“DMV has a responsibility to help prevent consumers from being taken for a ride by unscrupulous repair shops,” said DiNapoli. “This means doing more to ensure that New York’s repair shops are legitimately registered and working harder to investigate and resolve consumer complaints in a timely manner.”
Valid registration of repair shops and inspection stations provides customers with the reasonable assurance that the business owners do not have a history of either criminal activity or operating an auto business engaged in deceptive or fraudulent practices. But the audit revealed DMV has established little in the way of controls to restrict unregistered repair shops from operating.
Records also show that although DMV is generally addressing consumer complaints against automotive facilities in a timely manner, it took DMV over a year to schedule required hearings for more than half of the complaints against repair shops that committed fraud, grossly overcharged or had practiced dishonest or misleading advertising.
DiNapoli’s auditors reviewed 1,127 complaints alleging fraud or other severe violations and discovered 583 did not receive a hearing within 12 months from the date the complaint was made. In fact, auditors determined that 489 of these cases took more than 17 months from the time the complaint was filed until a hearing and decision occurred.
As a result of the audit, DiNapoli recommended DMV officials:
- Take steps to improve the identification of potentially unregistered facilities and determine whether they continue to operate; and
- Develop a structured process for periodic coordination with DEC to compare its listing of dismantlers with dismantlers registered with the department to identify facilities that may be unregistered, improperly registered, or not reporting as required; and
- Examine the underlying causes of the delays and explore options for improving the ability to promptly address and resolve consumer complaint cases.
DMV officials disagreed with some of the audit findings. Their response is included in the final report, which can be found at: osc.state.ny.us/audits/
For access to state and local government spending, public authority financial data and information on 130,000 state contracts, visit Open Book New York. The easy-to-use website was created by DiNapoli to promote transparency in government and provide taxpayers with better access to financial data.
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