Va. Motor Vehicle Dealer Board imposes fines on Craigslist ads
The Virginia Motor Vehicle Dealer Board in its meeting on July 14, 2014 considered three advertising cases related to listings on Craigslist.
State law requires that a Virginia dealership identify itself in ads with the dealership name or the abbreviation VA DLR. Some dealers have been trying to circumvent the per-listing fee for dealers, recently instituted by Craigslist, by listing vehicles for sale without identifying themsleves as dealers or using the required abbreviations. The MVDB imposed civil penalties of $250, $500 and $4,000 in the three cases before it. MVDB staff also said it has become more vigilant to dealer ads that look like vehicle listings by individual owners.
MVDB also hosted a meeting of interested parties to discuss forming an Internet task force. The group concluded that it might be more effective to create a subcommittee of the Dealer Licensing Committee to study more effective tools to combat the increasing problems of Internet brokering, sales by unlicensed businesses and improper bird dog fees. The proposal will be discussed at a later meeting of the Board.
The next meeting of the MVDB will be September 8.
Thanks to Michael Charapp of Charapp and Weiss LLP for providing this information.
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