On March 13, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent letters out to 97 of the largest Francise Dealer Groups in the nation representing hundreds of dealerships. This is a shot across the bow for many dealerships, and it addressed three main concerns. The first was not disclosing Hidden Fees. The second addressed the practice of advertising Contingent Pricing, and the third involved advertising vehicles that are not available. That first item should be getting the attention of all car dealerships, New and Used.
Online advertising is about the only kind of advertising utilized by car dealerships today. Newspapers have all but disappeared, radio advertising got confusing when we moved from FM to satellite radio. The consumer today can find anything they want online, and it is no different for their next vehicle purchase. For that reason, almost every dealer in the nation has a website. Most dealerships are also advertising on 3rd Party Classified Sites and Social Media platforms. The average car dealership has more than just one website for their dealership, and it is not uncommon to have as many as a dozen other online advertising outlets in play for any one dealership.
Let’s face it, most dealerships are charging a processing fee and that is the main focus of this letter from the FTC. They used the term, “Junk Fees” several times in this letter. It is obvious they don’t like Processing Fees and the main point they were making in this letter is that Federal law requires all car dealerships to disclose all “junk fees” in all advertisements. Some of our clients have read this letter and decided now is the time to move to both including the processing fee in all advertised pricing as well as disclosing the processing fee and amount in separate disclaimers. That is most likely not what your state law requires but they would rather error on the side of caution than become the target of the FTC.
It is extremely easy and affordable for a car dealership to advertise online. There are sites that contain your vehicle listings that you may not even be aware of. To complicate matters you may have salespeople listing your vehicles on Social Media platforms like Facebook and TikTok without your knowledge. Are you sure that ALL your online advertising is compliant with State and Federal law? That may be hard to answer if you are not even sure exactly where you are advertising online. However, the government does not give you a pass just because you were not aware of an infraction. If they find one of your listings advertised without the processing fee disclosure you will face warning letters and possible fines.
It may be next to impossible for you to find all your online advertising. Even if you know where you are advertising today, things change. Tomorrow your listings could be on any number of other sites with or without your knowledge. This all makes it very hard for you to ensure you are advertising in a compliant manner 100% of the time. That is, until now. JTZ Enterprise has introduced a new service that will help you not only verify your advertising is compliant today, but it will also ensure your advertising remains compliant in the future. Enroll in our Dealer Online Advertising Monitoring (DOAM) services today and put to rest the worry you could be the next dealership receiving a nasty letter from the FTC or your state governing body. When you enroll in the DOAM service you instantly get a full review of all your online advertising. We will identify all websites we call, “Dealer Dedicated”. These are sites that only advertise your dealership and no others. We also provide you with a list of all known Social Media pages dedicated to your website. Finally, we can provide a list of all 3rd Party Classified sites that are reported to contain advertisements for your listings and/or your dealership. You will probably be surprised to find out just how many advertising outlets you currently have in play. You may find some of these advertisements are old and should have been taken down long ago. We will help you first by identifying all your advertisements thereby giving you a chance to do a thorough review on your own.
Once the DOAM has a complete snapshot of your online advertising efforts it then goes to work reviewing these advertisements one at a time. That review is where we identify any advertising infractions you may have. Processing Fees are just one regulation we monitor. We also verify Freight disclosures, improper use of the word “Free” (you can give away free hotdogs to everyone who shows up next Saturday but you cannot restrict free hotdogs for those who buy a car next Friday), advertised Sale prices without a Sale End Date, improper use of Trigger Terms, and much more. We have a focus not just on the Federal laws, we also take into account your State’s Regulations. The DOAM utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI) to review all your Dealer Dedicated websites, Social Media Posts, and 3rd Party Classified sites. Once you provide us with a list of your salespeople, we then scour Facebook and TikTok for posts from them that contain your vehicles. If any such posts are found, we then verify these posts are compliant with all State and Federal laws. When we find any Advertising Regulation Violations, we generate a snapshot of each one and report them to you. The goal is to let us find your infractions before the government does.
You can get DOAM protection on a one-time basis or for a continuing period of time. Your choice. We provide you with a portal to review all past findings. We will send you emails and/or text messages immediately upon finding any infractions so that you can act on them before they become a problem. Call today to put the DOAM to work for you and avoid any run-in with the FTC!