Ninety-seven auto dealership groups nationwide received formal warning letters from the Federal Trade Commission on March 13, 2026, each one citing the same six deceptive pricing tactics found across their online advertising, according to the FTC’s own announcement. The agency did not open 97 separate investigations to arrive at this list — it built the six-tactic framework from pending enforcement cases against three dealership groups already in litigation: Lindsay Chevrolet, Leader Automotive Group, and Asbury Automotive Group. Then it sent that same checklist to everyone else showing the same patterns in their ads.

FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Christopher Mufarrige stated the agency’s position without hedging: “The Trump-Vance FTC is committed to preventing auto dealers from misleading consumers with low advertised prices and then adding on mandatory fees at the end of the purchasing process.” That is the mechanism in one sentence — a price gets you to click or walk in the door, and a different, higher price is what actually gets charged.

The Six Tactics, By Name

The FTC’s letter identified a specific set of practices dealers were using to advertise vehicle prices that did not reflect what a buyer would actually pay:

• Advertising prices that omit mandatory fees the buyer will be charged regardless of negotiation.
• Advertising rebates or discounts that are not actually available to all consumers who see the ad, despite being presented as a general price.
• Advertising prices that ignore a required down payment amount, making a financed price look like a cash price.
• Conditioning an advertised price on the buyer using the dealer’s own financing, without disclosing that the price is not available to cash buyers or those financing elsewhere.
• Requiring the purchase of undisclosed additional items — add-ons the buyer did not know were mandatory until they were already at the finance desk.
• Advertising specific vehicles that are not actually available, unavailable trims, or vehicles that do not exist at the dealership at the advertised price.

Why A Warning Letter Instead Of A Lawsuit

A warning letter is not a fine and it is not an admission of guilt — it is the FTC putting a dealership group on notice that its advertising has already been flagged as matching a pattern the agency is actively litigating elsewhere. The FTC’s release makes clear that dealers named have been asked to review their advertising and pricing practices, verify that advertised prices include all mandatory fees, and confirm that the price a consumer sees online matches what they are actually charged at signing, with ongoing marketplace monitoring and the explicit threat of enforcement action if the practices continue.

For a dealership group, the letter functions as a documented first strike — the kind of paper trail that turns a future violation from a first offense into a repeat one, which carries materially different legal exposure. For consumers, its real value is that the FTC just published a specific, six-item checklist of exactly the tricks regulators are actively watching for in dealer advertising nationwide.

How To Use This Checklist Before You Set Foot On A Lot

• Screenshot the advertised price before you visit, and ask the salesperson directly whether that number includes every mandatory fee — documentation fee, dealer prep, add-ons — or whether any of those are added on top.
• If the advertised price requires financing through the dealer to qualify, ask what the price is for a cash purchase or outside financing before you commit to anything.
• If a rebate or discount is advertised, ask what specific eligibility requirements apply — military, recent grad, loyalty, trade-in — rather than assuming the number applies to you by default.
• Confirm the specific VIN of the advertised vehicle is physically on the lot before you drive out, particularly for unusually low prices on popular trims.
• If any item is presented as mandatory that was not disclosed in the original advertisement, that is one of the six flagged tactics in action, and it is grounds to walk away or demand it be removed.

Ninety-seven dealership groups receiving the identical letter on the identical day is not evidence of 97 identical scams run independently — it is evidence that a handful of pricing tricks have become close to standard practice across a meaningful slice of the industry, common enough that federal regulators built a checklist instead of pursuing case-by-case litigation. The list itself is now public. Reading it before your next test drive costs nothing and works the same whether or not your dealership happened to get a letter.