It should come to surprise that the Washington, DC region is one of the nation’s hotspots for fraud in automotive dealerships. For several years WANADA has been taking an active role in combatting fraud and theft by coordinating with local law enforcement, improving communications between law enforcement and dealerships, and highlighting the issue with lawmakers and members of the media. Those efforts have been paying off, as the current fraud alert tool has directly led to the recovery of many vehicles in addition to blunting the efforts of fraudsters in our region. Now the media is keying in on the scale of the problem, as evidenced by this piece aired by WJLA on Monday, September 11, 2023. Personnel at EuroMotorCars Bethesda, including general manager Jim Willard, described the challenges associated with running a dealership amid an epidemic of crime, and WANADA CEO John O’Donnell articulated what would be a major step in stemming fraud, which is to have these offenses classified as criminal rather than civil matters. Disturbingly, reporter Mitch Blacher closes the piece by noting that “the most common place [the finance industry] finds fake paystubs is right here in Washington, DC.”
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