Regulators don't usually move fast. The BM Motor Cars case in Rahway, New Jersey is a good illustration of that. The dealership operated for nearly a decade while complaints piled up, before New Jersey Acting Attorney General Jennifer Davenport's office secured an $840,000 judgment and finally forced the business to answer for what it had been doing.
511 consumer protection violations. In a two-month sample.
That's not a few bad transactions. That's a business model.
What BM Motor Cars Was Doing
Investigators documented several distinct patterns of fraud, all of them aimed at maximizing what buyers paid while minimizing what buyers knew.
Hidden mandatory fees. The dealership advertised vehicle prices, then added fees at the point of sale that were never disclosed upfront. These weren't optional add-ons customers could decline — they were mandatory charges buried in the paperwork.
Requiring customers to waive inspection rights. New Jersey law gives buyers the right to have a used vehicle inspected before purchase. BM Motor Cars made customers sign away that right as a condition of purchase. You want the car? Sign here saying you won't have it checked.
This is significant. The right to pre-purchase inspection exists precisely because dealers know things about vehicles that buyers don't. Waiving that right — especially under pressure at the point of sale — is exactly how unsafe cars get sold.
Withholding pricing information. The dealership allegedly refused to provide clear pricing information to customers before they were deep into the sales process, a classic high-pressure tactic that makes it psychologically harder to walk away once you've invested time.
Selling unfit "gray market" vehicles. Some of the vehicles on the lot were gray market imports — cars brought into the US from other countries that don't meet domestic safety and emissions standards. These vehicles can't be legally registered in many states, and their safety equipment may not comply with federal requirements.
Selling them to buyers who had no idea what they were buying is not just fraud — it's dangerous.
Why It Took a Decade
Consumer protection enforcement is chronically underfunded. State AG offices handle thousands of complaints annually and typically have far fewer investigators than the volume warrants. Cases build slowly, documentation takes time, and dealers who are paying attention to how complaints are filed can sometimes stay just barely ahead of the threshold for formal action.
In BM Motor Cars' case, the two-month sample that produced 511 violations was almost certainly not the worst two months in the dealership's history. It was just the two months investigators looked at closely.
The lesson for consumers isn't that the AG will eventually help you — it's that you may be waiting years for that to happen, and in the meantime you're the one holding a car you can't register or a loan you didn't fully understand.
What Buyers Should Have Done — And You Can Do Now
The violations the AG documented were almost all things a prepared buyer could have caught or resisted:
- Demand a full price breakdown in writing before signing anything. Every fee, itemized.
- Exercise your inspection right. In New Jersey and most states, you have the right to have a used car inspected by an independent mechanic. If a dealer says you can't, leave.
- Read what you're signing. Any clause that asks you to waive rights — inspection rights, dispute rights, arbitration waivers — is worth understanding before your signature is on it.
- Look up the vehicle's history. Gray market vehicles and salvage titles show up in VIN history reports. Run one.
The $840,000 judgment is a consequence for BM Motor Cars. It doesn't undo what happened to the buyers who trusted them.
Don't sign anything you haven't read: /avoiding-scams/
How to find a mechanic for a pre-purchase inspection: /find-a-mechanic/