepresent the doc fee to customers. Although this decision is not binding in Illinois, it could provide persuasive authority if Illinois’ documentary fee faces a similar legal challenge in the future. The court’s opinion can be found at: http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/docs/pdf/8/2012/2012-ohio-3685.pdf.
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LEGAL REMINDER
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LENDER CHARGE OFFS ON AGED ACCOUNTS
Last year, IADA heard from several dealers who had sold retail installment contracts to a local bank over several years and who received letters from that bank asking the dealers to repay unearned finance charges on aged accounts. A computer glitch caused the bank to miss charging back dealers on accounts where customer installment contracts were paid off early. A similar situation has recently arisen with at least one captive finance company that failed to timely charge back dealers on contracts that were paid off early and is now trying to collect from dealers. If your captive finance company or your bank makes a tardy attempt to collect unearned finance charges on an early payoff, there are several steps you should consider:
1. Each contract with a lender is a little different. The first step is to review your contract to determine whether it limits the amount of time the lender has to charge back your account. The terms of the contract may prevent the lender from charging back your account.
2. You should request documentation from the lender before discussing payment of any potential unearned finance charge. The lender’s spreadsheet is not proof that your account should be charged off. You can tell the lender that you dispute the charge off and that you want the lender to hand check its records and provide your dealership with the source documents (copies of: the retail installment contract, the initial reserve commission calculation, the customer’s payment history, and documentation that the vehicle was repossessed or that the loan was paid off early by the customer) pertaining to each charged off account. Most dealers are likely to have purged any records pertaining to claims that are more than 3 years old. The burden to provide documentation should be on the lender.
3. The lender will have to do more than merely document that it should have charged off your account at some point in the past before it can collect from your dealership. There is a 10-year statute of limitations under Section 13-206 of the Code of Civil Procedure for actions on written contracts. Any attempt to recover on an account that was charged off more than 10 years ago is likely barred by this statute.
4. Arguably, once the term of the loan has ended, your dealership’s responsibility to repay any unearned finance charge ends as well. If you have relied on notification of charge offs or timely payoffs on other accounts, your reliance on those notifications could make it more difficult for the lender to collect on accounts where the bank failed to provide timely charge off notification.
5. Furthermore, IADA recommends that you review your most recent statement to make sure that the lender has not already debited your reserve account to collect aged chargeback amounts. It is unclear whether the lender has the authority to take such action without notice to your dealership. You may want to review older statements for errors to make sure the lender has not mistakenly charged other accounts with your dealership.
If you have any questions about this article, please feel free to contact IADA at (217) 753-0220.
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