One line on a used-car contract charges the buyer a fee to certify the vehicle. The same vehicle had been advertised as certified pre-owned. A second line, further down in the financing agreement, adds a charge for total loss protection that the buyer never asked about. Federal regulators say both of those appeared on customers’ paperwork at one dealership, and the settlement that followed is worth $4 million.
The two charges the complaint describes
The allegations are specific, and each one describes something a buyer could have spotted on a document already in their possession. Both are described in the same passage of the agencies’ announcement.
The Federal Trade Commission and the State of Connecticut, announcing the settlement on August 19, said that “some consumers were told they had to pay to ‘certify’ used cars that the dealership had advertised as already being ‘certified pre-owned.’ Other charges such as total loss protection were frequently inserted into financing agreements without the consumers’ knowledge or consent.”
The first alleged practice is a charge for something the advertisement already claimed the car had. The second is a charge that, according to the complaint, was not discussed at all. They are different failures. One prices a feature twice; the other adds a product to a financed balance where it will also accrue interest across the life of the loan, which is why an add-on inserted into financing costs more than its sticker figure suggests.
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A $4 million order that a judge has not signed yet
The FTC and the State of Connecticut secured a $4 million stipulated final order against Chase Nissan LLC, which does business as Manchester City Nissan, along with its owners and managers. Under its terms, the announcement states, “defendants must pay $4 million to be used for consumer redress and refrain from misrepresentations, including whether vehicles are certified or include a limited manufacturer warranty.”
The word stipulated is doing a great deal of work in that sentence. The announcement attaches its own caution: “NOTE: Stipulated final orders have the force of law when approved and signed by the District Court judge.” The release refers to it as the proposed order, and the case remains pending before the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. The Commission vote to approve it was 2-0.
What follows from that status matters for anyone who bought a car there. There is no claims process, no published per-person amount, and no payout date, and the case does not appear on the commission’s refunds page. Nothing about the announcement asks a former customer to file anything or to pay anyone in order to be included in something.
What the complaint charged, and who settled when
The case did not begin this month. The FTC and Connecticut brought it in January 2024, charging Chase Nissan along with its principals and managers with violating the FTC Act and the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act. Those two statutes are the charged laws in the matter.
The resolution has come in stages rather than all at once. Two of the individual defendants settled separately in September 2025, and the order announced in August 2026 covers the remainder of the defendants. The August announcement names no individuals. The full procedural record sits on the commission’s case page for the matter.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong characterized the conduct in the announcement without hedging: “Manchester City Nissan systematically ripped-off Connecticut customers through needless, unauthorized junk fees.” The allegations remain allegations. The defendants have agreed to the order’s terms, which is not the same as a finding, and the order takes effect only on the judge’s signature.
The forward-looking terms in the proposed order
Alongside the money, the order carries conduct requirements that describe what honest pricing is supposed to look like at a dealership. Defendants must “clearly and conspicuously disclose as the most prominently displayed item the maximum total price a consumer must pay for a vehicle, excluding only required government charges,” and must “secure express, informed consent from consumers for all charges.”
Read together, those two provisions target the exact sequence the complaint describes. A single most-prominent total price makes it hard to advertise one figure and settle at another once fees are appended, and the consent requirement means a charge cannot simply appear inside a financing agreement and count as agreed to because the customer signed the stack.
How a buyer anywhere can check their own paperwork
The dealership is in Connecticut. The two practices are not. Both alleged charges are the kind that appear on documents a household already keeps in a folder, and neither requires any special knowledge to find.
The first check is the advertisement against the contract. If a vehicle was marketed as certified pre-owned, a separate line item charging to certify that same vehicle is a fee for something the listing already claimed. The second check is the financing agreement rather than the purchase order, since that is where the complaint says total loss protection and similar add-ons were inserted. A buyer scanning for add-ons they do not remember agreeing to should read the itemized financed amount line by line, because an add-on that raises the amount financed also raises the interest paid on it.
Nothing in the current record entitles a customer of that dealership, or anywhere else, to file for money in this case. What the record does support is a document review that costs an evening, and a report to the FTC’s fraud reporting site if the paperwork shows the pattern the agencies describe. The $4 million figure, as the announcement states, is designated for consumer redress and takes effect when the District Court judge approves and signs the order.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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